Episode 166: Jim Pinto Talks About D&D as "Work," Player Agency vs. Consumer Agency, and the DM/Player Compact

Episode 166: Jim Pinto Talks Player Agency  and the DM/Player Compact

Our guest for episode 166 is the prolific game designer Jim Pinto who has some interesting thoughts about current trends in role playing games and how they present challenges to all game masters, novice and experienced alike.

Jim Pinto has worked on products like Legend of the 5 Rings, The World's Largest Dungeon, and Shadow of the Demon Lord. His most recent work at Post World Games, including the Protocol and Praxis series of games, have challenged traditional role playing game dynamics and have become influential to designers like Greg Gorden.

While there are a lot of books discussing how to be a good game master and how to run the best role playing sessions, not a lot has been written about what responsibilities the players have to the game master. In the most recent episode of Geekerati Radio (Episode 166), I chat with game designer Jim Pinto of Post World Games about how each edition of D&D has made game mastering more like work and less like play and about what the proper role of the game master is.

As always, I don't want to reveal too much about the discussion here. I want you to listen to the episode after all, but I have provided a list of some of the products and concepts we talk about in the episode below.

Concepts

• Jim's concept of reliant focused play.
• Game master's fiat.
• Player Agency vs. Consumer Agency.
  What is the proper role of the game master?

Products and Outside Articles

• Glen Blacow's "Aspects of Adventure Gaming" which was published in Different Worlds #10 (which you can still purchase from the publisher here).
• Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering
• A Theory of Fun
• Call of Cthulhu 7^th Edition
• The Goblin Crown by Robert Hewitt Wolfe which I reviewed here.
•  Critical Role

[100 New Ways to Play Classic Games] Alternative Candy Land Rules #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5

As a parent of younger children, my twin daughters History and Mystery are 7 years old, I get to play a lot of games that consistently receive low ratings at Board Game Geek. This is not due to a lack of board game diversity in the household, rather to the kinds of games that tend to be designed for younger players and the opinions that "sophisticated" hobby game experts tend to have regarding the kinds of games targeted at children. Briefly stated, there is a strong bias against "kids' games."

The bias doesn't stem from a lack of interest in the topics or settings used to inspire kids games, rather the bias seems to be a bias against "primitive" game play. Many children's games are simplified "track games" where the objective of play is to get from the start square to the finish square and in doing so win the game. A quick visit to the Candy Land webpage shows us that the average BGG rating for the game is 3.19 which equates with the game being "Bad." The highest rating, a 6.944 is held by the fantastic game Loopin' Louie, and a 7 on BGG is supposed to be a "Good" game. Good, not excellent.

Source -- Board Game Geek Candy Land Page

Game ratings are subjective though and BGG's guidelines don't provide different scales or criteria for children's games and hobby games. This is a defensible position, but is less helpful to consumers who might wonder whether a game would be fun to "play with kids" instead of wondering if the game would be "fun all the time and forever challenging." I think that Candy Land scores very high on the first criteria, but falls flat on the second.  

Candy Land is a great first game. It's an even better tool for learning about game design. I personally rate the game as an 8 on BGG and think that those who rate it lower are not rating it as what it is. I've defended the game in an earlier post, but I've been intending to write a series of posts on "100 New Ways to Play Classic Games" for quite some time. There was a time when I wanted to write them down and run a Kickstarter to fund a book that collected them. Now I just want to share them as they come.

The idea was inspired by The Boardgame Remix Kit by Kevan Davis, Alex Fleetood, Holly Gramazio, and James Wallis as well as the classic New Rules for Classic Games by R. Wayne Schmittberger. Where both of those products included a couple of variants for a variety of games, I wanted to write a much larger number of variants for the games that I love. This would start with the quintessential Game Designer's toolkit that is Candy Land and move on to other games. Each game will be provided with as close to 100 alternate rules as I can think of and the alternate rules will be spread over a long series of posts instead of smashed into one post. All of the posts will be categorized under the [100 New Ways to Play Classic Games] label. 

Today's post will include 5 Alternative Candy Land rules for your use. Two of them have been previously published, but three are new.

Alternative Candy Land Rules

1) Bag Draw
In this version of "Candy Land," all of the cards are placed into a bag, or hat, and the players draw a random card from the bag on their turn, plays the card, and then places it in the discard pile. This makes the game more purely random, and eliminates the pre-determination factor of the game.

2) Bag Draw Variant

As published, Candy Land features a "broken Markov Chain" because possible future actions, and not merely results, are affected by prior draws. The cards in the discard pile are removed as possible outcomes. This variant of the Bag Draw rule eliminates that feature by returning cards to the deck and resetting the probability that any given card will be drawn in the future. 

In this variant, cards are immediately put back into the bag after it has been used for movement determination and the next player has the possibility of drawing that card from the bag.

3) 1 through 4 and Left or Right

In this variant, players shuffle the cards as normal at the beginning of the game thus setting the order of cards for the remainder of the game.  The first player draws as normal and is considered Player 1 for the remainder of the game.  The other players in counter-clockwise rotation are players 2 through 4. 

 After the first player's draw, all future draws are decided through the roll of a six-sided die.  On a result of 1 to 4, the player of that number draws the next card.  On a result of 5, the player to the left of the current player draws a card.  On a result of 6, the player to the right of the current player draws a card. 


4) Predestiny with Agency

Long time players of Candy Land quickly come to discover that the actual outcome of the game is decided before the first card is flipped. The order of the cards dictates the outcome. The game is a case study of predestination. This rule shakes that up a bit by adding a limited amount of player agency into the picture.

Once the cards have been shuffled, and the first player determined, draw the first ten cards and lay them adjacent to the top of the Candy Land board in the order they are drawn. These are the first 10 actions that will occur in the game. Each player is given ONE (1) opportunity to SKIP per 10 card draw. Only one player may skip any given card. To illustrate:

1) The First Player, in a two player game, would normally be required to move, but sees that the current card is Purple and the second card is a special that would move her significantly up the map, the First Player skips her turn forcing the Second Player to use that card.
2) The Second Player has one SKIP available for this draw, but since a player has already skipped this card the Second Player must use the card, but will get an opportunity later to SKIP a different card.

