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Kol Korran
2016-04-03, 12:32 AM
A few months ago, in an unrelated discussion on this forum, a poster (Who's name I unfortunately don't' remember) Mentioned "The 8 Aesthetics of play". He linked to a few links- The original article, the Angry DM's explanation of it (Excellent), and the shorter and mroe concise video by Extra Credits, which explains this.


"Gaming for fun"- The Angry DM's explanation. Part 1. (http://angrydm.com/2014/01/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/)

And Part 2. (http://angrydm.com/2014/02/gaming-for-fun-part-2-getting-engaged/)

Extra Credits Video about The 8 Aesthetics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uepAJ-rqJKA)

The original article (http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf)


I read these, learned more about these, and it go me thinking... And so I examined my own group, the gamers preferences, and the sort of game we played. And as I read threads, and talked with others, I came to see, think, and analyze some approaches, some conceptions, some gaming issues, play styles, play preferences, and conflicts within groups as originating from the different game aesthetics.

Understanding these better, I was able to analyze and finally understand the core of the conflict between two players in my group (A major issue which has been going on for YEARS) and to find a way to approach it, and perhaps diffuse it. It helped me understand better the way I DM, what my players respond to more, what they respond to less, and it gave me an interesting new way to look upon gaming.

Two of my players seem to butt head a lot during game. It started when one of them joined the game, and played the role of a sort of a bastard, though he never actually betrayed the group, and he was loyal, he did try to evoke responses, and some inner party conflict. The 2nd player was deeply irritated by this, and though they joked at first, as time went by, he grew more and more irritated at the first player, more and more antagonizing, referring to him as "traitor", and worse.

We tried many different approaches, from open talks within the group, some other player buffering, and even asking for the two to somewhat change their game style or approach, but it was difficult to pinpoint the problem, even the players couldn't quite understand. The first player thought that the second one was picking on him, for no good reason, and keep demonizing him, while the second one honestly believed the first one was undermining the group, and hurting the fun.

Yet upon reading the articles, I came to try and analyze my group's main aesthetics. First, it became clear to me that Fantasy and Challenge were the two major shared aesthetics of our group. But I also realized the core aesthetics of the two players:
Player 1: Expression, Challenge, Narrative. Approximately in that order, Expression definitely the most dominant.
Player 2: Fellowship, Challenge, Fantasy. Fellowship was quite dominant here.

Now, the first player's attempts at Expression, whether it was the heavy background, the drama, the ever developing character with twists (he usually included a sort of a "dark phase", from which the character later grew), and his attempts to interact, and also "Poke/ provoke" other characters for their expressions and interactions, have marred and infringed on the second player's sense of Fellowship. The second player felt that the feeling of camaraderie, of "everyone on the same page, working for the same goal", was being constantly tested. The first player used to discuss with me (The DM) a lot between sessions about his character's development, and we at times came up with certain scenes/ elements. The 1st player wished to have it be revealed in the sessions, for dramatic effect, yet the 2nd player saw this as keeping secrets from the team.

Yet all of this we understood only after reading the article. Yeah, I knew the first player was big on Drama (perhaps a bit too much), but I didn't quite understand what bothered the second player so much. But once we realized this, we could come up with a way to approach this, and make the two players understand each other better. Simply because they seek different things from the game, and that their sensibilities are different...



And I think it made my game a lot better...

There are various issues that keep cropping out, which can also stem (To a point) from the aesthetics. Some examples:
- Railroading vs. Sandbox: Some players, some DMs prefer various approaches here, which can stem from the Challenge, Exploration, Expression and Narrativistic aesthetics, each pulling at different directions.
- Rollplay Vs. Roleplay: Optimization, using background, and more- The aesthtics of Fantasy, Expression, Challenge, and Narrative may influence these.
- Should death be meaningful? Or should it always be risky? Challenge and Fantasy vs Narrative and expression.
- Heavy Crunch systems vs Rules light systems- Game design that uses different aesthtics, and draws different players.