Once all 10 cards have been played, a new set of 10 cards are revealed and each player can now SKIP one of these cards. SKIPs cannot be carried over from one deal to the next.

5) Revealed Destiny with Agency

This variant continues our exploration of predestination by adding a limited amount of player agency in a slightly different way than the last alternate rule.

Once the cards have been shuffled, and the first player determined, draw all of the cards and lay them adjacent to the Candy Land board in the order they are drawn. The players can now see the entire map of actions that will occur in the game, and the order in which they will happen. Each player is given FOUR (4) opportunities to SKIP an action, but can regain one by accepting a special card that sends them backward. Only one player may skip any given card. To illustrate:

1) The First Player, in a two player game, would normally be required to move, but sees that the current card is Purple and the second card is a special that would move her significantly up the map, the First Player skips her turn forcing the Second Player to use that card.
2) The Second Player has one SKIP available for this draw, but since a player has already skipped this card the Second Player must use the card, but will get an opportunity later to SKIP a different card.

Once all 64 cards have been played, a new set of 64 cards are revealed and each player can now SKIP one of these cards with a refreshed FOUR (4) opportunities. SKIPs cannot be carried over from one deal to the next.

PRIOR POSTS ON CANDY LAND:

• You Can Read My Defense of Candy Land Here.
• You Can Read My Post on Candy Land as RPG Here.

Asymmetry and Class Design in RPGs

Source: Stuart Robertson

In the early days of role playing games, there was a lot of push back against class based games like Dungeons & Dragons. Critics didn't like the inflexibility of classes and believed that they were overly restrictive to player options. This criticism still exists today in the debate between skill based versus class based games, but as strong as these debates seem today they are muted versions of games past.

I believe there are a couple of reasons why the debate has become less heated over time. The first reason is that class based games have expanded the options available to various classes. Most class based games allow Wizards to use swords and armor, though they might have to forgo certain other advantages to do so. The second reason is that the underlying logic behind having class based games, as articulated by J. Eric Holmes in his classic Fantasy Role Playing Games, is that classes were created to foster teamwork and that they are very good at creating fun shared experience play. One of the advantages of table top role playing games is their ability to foster friendship, and one of the best ways they do this is through the synergies created by soft-asymmetrical classes. A final reason I believe that the debate has become muted is that modern class based games are often even more asymmetrical in play than earlier ones, even as the mechanics seemed to become more symmetrical.

Where different classes played slightly differently, often using wildly different mechanics, in early class based games, in modern class based games players can choose to play entirely different game experiences. How so? In Dungeons & Dragons 3.x, players can choose to play a tactical miniatures game, a skill-intensive dungeon crawl, or a narrative storytelling role playing game. These are all potentially completely different experiences. You could do this with earlier editions of the game? Yes, you could. What makes 3.x different is that you can play these three ways, plus you can play a pub running simulation where you never interact with other players, a magic item design factory game, an art dealership game, or a mercantile simulation. Interestingly, with the exception of the magic design factory game, you can do all of these as solo game play experiences. The 3.x game system has mechanics that allow for simulated economy games. All you need is to take your character with a high Craft(Beer) and have that character make decisions about what kind of beer her or she wants to make, buy the supplies, make the rolls and you know how many cp, sp, or gp the character earns each week. You can do this until the character dies of old age.

If an economic Sim is what you want to play 3.x can accommodate you. Come to think of it, when I look at most of the complaints against 4e they actually come down to a complaint about the reduction of asymmetrical play more than anything else. You can narratively role play the crap out of 4e. You can free-form play it without miniatures. You can story tell with it. There are tons of game design options as you add more sourcebooks. What you cannot do, is run an inn using the basic mechanics of the game.

This trend of asymmetrical play in D&D, and in RPGs, started early. You can look at the War Machine and Dominion rules in the old BECMI Dungeon & Dragons game, GURPS, Champions 4th Edition, or Runequest. These games all have mechanics that allow for simultaneous asymmetrical play experiences. Not just the soft-asymmetry of classes having defined roles, but actual different play.

If you want more discussion of asymmetry in game play, here is a video by Extra Credit discussing asymmetry in computer games. It inspired this post and has me thinking about whether I've personally experienced periods of simultaneous and asymmetrical play in any past campaigns and wondering if you have any stories of your own experiences of asymmetrical play to share.

[Simulation vs. Playability] Villains & Vigilantes 2e -- A Look at Telekinesis and Force Field

As I mentioned in a background post recently, I will be doing a series of posts looking at roleplaying games  to analyze how they balance simulation and playability in the execution of their rules set. In that post, I asserted that every non-abstract game is a simulation of some central conceit. This is particularly the case in role playing games where the conceit is one of the major reasons for the selection of a given game. While some people might play a role playing game because it uses system a or system b, I would argue that more players buy a game because it has a certain conceit. How many people are buying the new STAR WARS rpg by Fantasy Flight Games because it uses a "narrative dice" mechanic, compared to how many people are buying it because it is the current STAR WARS rpg?

I would argue that while every game faces significant challenges in balancing simulation vs. playability, superhero roleplaying games face the largest challenge. This is largely because a superhero rpg must be able to handle almost any possibility in order to simulate its source material. Almost anything can happen in a comic book and that can be difficult to simulate.

The first superhero roleplaying game was Superhero 2044, and it was inspirational on many levels. It was also unplayable as written. Donald Saxman did a yeoman's job of simulating certain aspects of comic books -- superhero "patrols" for example -- but the combat system and character creation systems need additional tweaking to work. Many of the concepts of 2044 made their way into the CHAMPIONS roleplaying game, via heavy house rulings by Wayne Shaw. You can see 2044's influence in both the "point based" character creation system and in the CHAMPIONS combat system (click the link above to see the similarities in the combat system).

The first playable superhero roleplaying game was Villains & Vigilantes. The first edition of the game is playable, but has some very cloogy bits -- like the "to hit" matrix which makes the 2nd edition matrix look like child's play. The second edition was an improvement in every way over the first edition and is still a game I very much enjoy reading and playing. I recently had my regular gaming group roll up some V&V characters and look forward to a full fledged adventure in the near future. It's a fun system that falls heavily into the "abstractionist" rather than "simulationist" camp, but some of its design choices simulate comic book action better than others. To highlight this conflict, I'd like to examine how two powers are mechanically represented in the game: Force Field and Telekinesis. These are two of the three powers in the game I would need if I wanted to make Sue Storm Richards -- The Invisible Woman as a character. I understand that she she doesn't "technically" have telekinesis as a power, but she uses her force fields to mimic the effects of a traditional TK character.

In fact, let's stat up Sue Richards in the process.

In V&V, like in many super hero game systems, a character's primary statistics can affect how individual powers work. V&V uses the classic D&D system of 3 to 18 as the range of "normal human" statistics, and has five main statistics: Strength, Endurance, Agility, Intelligence, and Charisma. Most of these are self-explanatory. Only Charisma doesn't follow the normal definition. It measures not only what we would normally call Charisma, but also includes what degree the character falls on the side of good or evil. So a "very heroic" good hero might have an 18, as would a "very evil" villain.

In Sue's case, I believe all of her basic attributes fall within the normal range. If they didn't, we'd have to decide what her stats were before exposure to Cosmic Rays and deconstruct what her "initial" statistics were and how they are different from her "super heroic" statistics so we could know what attribute related superpower -- like "Enhanced Agility" -- we would need to give her. To limit debate -- though not eliminate it -- I'll be using the "Classic Marvel Forever" stats for the old TSR Marvel Game as a baseline. Since "weight" also matters in V&V, I'll also use the Marvel.com bio which tells us that Sue is 5"6" and weighs 120 lbs.

Below, I'll include her Classic Marvel Forever stat and follow it with my V&V translation. For Charisma, we'll assume that she isn't currently under the influence of the Fear Monger and give her a high Charisma.

Attribute	Classic Marvel	V&V
Strength	Typical	10
Endurance	Remarkable	18
Agility	Excellent	16
Intelligence	Good	14
Charisma	N/A	16

For the sake of argument, we'll make her a 7th level character. This will matter as things progress, and we'll also assume that her 6 level advancements have not been added to the stats above.

Now...let's have a look at those powers and see how they simulate various effects from the comic books.

Force Field

The Force Field power is pretty interesting and actually covers most of what Sue Storm Richards does with her Force Fields in the comics. It creates barriers that can comprise of x number of 1 inch "square planes" where x is the player's current number of power points (1 inch is the equivalent of approximately 5 feet). In the case of Sue Storm she has 58 power (starting power equals the sum of all stats except Charisma), so she is capable of making a pretty big force field -- Fifty-Two five foot "square planes" is a lot of surface area.

Force Field provides "Force Field defense," which in Villains & Vigilantes means that the player is very difficult to hit. Most powers need to roll a 0 or less on a d20 to hit someone in a Force Field. While that might seem impossible, players do get to add modifiers to that base number of 0 or less based on powers, stats, and level. The Force Field power also lets our Invisible Woman attach opponents doing damage equivalent to her "basic HTH damage." As you will see when you look at the character sheet below, this isn't very much. In fact, it's only 1d4.

There are a couple of interesting things to look at here.

First, it costs a number of Power Points to keep up a Force Screen equal to 1/2 the number of points of damage repulsed which originated from a list of powers. This is interesting because there is not a rule anywhere in the game for determining whether damage is repulsed or not. One might assume that "damage repulsed" is damage from an attack that would have hit the defender, but for the fact the defender was protected by Force Field. I think this is a reasonable interpretation.  Let's see how this ruling would work -- notice that we are already having to make a ruling to interpret the use of a power.

Ice Powers are on the list of powers that take energy to defend against using Force Field. Ice Power hits a character protected by Force Field on a 0 or less. A character with no defenses that work against Ice Power would be hit on a 14 or less (a 70% chance). Let's say that Blizzard is attacking Sue Storm. Normally, he would hit her on a 14 or less, but she has her Force Field up. He rolls to hit as normal and rolls a 13 and would normally hit Sue except for the Force Field, so he misses. With other defenses, this would be the end of the result. Because Force Field has a power cost related to "repulsed" damage, we now need Blizzard to determine how much damage he would have done and we subtract 1/2 that amount from Sue's current power score. If Sue were protecting someone else and the attack got past the Force Field, which in Blizzard's case would only be possible with modifiers from stats or level, she would lose power equal to the full amount of damage done. At least that's what I think would happen.

Let me just say, that if my interpretation is correct it seems like a pretty good simulation of how Force Fields work in the comics. We often see Force Field users straining to maintain the Field under pressure of attacks. How this power would work from devices, like Iron Man's suit for example, is another matter entirely as suits don't have "Power Ratings" and instead have a number of "Uses." This only adds to the number of rulings we must make to fill in cracks in the rules.

The second interesting thing here is that the Force Field's damage is based on the character's normal ability to damage someone when punching them. I don't know about you, but I think most Force Field attackers -- like say Hal Jordan or Sue Storm -- have this kind of attack because their hand to hand attack isn't very "superheroic." This aspect of the power doesn't seem very realistic as a simulation. I would recommend using a fix that I am going to be making for Telekinesis in a moment, and that is to use an alternate means of calculating base damage for this power. A normal HTH attack is based on a character's strength and weight. Force Field powers should have their "HTH Damage" based on an attribute that best simulates how the Force Field works. For Sue Storm, I would argue that the HTH damage should be based on her "Endurance" instead of Strength. This would still only give "Level 1" Sue Storm 1d6 damage, and isn't something that breaks the system. I would also argue that Hal Jordan's should be based on his Charisma score.