---------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: Psyren made an important remark below, about the need to try and focus the thread about more concrete questions and topics. So... I suggest the following questions, as starter points. Feel free to expand o nthem, or add more issues that you think are important:

1. Aesthetics as a player:
What sort of Aesthetics did you find you were attracted to? How did you find it out? What helped to enhance those aesthetics? What diminished them?
I for one, found out that my main aesthetics are:
- Expression: I mostly GM, but when I play, I find myself spending a lot of time and effort into finding a way to think and play as the character, with a lot of thought given to mannerisms, ways of speech, small important possessions, interactions, and more. And character development is very important to me. I like to make an effect on the world, though I prefer those to be subtle, small, but long lasting.
- Fantasy: I remember a very odd occurance- When one of my friends GMed, we were conducting an investigation in a small village (My "It began with a crash!" campaign log), and at one point we wanted to meet with the village's main hunter. And when we came to his hut, the GM said "He isn't there, probably out hunting. Got a job you know!" and to my surprise, I got a HUGE rush of excitement hearing this! For the world felt alive, and not just constrained to the story. Things moved outside of our story, the world went on, and it gave me a great feeling of satisfaction. Since then I felt that "feeling the world was alive" regardless of us, was quite important to my sense of "fun".
- Exploration: I love finding out new things! Give me an unexplored map and I go ecstatic! I love pouring over maps, and imagining the things unknown, or solving a mystery. In the last Shadowrun game, were conducting another investigation, with lots of clues, dead ends, and more, and I just LOVE it! Give me a mystery, a puzzle, and something which I can figure out, and I'm satisfied!:smallbiggrin:

What about you?


2. Aesthetics as GM/ DM/ Story teller or such:
What sort of elements draw you in designing your game, for yourself, and for your players? What enhances it? What hinders it?
To my surprise, I think I quite adjust my own core aesthetics as a player to more fit my players' aesthetics, than mine. At some points i tried to veer more towards my own preferences (Most time unconsciously, not having the words or terms for the 8 aesthetics). Still, the core Aesthetics my GMin style seems to include:
- Challenge: The core aesthetic of my group. My players roll all of the dice, I don't fudge or soften challenges, and I invest a great deal of time in preparing stuff that will feel hard, yet possible, with various types of outcomes, and a measurable way to gauge success. I greatly believe in "lettign the dice fall where they may", which sits great with my group. My challenges tend to be complex, be they battles, investigations and mystery, or more. One of my GMing mottoes is "Everything is possible, but not necessarily easy".
- Expression: I try to work a lot with players to help them express their characters, and consciously try to create situations, opportunities and more that the players can interact with, express their characters and develop them.
It took me awhile to realize that one of my players really isn't much interested in that (Mostly comes for Challenge, Submission and Fellowship), and for another it's important, but far less than my own tastes. I tried to adjust accordingly.
- Fantasy: I like to make the world feel real, with believable responses, cultures, and such. People have personalities, motives, history, flaws and more. Things have their... place... in the world. It does conflict with Expression at times, but my players are good enough to try and make it work within the boundaries of Fantasy, and make it work so.
- Sensory: A fairly new emerging Aesthetics for me, only in the past few years. I am making more and more use of music, and of late also pictures- of locations, of people, and more. It adds quite nicely to the game (Most times, it took a while to learn what works and what doesn't), and... it helps me GM lot! Often music or images inspire me, and take me to different places...

What about you?


3. Aesthetics in game systems:
Which systems appeal to your aesthetics, and why? Which really don't, and why? Which systems offer good mechanics for specific aesthetics? What sort of mechanisms?

I for one love FATE core's "Aspects", as they greatly facilitate Expression, Narrative, and Fantasy, in simple, central and powerful way. An Aspect says something important about the character, location, item, and more. And as it can be used to both bolster success or as a major hindrance, these aspects form a major part of the game mechanics, and thus put these mechanics to the forefront of the game.

The simplistic rules (Deceptively simplistic I might say. They are immensely simple "stat wise", but quite subtle and deep in their meanings and potential), allow for extremely fast flowing improvisation, and thus enable the story to take a lot of turns, changes, surprises and flow very organically, which also enforces Expression and to a lesser degree- Narrative and Fantasy.

4. Are they just "8" aesthetics?
The 8 core Aesthetics have been revised, expanded and re evaluated over time. Do you think there are other Aesthetics? Or subdivisions of them?

For example- In the Extra Credits video, they mention "Competition" as another Aesthetic, which may be a subset of Challenge, or may be its own aesthetic? What games in the RPG tabletop fit this aesthetic? Various "Arena battle" games seem to fit, as do Paranoia (To an extent), or even Munchkin (Though a bit far from actual TTRPGs). What sort of other aesthetics do you think are out there?