Reading through the Telekinesis power, we can see that it does essentially what Telekinesis should be able to do. It can move things, be used as an attack, and manipulate physical objects. Sound's right. What is interesting here though is the "telekinetic capacity" and how it is determined. The number of pounds a character can move is equal to Strength x Level x 10 pounds. In Sue's case, this would mean she could lift 10 (her Strength) x 1 (or 7 for our "experienced" version) x 10 pounds with her mind. So she could lift either 100lbs. or 700lbs. This would allow her to do either 1d4 or 1d8 damage with her TK. Not very impressive (okay, the 1d8 is almost in the right range for a primary attach, but not quite), and seemingly counter-intuitive. How many of the primarily TK oriented characters are known for their massive Strength? Most of the TK oriented heroes I can think of have average strength, and substitute TK for their Strength.

I think we should use an alternate means of Capacity Calculation. Normal carrying capacity is calculated as follows:

So for Sue we take one-tenth her Strength cubed (1 cubed) plus one-tenth her Endurance which is 1.8. This gives us a total of 2.8 which we multiply by 1/2 her weight or 60lbs. This gives us a total of 168 pounds. I think that looks right for her carrying capacity, but not her "Force Field" Capacity. If we substitute Endurance for Strength in this equation to determine "Force Field HTH", we get 458lbs and a 1d6 damage. While I still think this is low for a higher level Sue, it seems okay for 1st level Sue.  As for Telekinesis, I recommend making two changes. First, change the equation to (Key Stat x Level x 20 lbs = TK Capacity). Then I recommend selecting the appropriate key stat for the character's character concept. In Sue's case, I think it should be Endurance. At 1st Level, this would have given her a 360lbs. TK capacity. Not fantastic, and still only good for 1d6 damage which is about 1/2 of the average attack power, but I think it's well within reason for a starting character.

One thing that is possible in V&V is for a character to have a power "selected" multiple times. The recommendation V&V gives is to increase the effectiveness of the power if it has been "rolled" more than once. I would argue that Sue Storm rolled TK at least twice and would have that increase the multiple of x20lbs to x40lbs giving her a 1st level TK of 720lbs and 1d8 damage. That's all I need for her starting out.

One of the things that V&V allows characters to do is increase basic statistics with level increases. For the sake of argument, let's assume that modern Invisible Woman is 7th level and that she has put all of her advancements into Endurance.

Using our updated equations 7th level Invisible Woman would have a Force Field Capacity of 973lbs doing 1d10 damage. This is right in the sweet spot of between 1d10 and 1d12 plus stat bonuses damage (+1 in Sue's case). Her TK would be 6720lbs which does 2d8 damage. Given that this hits like a HTH attack, and HTH attacks are the least accurate in the game hitting on only a 5 or less, I think this is right in the sweet spot and puts her in line with most of V&V's "Bricks."

Notice that what constitutes a massively strong character in V&V is 3 tons, significantly less than the Hulk's 100 ton lift capacity. That would do somewhere in the range of 6d10 damage, a figure not likely to be "survivable" by most characters.

Just looking at these two powers it seems that V&V is a very good simulator of Comic Book style action, but that it still has a few cracks to fill in. Some are easy to fill in, like changing the TK equation or even I imagine coming up with a new Carrying Capacity to Basic HTH Damage chart (something I would recommend doing). Others are a little more difficult, like figuring out what is meant by "Damage Repulsed." The game was the first truly viable superhero role playing game. It is a fun game, but it does show some fraying around the edges of the rules. Some of these are legacies of being a kind of D&D derivative in combat, others are due to insufficient play testing.

None of them are game killers though, and all of them make for interesting combinations about how V&V tackles the problem of Simulation vs. Playability. With the exception of some of the equations required, and the clunkiness of the combat system, it's pretty clear that a lot of effort went into playability instead of simulation and where the designers focused too much on simulation -- the system's attack power vs. defense power attack chart comes to mind -- you end up with some of the more clunky aspects of the game.

I hope that Fantasy Flight Games Fantasy Games Unlimited and Monkey House Games are able to work out their legal issues in an amicable manner, and that we will be able to see a true 3rd edition of the game soon. It is one of the greats.

 Invisible Woman is Copyright Marvel Comics.

Simulation vs. Playability: The Background Discussion for a Blog Series

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be discussing how some games balance their desire to simulate a certain activity with the need for a game to be playable. Most of the posts will be dealing with role playing games, but I might wander into wargame territory from time to time.

Let us take as a given for the purposes of our discussion that, with the exception of purely abstract games, most games are a simulation of some central conceit.

For example, both Chess and Men of Iron are to one degree or another simulations of medieval warfare. Men of Iron has what Elias, Garfield, and Gutschera (2012) would describe as higher "intensity" of the medieval warfare conceit than Chess, but both do share that central conceit. On the Elias, Garfield, and Gutschera "Scale of Intensity for Conceits," Chess is rated a 3 (Very Light Conceit) while Men of Iron would likely be rated around an 8 (Simulation, but with many sacrifices to gameplay).  As a further illustration Tic-Tac-Toe rates a 1 (Purely Abstract) and Squad Leader ranks a 10 (Full-on Simulation).  This might make one wonder where Advanced Squad Leader would rank, but I digress.

I understand that there are those who may disagree with the initial premise that "all non-abstract games are a simulation" either as a mere tautology, and others who completely disagree with the premise as an a priori. I believe it will prove useful for the series of discussions I hope to have about role playing games as simulations of the various subjects they address.

The framing of games, and in particular role playing games, as simulations should not be confused with Ron Edwards' GNS (Gamist, Narrativist, and Simulationist) system of game play analysis. As I interpret GNS Theory as a theory of play that can inform design and not a theory of system deconstruction and design. As Ron states in the above linked essay, "These terms, or modes, describe three distinct types of people's decisions and goals during play." These are player goals toward which games may be designed, but in my opinion a "Simulation" is not the same as a "Simulationist" game. 