5. The 8 aesthetics as a tool to understand group dynamics and problems.
We all have different styles, and these often may come into conflict. Have you used the aesthetics to understand your group's problems better? How? What did you do then?

I have allredy discussed how it helped my group in my opening post. What about your experiences?

----------------------------------------------------

These are but a few examples...
I am in the process of thinking up/ designing a new campaign (I twill take a long time...) While now playing in a game, and seeing how the different aesthetics come to play. (A Shadowrun game, which I'll post a log of at a later date). For me it has been quite an eye opener..

So, I think it might be worthwhile to discuss the Aesthetics, and their place in our games. So what are your experiences? Thoughts? Ideas? i invite you all for an open discussion...

JanusJones
2016-04-04, 08:22 AM
Woof! What a GREAT thread! THANKS!

I'm interested in this stuff from a design perspective. There can be personal differences in aesthetic goals at a table, but I tend to approach that as a problem with Dynamics and Mechanics. Discussing this stuff with players at a table where you're having issues nailing down Aesthetic goals is a brilliant move, but the emergent issue may have to do with the basic game's M/D design.

Take a classic game of 3.5; many of the problems we all experience at the table making the thing work can be diagnosed as arising from unclear Aesthetic goals. How is it that two players, such as yours, can have such a different understanding of the game's goals? The design of the Mechanics and Dynamics are, perhaps, either too flexible or simply not structured well enough to give clear Aesthetic direction.

Take your "personal expression first" guy; the system does suggest that character evolution is, from a fluff perspective, anyway, a goal of the game. It doesn't give any systemic representation of this, however; you can write whatever personal story you wish for your character, but there's no mechanical or dynamic representation of personal narrative arc/evolution (you don't get bonuses based on playing to pre-defined "motivations," nor are there "twists" or "dark flaws" that the DM can use to create narrative challenges, etc.). Level is all about Challenge, not Expression; ultimately, personal story is an emergent outcome of gameplay, but not represented in the Mechanics in any meaningful way.

Your player therefore logically felt he could move his story forward the way HE saw it - that it was his prerogative to build a dynamic more or less of his own making, working with you as DM. Since there was no Mechanic governing this Dynamic, it was more or less crafted as a private understanding between the two of you - like a mini-game.

But it infringed on the Dynamics of the group, and at least one other player's strong sense of another important Aesthetic goal - this one, WELL defined by the game's Mechanics: Fellowship. d20 is based around a small squad of characters attacking challenges together and benefitting, in a very concrete, defined way (experience, gold, loot) from that collaboration.

Both players were, of course, "right," by which I mean each was pursuing an Aesthetic that was, at least nominally, promoted by the system. The issue was that the system wasn't Mechanically or Dynamically well designed to support both Aesthetics, even though it explicitly AND implicitly encouraged both.

When a game is designed well, it tends to give players a clear understanding of the emergent Aesthetic through it's Mechanics (and the dependent Dynamics that are clear from a solid basic structure).

I've been designing and playtesting to death a card-based party rpg (http://mmlow1979.wix.com/genrecardgame#!what-it-is/j2ti6) (Aesthetics = Narrative, Expression, Fellowship, Fantasy), and while I've gotten tons of constructive feedback on how to build, modify, and tweak and LOTS of very encouraging, positive comments, I've also had the experience of people quickly stating "erm ... this isn't my sort of game" and bailing. Not many, to be fair, but a couple!

It was originally pretty upsetting! I had to think it through, since it wasn't constructive feedback; how could I re-tool the game for someone whose only comment was "this isn't my thing?"

The answer, of course, was that I couldn't; what's more, I realized, I SHOULDN'T! The game is quick to play and the overview of rules takes about 5 minutes; the Mechanics and Dynamics are clear enough, however, that the Aesthetic goals are impossible to miss. People who didn't like Expression or Narrative in games weren't my audience; if I re-worked the system to suit them, I'd lose what made the game appealing to other players in the first place!

Instead, I focused on resolving issues with Mechanics and emergent Dynamics that encumbered play or made the achievement of the game's Aesthetics more difficult. In the end, just knowing and acknowledging the Aesthetic goals of a system give a LOT of direction to designers in creating games that target a specific audience.

It's the reason the word "fun" is so useless when discussing games; as all gamers know, different people have fun doing different things! My reasons for building my game had to do with my own frustrations with classic tabletop rpgs, (http://mmlow1979.wix.com/genrecardgame#!Winning-is-for-Losers/v7862/56c276240cf2100f6473fa86) that often had emergent Dynamics that COULD lead to Aesthetic goals I loved (Narrative, Expression, Fellowship), but which had Mechanics that promoted ones I was less fond of, and that often existed in OPPOSITION to my faves (Challenge and Submission - winning/losing and "game for the sake of the game").

Phew. Anyhoo, very interested to chat about this, and thanks for bringing it up! Cheers!

ATHATH
2016-04-04, 02:46 PM
Replace the "affect" with "effect" in the title.

Psyren
2016-04-04, 05:23 PM
I'm a big fan of the principles in this paper (and EC in general) but I don't really have much to add to such a general topic. We could throw out examples of the aesthetics being used in gaming (tabletop and video alike) all day long, but in the end OP, a more specific question or challenge might focus the discussion better. e.g. "What do you think are the primary aesthetics of game X," "which tabletop games do you think break the model and why," "what aesthetics do you think are common to most tabletop RPGs (or even just board games in general)" etc.

Knaight
2016-04-04, 05:49 PM
It's a more useful model than the generic "fun" one, but looking at the original article reveals that it's an extremely primitive model, made primarily for video games. This is about what's to be expected - there's not any real quantitative data to allow for a high level of sophistication, and video games are absolutely a valid field of study. It does make the applicability to tabletop roleplaying games more questionable though, and that shows.

For instance, tRPGs often shift much more design side decisions to the players, and that matters. You have far more detailed character creation, you have a big chunk of the GM role, you have games like Microscope, none of which are viable for video games. So, you get an additional aesthetic centered around the creation of an artistic work (albeit one without much artistic merit compared to good actual artistic works). That can kind of be jammed into expression, but it doesn't work very well. That can kind of be jammed into narrative, but that doesn't work very well either. So we have a step in the right direction, and it's useful - much the way GNS theory was useful, or prior work on aesthetics within the RPG sphere was useful, or even how WotC's MtG player archetypes were useful. It also has the exact same trap as all of those, where they are treated as some sort of definitive end point instead of a deeply flawed model that is nonetheless better than having nothing,

Aevylmar
2016-04-08, 12:27 AM
Given the extent to which working with new tools in creating is cumbersome and uncomfortable, and the extent to which a GM is expected to be on the spot, it seems to me not all that useful for designing adventures or campaigns.

For *diagnosing* adventures or campaigns, though, it looks fantastic. It provides a language with which to say, clearly and unambiguously, "the problem here is that X conflicts with Y, how do we tweak them until they don't?" How does Player A get his Expression without conflicting with Player B's Fellowship? If we don't have words for Expression or Fellowship, or they're very broad words like the ones provided by GNS theory, we'll have trouble solving the problem. This provides a new tool to use for that.

Kol Korran
2016-04-08, 03:13 AM
Hey all, thanks for the replies. I tend to have less time these days to write on the forums, but I will when I can. It's open discussion for all of course... :smallsmile:


Woof! What a GREAT thread! THANKS!

I'm interested in this stuff from a design perspective. There can be personal differences in aesthetic goals at a table, but I tend to approach that as a problem with Dynamics and Mechanics. Discussing this stuff with players at a table where you're having issues nailing down Aesthetic goals is a brilliant move, but the emergent issue may have to do with the basic game's M/D design.

....

When a game is designed well, it tends to give players a clear understanding of the emergent Aesthetic through it's Mechanics (and the dependent Dynamics that are clear from a solid basic structure).

....

It's the reason the word "fun" is so useless when discussing games; as all gamers know, different people have fun doing different things! My reasons for building my game had to do with my own frustrations with classic tabletop rpgs, (http://mmlow1979.wix.com/genrecardgame#!Winning-is-for-Losers/v7862/56c276240cf2100f6473fa86) that often had emergent Dynamics that COULD lead to Aesthetic goals I loved (Narrative, Expression, Fellowship), but which had Mechanics that promoted ones I was less fond of, and that often existed in OPPOSITION to my faves (Challenge and Submission - winning/losing and "game for the sake of the game").

Phew. Anyhoo, very interested to chat about this, and thanks for bringing it up! Cheers!