To illustrate, the excellent Narrativist game The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a simulation of storytelling as the good Baron himself might engage in it. It is not a simulation of the Baron's adventures, though James Wallis considered making a game where players could enact those adventures, it is instead a simulation of storytelling in a particular style. Another example of a game that is a simulation of storytelling is Tales of the Arabian Nights. Both Baron and Arabian Nights simulate the activity of storytelling within their conceits differently, but in the end the game play of both are best described by the stories created within the rules of the game. There is a reason that Wallis calls these kinds of games "Story-Making" games. So it's possible to have simulations of storytelling that results in story-making which in the end results in storytelling when the results with game play are shared.

Okay, enough of the metaphysics of games being simulations. Let's move forward please -- ed.

Games are also about fun, and to be fun games must be playable. This is as true of role playing games as it is for any other kind of game. As Robin Laws says in his masterwork Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering, "Roleplaying games are entertainment; your goal as GM is to make your games as entertaining as possible for all participants." 

The key part of that statement is "as possible for all participants." Because players come to a gaming table with different "ideas of fun" as highlighted in Edwards' GNS theory, roleplaying game design must make decisions between the level of depth of simulation and the playability of the system. Some players find granular verisimilitude and accuracy of representation entertaining. For these players reading Chapter H of the Advanced Squad Leader rulebook is as much fun as actual game play. Other players might enjoy quick systems or systems that foster the creation of narratives.

Historically, one of the conflicts that has resulted from the attempt to design "good" games is a tension between "realism" and "playability." In Issue 8 of MOVES magazine (1973), Victor Madeja argued that "Commercial wargames fail to accurately represent modern war. Although no game will ever recreate the confusion, horror and destruction of war, we should at least expect a wargame to partly simulate the decision-making process involved in actual battle. Instead we have chess-like caricatures of reality. What semblance of realism we were led to expect is sacrificed on the altar of playability" (Emphasis mine). For Victor, there was a clear distinction between realism and playability and he thought that games at the time leaned too much toward playability and not enough toward actual simulation .

You can purchase access to the first 60 issues of MOVES magazine for the very reasonable price of $19.95 at Strategy and Tactics Press.

By Issue 14 of MOVES (1974) John Hill, the eventual designer of SQUAD LEADER, addresses the conflict by stating, "One of the hardest problems facing any war game designer is the careful balancing between playability and realism. Actually, any reasonably competent wargamer could probably design a realistic 'simulation,' but to design a good game is something else. As an example, 1914 was an excellent simulation of corps level fighting of that era, but as a game it was worthless -- it couldn't be played." John Hill would eventually go on to become an advocate of what he called "abstraction." This was a controversial game design philosophy in which the designer cared less about "what actually happened" and more concerned with the "effects" of what happened and how to model those effects. So, for Hill the fact that gunfire affected morale was more important than modelling the specific physical effects of bullet trajectories. Examples of "abstraction" designs in role playing games include D&D's "hit points" and the "effects based design" of CHAMPIONS.

The tension between simulation and realism is one that has been discussed in role playing games since the origin of the hobby. In the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons DUNGEON MASTERS GUIDE, Gary Gygax writes, "Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school." -- You can see in this discussion the origins of Edwards' GNS theory. -- "AD&D is assuredly an adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author's opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!). It does little to attempt to simulate anything either. ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity...As a realistic simulation of things from the realm of make-believe, or even as a reflection of medieval or ancient warfare or culture or society, it can be deemed only a dismal failure...Those who...generally believe games should be fun, not work, will hopefully find this system to their taste."

In his paragraph on design intent, excerpted above, Gygax clearly puts himself in the "abstraction" design camp. His discussion of Hit Points in the DMG also makes this clear, whereas those who criticize hit points or how armor "makes it harder to hit and doesn't stop damage" fall more into the simulationist camp. I would like to say that I disagree with Gygax that his game "does little to attempt to simulate anything." I would argue that it is simulating heroic fantasy, but it is doing so from an abstractionist position. It's a small distinction, but not an unnecessary one.

As an aside, most gamers or designers are a combination of abstractionist/simulationist. Ken St. Andre, the designer of one of the most abstractionist rpgs I have ever played, doesn't like armor class systems because they don't simulate what he wants. This is the case even though his TUNNELS & TROLLS combat system sacrifices specificity for playability and speed of play.

When it comes to the tension between "simulation" and "playability" there is not a procedural definition of what is right or wrong. What is right or wrong doesn't even depend on what is being simulated. What determines whether it is better to favor simulation or playability is how that decision works within the rules set and the goals of the game itself. Sometimes it is important that a game be a good simulation of what it is trying to represent. CHAMPIONS is very much an "effects based design" system in character creation, but its combat system simulates the panel to panel flow of comic books extremely well. VILLAINS & VIGILANTES has a random character creation system that favors simulation -- though it also includes GM "rulings over rules" -- over abstraction as it defines specifically what Flame Powers and Ice Powers do and how they work rather than define effects and have you decide what matches what. Both are good games.

In the coming weeks, I'll be looking at some games and how they address the Simulation/Realism vs. Playability/Abstraction conflict. I'll be starting with VILLAINS & VIGILANTES and how it emulates Force Fields and Telekinesis in its simulation of super heroic conflict. While I think that the V&V system overall is quite good, I believe that the designs of these two powers demonstrate good "simulation" on the one hand and "awkward" simulation on the other.

I'd like to leave this conversation with two quotes for Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball from their Things we Think About Games.

1) Theme and gameplay are two different things.
2) Balance is not the same thing as fun.

Elias, George Skaff. Garfield, Richard, and Gutschera, K. Robert (2012), Characteristics of Games. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

I am Now Officially a Game Designer!

Every game master is a game designer at heart.  Every game session GMs make little decisions regarding player actions that seem to lay just outside the parameters of the rules as written for the game at hand.  We're used to making these decisions, but we don't often think of these things as formal game design.  That doesn't stop almost every game master from dreaming about becoming a professional game designer.  I imagine that most Fantasy Heartbreakers got their origins in the mind of a game master turned game designer.

(I have my own thoughts about the current trend to use Fantasy Heartbreaker derogatorily, but that is another post entirely.)