I'd love to expand on game design. 2 points from my own experience:
1. In the Angry DM's article on the 8 aesthetics, he makes a very strong point- the game systems are game engines, but the GM's/ play group are in fact, the game designers! (The level of each does depend on the system though)- We decide which rules and mechanics we use, which things we elaborate on, which we avoid, and so on, and that depends on the aesthetics we seek to create. Some examples:
- Do we fudge or not fudge? Are all rolls visible or not? (Challenge vs. Narative and/ or Expression)
- In explortion- do you use hex map? (Explortion), Do you measure weight, rations and so on? (Fantasy), and so on...
- How much do you elborate on social interactions? How much comes from the stats? How much from the roleplay? (Expression, challenge, submission all play a role).
- Sand box vs. plot? (Exploration, Expression, Narattive and challenge all come into play here).

What I'm trying to say is that yeah, some of the aesthetics come from the system, but a LOT of it can also come from the way the GM and play group adjust the game to their liking.

2. About systems: Due to time constraints, our group (Which usually plays D&D or PF), tried to seek a more "rules light" system. I found FATE core, and loved it! But the game with my group... felt like something was missing, and though we loved the narrative and expression aspects of it, we felt like soemthing just... "wasn't working for us". So we left off. Only when I read the article did I realize that our group's main joining aesthetic is Challenge, which FATE was less designed to deliver. (It does present challenges, but those too are more narrative focused). It was an interesting realization. We are now trying Shadowrun (A whole different story), which along with Challenge, has a very strong sense of Fantasy, Fellowship and Expression, which we're still exploring...


Replace the "affect" with "effect" in the title.
Fixed that. Thank you!


I'm a big fan of the principles in this paper (and EC in general) but I don't really have much to add to such a general topic. We could throw out examples of the aesthetics being used in gaming (tabletop and video alike) all day long, but in the end OP, a more specific question or challenge might focus the discussion better. e.g. "What do you think are the primary aesthetics of game X," "which tabletop games do you think break the model and why," "what aesthetics do you think are common to most tabletop RPGs (or even just board games in general)" etc.

Good point... So, with that in mind, I will try and open a few more (Albeit broad) questions to discuss (And add those to the opening post):
1. Aesthetics as a player:
What sort of Aesthetics did you find you were attracted to? How did you find it out? What helped to enhance those aesthetics? What diminished them?
I for one, found out that my main aesthetics are:
- Expression: I mostly GM, but when I play, I find myself spending a lot of time and effort into finding a way to think and play as the character, with a lot of thought given to mannerisms, ways of speech, small important possessions, interactions, and more. And character development is very important to me. I like to make an effect on the world, though I prefer those to be subtle, small, but long lasting.
- Fantasy: I remember a very odd occurance- When one of my friends GMed, we were conducting an investigation in a small village (My "It began with a crash!" campaign log), and at one point we wanted to meet with the village's main hunter. And when we came to his hut, the GM said "He isn't there, probably out hunting. Got a job you know!" and to my surprise, I got a HUGE rush of excitement hearing this! For the world felt alive, and not just constrained to the story. Things moved outside of our story, the world went on, and it gave me a great feeling of satisfaction. Since then I felt that "feeling the world was alive" regardless of us, was quite important to my sense of "fun".
- Exploration: I love finding out new things! Give me an unexplored map and I go ecstatic! I love pouring over maps, and imagining the things unknown, or solving a mystery. In the last Shadowrun game, were conducting another investigation, with lots of clues, dead ends, and more, and I just LOVE it! Give me a mystery, a puzzle, and something which I can figure out, and I'm satisfied!:smallbiggrin:

What about you?

2. Aesthetics as GM/ DM/ Story teller or such:
What sort of elements draw you in designing your game, for yourself, and for your players? What enhances it? What hinders it?
To my surprise, I think I quite adjust my own core aesthetics as a player to more fit my players' aesthetics, than mine. At some points i tried to veer more towards my own preferences (Most time unconsciously, not having the words or terms for the 8 aesthetics). Still, the core Aesthetics my GMin style seems to include:
- Challenge: The core aesthetic of my group. My players roll all of the dice, I don't fudge or soften challenges, and I invest a great deal of time in preparing stuff that will feel hard, yet possible, with various types of outcomes, and a measurable way to gauge success. I greatly believe in "lettign the dice fall where they may", which sits great with my group. My challenges tend to be complex, be they battles, investigations and mystery, or more. One of my GMing mottoes is "Everything is possible, but not necessarily easy".
- Expression: I try to work a lot with players to help them express their characters, and consciously try to create situations, opportunities and more that the players can interact with, express their characters and develop them.
It took me awhile to realize that one of my players really isn't much interested in that (Mostly comes for Challenge, Submission and Fellowship), and for another it's important, but far less than my own tastes. I tried to adjust accordingly.
- Fantasy: I like to make the world feel real, with believable responses, cultures, and such. People have personalities, motives, history, flaws and more. Things have their... place... in the world. It does conflict with Expression at times, but my players are good enough to try and make it work within the boundaries of Fantasy, and make it work so.
- Sensory: A fairly new emerging Aesthetics for me, only in the past few years. I am making more and more use of music, and of late also pictures- of locations, of people, and more. It adds quite nicely to the game (Most times, it took a while to learn what works and what doesn't), and... it helps me GM lot! Often music or images inspire me, and take me to different places...

What about you?


3. Aesthetics in game systems:
Which systems appeal to your aesthetics, and why? Which really don't, and why? Which systems offer good mechanics for specific aesthetics? What sort of mechanisms?

I for one love FATE core's "Aspects", as they greatly facilitate Expression, Narrative, and Fantasy, in simple, central and powerful way. An Aspect says something important about the character, location, item, and more. And as it can be used to both bolster success or as a major hindrance, these aspects form a major part of the game mechanics, and thus put these mechanics to the forefront of the game.

The simplistic rules (Deceptively simplistic I might say. They are immensely simple "stat wise", but quite subtle and deep in their meanings and potential), allow for extremely fast flowing improvisation, and thus enable the story to take a lot of turns, changes, surprises and flow very organically, which also enforces Expression and to a lesser degree- Narrative and Fantasy.

4. Are they just "8" aesthetics?
The 8 core Aesthetics have been revised, expanded and re evaluated over time. Do you think there are other Aesthetics? Or subdivisions of them?

For example- In the Extra Credits video, they mention "Competition" as another Aesthetic, which may be a subset of Challenge, or may be its own aesthetic? What games in the RPG tabletop fit this aesthetic? Various "Arena battle" games seem to fit, as do Paranoia (To an extent), or even Munchkin (Though a bit far from actual TTRPGs). What sort of other aesthetics do you think are out there?

5. The 8 aesthetics as a tool to understand group dynamics and problems.
We all have different styles, and these often may come into conflict. Have you used the aesthetics to understand your group's problems better? How? What did you do then?

I have allredy discussed how it helped my group in my opening post. What about your experiences?


It's a more useful model than the generic "fun" one, but looking at the original article reveals that it's an extremely primitive model, made primarily for video games. This is about what's to be expected - there's not any real quantitative data to allow for a high level of sophistication, and video games are absolutely a valid field of study. It does make the applicability to tabletop roleplaying games more questionable though, and that shows.

For instance, tRPGs often shift much more design side decisions to the players, and that matters. You have far more detailed character creation, you have a big chunk of the GM role, you have games like Microscope, none of which are viable for video games. So, you get an additional aesthetic centered around the creation of an artistic work (albeit one without much artistic merit compared to good actual artistic works). That can kind of be jammed into expression, but it doesn't work very well. That can kind of be jammed into narrative, but that doesn't work very well either. So we have a step in the right direction, and it's useful - much the way GNS theory was useful, or prior work on aesthetics within the RPG sphere was useful, or even how WotC's MtG player archetypes were useful. It also has the exact same trap as all of those, where they are treated as some sort of definitive end point instead of a deeply flawed model that is nonetheless better than having nothing,

Oh, I agree it's not the "end of all RPG design" article, but I do think it takes us one step better at understanding gaming. Sure, it is not perfect, and will have things that are either not fully detailed, missing, or plain wrong. Yet, it is another stepping point in exercising thinking about the hobby in more refined terms, as is with most fields... I think this thread, and discussing about these terms and more might enhance understanding and thinking about gaming more.

I have just recently heard about Microscope, and other games, I would love to discuss these games and more...