For years, my own design itch was scratched by game play and on line forums.  I spent a long period of time scouring Greyhawk texts for minutiae and discussing them with fellow fans on the AOL Greyhawk boards.  I also spent time on the various DC Heroes boards arguing about rules and coming up with new "fixes" for things within that rules set.  Anyone who doesn't think of DC Heroes as an "effects based" game should hunt down those old boards in the wayback machine -- sadly many of theme were lost when the "alt dot" archives faded away.  My participation in these boards eventually led to me contributing to the <em>Blood of Heroes</em> roleplaying game where I had written some rules contributions in a couple of the powers -- Superspeed is one of them if I remember correctly.  While this initial contribution might have led some to leverage participation in one product into a career, it didn't have that effect on me.  Graduate school, work, and adjusting to living in a new city (Los Angeles) took up the majority of my mental focus and dreams of being a designer faded into the background.

That all began to change about a year and a half ago when I started soliciting opportunities to playtest new games.  I have a regular gaming group made up of some very imaginative and thoughtful gamers, and I thought to myself they would be the perfect sounding board for new ideas and games.  How right I was.  I began playtesting a number of games, some of which are listed on the right hand column of this blog, and have had a great time doing it.  In fact, this playtesting has caused me to begin to feel very comfortable with the concept of designing games and I have begun reaching out in that direction recently.

One of the opportunities that emerged as I began reaching out was George Strayton's <em>The Secret Fire</em> project.  I was initially invited in to write some flavor text for some sections of the rules -- in fact my some of my flavor text is among the quotes praised in the RPG.net forum praising/dissing the game -- but my role quickly evolved into rules development itself.  I was involved in discussions of game mechanics, balance, intentions, combat, spells, etc. and it was a great time.  The game was recently formally announced and is now available on Lulu, though it will soon be available from a variety of sources.  George was a great lead developer to work with -- his credits include <em>Star Wars d6</em> -- and he allowed me to play devil's advocate and to offer seemingly random ideas.  He turned game design into a sand box of joy.

The experience has inspired me and you will definitely be seeing more game design from me in the future.  I am currently putting together a pitch for the first <em>The Secret Fire</em> expansion, a couple for Super Genius Games, some for Victory Point Games, and my own company -- Twin Suns Entertainment LLC -- will be designing a number of games in the coming years.

A Game Master's "Appendix N" -- A List of Books Every GM Should Own

Gary Gygax's list of recommended reading, is "appendix," on page 224 of the first Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide holds a special place in the role playing game community.  In role playing circles, the list is as influential -- if not more so -- than the Lin Carter Ballantine Adult Fantasy series is for Fantasy fans in general.  Gygax provided the list so that Dungeon Masters could be filled with the same wonder and inspiration that eventually culminated in his creation of the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game.

The appendix is quite marvelous.  It begins by mentioning that Gygax's father's story telling was a key component in sparking young Gary's imagination.  Too often discussions of Appendix N leave out the opening paragraph when discussing the important influences, but we should all remember how important it is to share stories with our children and to take some time to make up our own bed time stories.  It is wonderful to read to our children, but by telling them stories we show our children that it is okay to invent their own tales.

But this post isn't about Gary's list. There are plenty of posts discussing "Appendix N," such as this Cimmerian post on the topic. The original "Appendix N" was a list of inspirational authors and works of fiction that Dungeon Masters could read to spark their narrative imaginations, and better understand the kind of Fantasy that would be experienced using the Dungeons & Dragons rules. That was a lofty goal, and one that the list succeeded at, but it is only half of what a good GM needs. A GM needs both food for the imagination, and food for the presentation.

By this I mean that GMs need stories that can lead them to create wonderfully rich narratives for their players, but they also need the tools that will help them to manage very good sessions. Essentially, GMs need both a degree in "Literature that Inspires Good Gaming" and "Game Session Management." Over the 25+ years that I've been running games, and as someone who was once a terrible GM, here is a list of books I've found invaluable. Future blog posts (on no particular schedule) will highlight some of these books and talk about why they are so important.

• Aaron Allston's Strike Force
• Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering
• Prince Valiant: The Story Telling Game
• Through Dungeons Deep
• DC Heroes
• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide
• Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide 2
• Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds
• Hamlet's Hit Points
• A Penny for My Thoughts
• Game Design Workshop
• Vornheim
• Role-Playing Mastery
• Master of the Game
• Shadow, Sword, & Spell
• Thousand Suns
• The Burning Wheel
• A Theory of Fun
• The Bones
• The Fantasy Role-Playing Gamer's Bible
• James Bond 007
• Justice Inc.
• Call of Cthulhu
• Savage Worlds
• Vampire: The Masquerade
• Amber

There are others, to be sure, but I believe that every one of these should be somewhere on a GM's shelf.

[Review] "Battle of 4 Armies" is Fantasy Fun for All!

Earlier today, I made the second of what I hope will become a regular monthly or bi-monthly visit down to Victory Point Games headquarters in Santa Ana, CA.  The game company's staff are friendly and welcoming, and it doesn't take long before a visitor gets talked into participating in a playtest of an upcoming game.  On my last visit, I was able to playtest an upcoming game entitled "Assault on Galactus Prime."  The game was a blast, and I eagerly look forward to its release.

This time I playtested an expansion for "Battle of the 4 Armies," one of VPG's existing game products.  But before I played the expansion, I had to learn how to play the base game.  I own a large stack of VPG games, but I had yet to purchase "Battle of the 4 Armies" by designer Nathan Hansen.  It is a testimony to VPG's desire to support and educate burgeoning game designers that this game, which was released on May 12 of this year, already has an expansion in the works.

The premise of "Battle of the 4 Armies" is simple:

 In a wealthy valley through which a warm,  enchanted river flowed from Foggy Mountain, Queen Elyra’s Council could no  longer keep secret her mysterious disappearance. She, the last heir to the Crown of Chip, was gone and, as word of  her departure grew more dire in each retelling of this new while spreading o’er
the land, order in the realm crumbled.