Given the extent to which working with new tools in creating is cumbersome and uncomfortable, and the extent to which a GM is expected to be on the spot, it seems to me not all that useful for designing adventures or campaigns.
I do not quite understnd what you're saying. Care to expand? This sounds intriguing! :smallamused:


For *diagnosing* adventures or campaigns, though, it looks fantastic. It provides a language with which to say, clearly and unambiguously, "the problem here is that X conflicts with Y, how do we tweak them until they don't?" How does Player A get his Expression without conflicting with Player B's Fellowship? If we don't have words for Expression or Fellowship, or they're very broad words like the ones provided by GNS theory, we'll have trouble solving the problem. This provides a new tool to use for that.

I agree. It gives us better terms, concepts that we can use to understand the problems better. Do you have any experience of your won to share?
------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the replies, and here for an ongoing and fruitful discussion!

Aevylmar
2016-04-08, 03:52 PM
I do not quite understnd what you're saying. Care to expand? This sounds intriguing! :smallamused:

Right. So...

Let me explain in a lot more depth.

First:

I think it is fair to say that The GM is expected to, in real time, keep three to six players amused and immersed, to keep their attentions from wandering off the game onto other topics. Not that you can't have fun with (as the system calls it) abnegation and fellowship even if you aren't paying attention to the game, but it restricts most of the other pleasures.

The GM's resources for doing this are, while not fixed, limited. Specifically, he has one brain and the players have three to six brains, and this imposes natural limitations on his ability to think as fast as all of them put together. He has some ability to access sources of power other than his own mind - normally by getting the PCs in engaging in-character discussions, but also via preparation, modules, etc - but I find that running a game in real time (that is to say, not play-by-post) is the most mentally stressful thing I do on a regular or semi-regular basis. Fun, of course, satisfying, but stressful.

Two:

There's something that shows up when players are trying a new system versus an old one. Let me provide an example. My group recently tried out Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire game. At one point a player wanted to put poison on his weapon as a way of ensuring that his enemy wouldn't survive the fight, no matter who won it. This is a perfectly sensible in-setting thing to do, and it resulted in us spending ten minutes tracking down the poison rules, observing the book included no poison his character would have access to despite the fact that his character would totally have access to poison, tracking down a second book on a different subject that I'd had a hunch might have an answer, and finally using that.

We weren't used to the tools we were using, and so it took longer. D&D? I've got the D&D book well enough memorized to talk Fortitude saves and "OK, which poison?" and all that. Marvel Heroic? Creating a Resource. more? He's putting an Aspect on himself, roll [stat]. But since this was a new system, it was slow, uncomfortable, and generally unsatisfactory.

I've seen the same on other topics, some completely unrelated to RPGs. Switching from Mac to PC, or vice versa, is a hassle, because you need to train yourself into or out of using the command / apple / windows key. If you give a cook used to specific knives and bowls and stoves a different one, it's going to slow him down. Even if he can cook food as good on it, he won't be relaxed and comfortable, and, honestly, he probably won't be able to cook as good food with it - there's a much greater probability that he'll accidentally burn the dish due to keeping it on the oven for too long, or similar mistakes. I've heard the same about programmers coding in unfamiliar languages - that they do worse work slower with a lot more errors.

I think it's a general pattern: people do surer work, and (to a much greater extent) faster work, when they know their tools. And this language is a new tool.

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Or, in other words: if I am trying to plan games, especially in real time, doing it with a language I don't completely understand, with concepts I don't completely understand, is not always a good idea. If I say "it looks like this game concept may be heading towards Narrative," someone may be conflating Narrative and Expression. (People do, often, sometimes with Fantasy as well.) On the other hand, after you've stopped, slowed down, and gone "there seems to be problems. What can we solve them with?" and you're trying to find some language in which you can solve the problems, just throwing every solution you can find at the wall until one sticks -

Then, a new language is useful.

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With regards to stories of my own...

All I can say is that I don't think of myself as a Fantasy first game, because I don't play for Fantasy, but I am a Fantasy first guy, in that a break in the Fantasy spoils everything. A weak Narrative or poor Challenge can be made up for later, but if the world doesn't make sense, it all comes crumbling down and I'm sitting in my chair, trying to figure out what my character knows, or who he suddenly always was, such that I have some basis with which to make decisions. If I don't know the world, I don't know what the narrative is, or what solutions for the challenge are legitimate, or who I'm playing, or what space there is in which to explore...

And I think the language is useful as a way to say that.