The representatives of the Great Races in the Queen’s Council, long assembled in peace by the force of her will, laid forth their claims to the crown in her absence – first with words, and then with deeds, calling their armies from afar in all directions to this land, each seeking to claim and restore the Crown of Chip.

In order to lay claim to the Crown of Chip, the winning Race must either completely defeat the armies of all of the other Races or control 3 of the 4 strategic locations on in the wealthy valley. Hansen provides some very simple tile placement and combat resolution rules that constitute the majority of game play, rules that echo some of the best elements of Diplomacy and Neuroshima Hex.

At its core "Battle of the 4 Armies" is a territory control game with very few random elements. Save for one random mechanic utilized to represent the morale of units in the game, this is a luckless game. Given the strength of Hansen's basic mechanics, this single random mechanic impacts play but does so in a way that is predictable and adds realism to the game -- morale effects being a staple of wargaming of all kinds. It would be easy to give a pure description of the rules, but they really are so simple that almost any attempt to describe them would border on plagiarism. As one of VPG's "Battlelesson" line of games, the game spends more text providing clear examples of good strategy than it requires to convey the basic mechanics.

That simplicity shouldn't be misinterpreted as meaning that the game is shallow. On the contrary, the choices required of players in the game are quite complex. Where to place and move pieces, when to push forward, when to retreat, these are all very significant choices -- choices that can result in very interesting movement combinations. Not only are the choice options complex, but the size of the territory to be controlled is small enough to guarantee that players must become actively engaged or suffer the consequences. There is no stalling in Australia in order to build up your armies in "Battle." The game can be played with 2 - 4 players, and the more players participating the more frenetic the game play.

Hansen designed the game as a "strategy game" to use during a role playing game session. The game represented a game that was played within his fictional game world. It has since come to be an excellent generic fantasy war game, one that I plan on inserting into my Eberron campaign as a representation of a battle that took place during the "Last War."

In short, "Battle of the 4 Armies" is almost a definition of what reviewers mean when they call a game elegant. There are few pieces, simple rules, but complex and diverse choices to be made that result in remarkable combinations. The game is quite simply one of the best games I have played this year, and is well worth the $15 price tag that VPG are charging.

Buy the game. Play the game. And help me start a viral campaign to convince VPG to do a Kickstarter project that produces a copy of this game with a cardstock map and nice plastic fiddly bits.

LOOT AND SCOOT: A Win for Victory Point Games?

I am a sucker for dungeon crawl themed board and card games. I own the vast majority of the games included in Board Game Geek's Definitive Dungeon Crawl Geek List. When I saw that the scrappy independent game company Victory Point Games had developed what they believe to be a "Euro Style" and "Family Friendly" version of a dungeon crawl game, I knew that I would have to add Loot and Scoot to my collection.

Adding the game to my collection is one thing, keeping the game on the "keep ready at a moment's notice" shelf is quite another. I own quite a few games, but only a few manage to find their way onto readily accessible shelf space. Most games end up in one of my gaming closets, or even banished to my storage unit where they rest until my wife and I manage to make the millions necessary for a house big enough to house a proper gaming library. Given that we live in Southern California, that truly means millions. Storage games do get played from time to time, but such occurrences are rare and must be planned. TSR's All My Children and Fantasy Flight Games' Fireborn are both games that are currently trapped in storage. If my gaming group shared certain affections with me, Fireborn wouldn't be there but she is.

What is the fate that awaits Loot and Scoot?

My friend, and fellow board game aficionado, Eric visited my house the other weekend during a non-roleplay gaming weekend and we tried out a number of games to test their merit and Loot and Scoot was among those games we played.

Loot and Scoot is one of many genre themed games published by Victory Point Games designed by Chris Taylor, or as VPG calls him the "Maker of Games." It would be fair to say -- attempting to not tip my hat on this particular evaluation -- that Chris Taylor and I have extraordinarily similar tastes in game themes. In addition to designing the pen and paper FALLOUT game that accompanied FALLOUT: TACTICS, Taylor has designed FORLORN HOPE (an Aliens/Space Hulk inspired game), NEMO'S WAR (a solo game inspired by 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), and has a number of free web-published games. Let's just say that based solely on his attempt to design a solo game based on a Jules Verne novel places Chris Taylor among my favorite designers.

Premise

Loot and Scoot is a game of exploring dungeons, training adventurers, and scoring the most "loot." Each of the two to four players in a game of Loot and Scoot takes on two roles. Every player is a dungeon owner and a band of hearty adventurers seeking to kill the monsters and take the stuff from the other players' dungeons. In this manner, Loot and Scoot combines elements from FFG's excellent Descent game with the progenitor of all Dungeon Crawl games TSR's Dungeon.

Descent has players in direct opposition to one another as one represents the Dungeon Master and the others represent the adventurers. In Dungeon all of the players are adventurers seeking to loot the same dungeon and the first player to meet certain victory requirements wins. In Loot and Scoot players stock their own dungeons and loot those of their opponents. Games with more than two opponents can see some players' dungeons become the focus of several players for a time.

Basic Flow of Play

At the beginning of each game session players select a map they will use as their own dungeon which they will stock with an array of dastardly creatures in the hopes of creating a challenge for their opponents. Each player also begins with two "level 1" adventurers and two hirelings. Players will use these character to explore the dungeons of their opponents, a player can never explore his/her own dungeon.

Once the players' dungeons have been stocked, the players' work as "dungeon master" is finished and the only ways that the dungeon will change are due to the successes of the opponents' adventurers. Monsters don't leave their rooms once they have been placed. It should be noted that the dungeon stocking phase of the game shares some qualities with Stratego. Players want to place their Dungeon Bosses -- really tough monsters -- in such a way as to make their opponents work hard to get to them.

During a player's turn he/she may use money that has been acquired, either through adventuring or using an action to "beg funds," to recruit adventurers and hirelings, train adventurers, or purchase buildings where adventurers may be trained. Different adventurers are more, or less, effective against different monsters and players are well served to have a well-balanced and highly trained party. The game's design is such that there are not enough characters, or buildings, for every player to have multiples of each character type or training facility. This can lead to trading and auctioning activities when a player encounters a monster that his/her adventurers are less than effective against. Having limited resources adds a nice level of depth to the play and increases player interactivity.

When looting an opponent's dungeon, players go from room to room (revealing and combating monsters as they go) attempting to acquire as much loot -- and defeat as many monsters as possible -- before encountering the dungeon's Dungeon Boss. Defeating a Dungeon Boss ends the game and points are scored at the end of a full round of play after the Dungeon Boss is defeated. This activity sounds easier than it actually is in practice. Defeating an individual monster is no easy task, an adventurer has either a 1/6 chance or no chance at all of defeating a monster. Certain monsters can only be defeated by certain character types. For example, the Werewolf may only be combated by the Mage, the Cleric, and the Fighter. Any Rogues in the player's party are of no use. Additionally, only one of each of those characters can contribute in a battle against a Werewolf -- each needing to roll a six in order to defeat the beast. It is guaranteed that players will lose hirelings/take damage while they are adventuring, but it is up to the player to decide how far he/she wants to push their luck as they loot dungeons. Play too cautiously and opponents will run away with the game. Play too loosely and you will never acquire enough victory points to win the game.

The game play has a nice balance of luck and skill. The luck comes in the form of the die roll resolution, but the skill comes in rationally analyzing your odds of success. This kind of luck/skill balance is common in Eurogames and is one of the reasons they have such a broad appeal. Having elements of luck in play allow less skilled opponents to win, and thus expands the number of those who can have fun while playing. Having elements of skill appeals to those who find the whimsical hand of purely luck driven games dull. Taylor's design in Loot and Scoot has the right balance of the two, both in the "planning" stages and in the eventual "adventuring" stages of the game.

Component Quality

Like all of Victory Point Games' games, Loot and Scoot is well designed graphically. Also like all Victory Point Games' games, there is a "hand made" quality to the components. This is because VPG games are designed by people with excellent graphics skills who are actually making the game by hand. The game features hand cut die-cut counters that had their graphics printed on a high quality ink jet printer.

At $17.95, the components compare well to other die-cut counter games and are far superior to the components of early Microgames like Ogre (those Microgames have an inflation adjusted price of approximately $10.00). As a die-cut counter game the components are good, but for those who prefer miniatures/meeple/wooden blocks this game won't quite meet expectations. The game also included one of those microscopic 6-sided dice, something that I actually would have preferred they left out of the bag. Did I write bag? Yep. The game, like those old Microgames, comes in a ziplock bag.

Some of the above comments regarding the components read a little more critical than I intend them too. I just want you to know what you are getting for $17.95. This is the 2010 version of a Microgame, inexpensive components and a reasonable price.

Overall

Components and rules aside, whether or not a game gets played repeatedly or gets its place on the "keep ready at a moment's notice" shelf is determined by two major factors -- is the game fun to play and can it be played repeatedly? In the case of Loot and Scoot, I can give a resounding yes to both questions.

There are a couple of things that set this game apart from other dungeon crawl games and make me want to have it as readily accessible as Descent. The game sets up and plays quickly. The games mechanics encourage player interaction due to a scarcity of resources. The game has internal mechanics that prevent one player from feeling "beat up" on for more than a short time. All in all this is a fast and furious game, and I cannot wait for the expansion.

Responding to Things We Think About Games -- Gaming Expectations: Playing Optimally

Last week, Cinerati featured the first in a series of responses to the book Things We Think About Games. In the post, I discussed how the interaction between a game's narrative and its mechanics might affect the player's experience. In particular, I praised Robotron 2084 and criticized the Dawn of War real time strategy game. Both games are highly enjoyable, but when Dawn of War is played in Campaign mode the ending leaves the player feeling less than satisfied with their achievements.

But specifically narrative expectations aren't the only kinds of expectation players can have when approaching a particular game. Some gamers look at the game system itself as a kind of puzzle to be solved. Many games, particularly war games and games like chess, tic-tac-toe, and checkers, have a finite number of "good moves." In fact, some games can be "solved." There is a perfect way to play checkers and chess -- thankfully the "solutions" to these games are so monumentally complex that there are currently no players who play these games "perfectly." One of the lessons of tic-tac-toe is that solving a game can make future play less fun than "imperfect" play. For these players, the examination of the system itself is a wonderful experience -- one that I will touch upon more fully in a later post -- but their mindset, that games are puzzles to be "solved," can be a useful one to those who are more competitive in their gaming habits.

Which brings us to the passage in Things We Think About Games that I'd like to talk about today:

STATEMENT 060
If doing well matters to you, learn the optimal methods for the games you like.

I'll be honest, I'm not one of those people for whom doing well at a game matters. I blame Candyland for this, but for me the most important thing is that everyone is enjoying themselves. One can only submit themselves to the whims of fate, unalterable fate, as manifest in Candyland so many times before they begin to care less about winning than most game players. But I also happen to be one of those people who likes to break game systems into their respective parts and put them back together, so I do tend to play "more" optimally than someone who doesn't care at all. I just have a different motivation for finding the optimal methods for the games I like. This also means that I don't mind being totally "owned" by an opponent at Blood Bowl, as long as I can see why I was getting so easily destroyed.

But for those who do care whether or not they do well, which might be different than winning, the analytical tools that those who treat games like puzzles use are one of the first places a player should look to find out what the optimal methods of playing a particular game are.

Take for example this brief analysis of die probabilities over at the Giant Battling Robots blog. Take a moment to read Kit's article and come back to this page. We'll still be here, I promise.

The post is expressly about how modifications (bonuses and penalties) to a bell shaped probability curve have disproportionate effects on the player depending on where along the bell curve a particular target number is. That is to say that a penalty punishes the player more, with regard to a positive outcome, the closer to the middle of the distribution the initial target number was. A -1 penalty when the target number needed for success is 11 or greater, on 2 ten-sided die added together, is about 10%. The -1 penalty effectively changes the target number from 11 to 12. Whereas the same -1 penalty on a target number of 19 is only a 2% penalty.

This means that any player participating in a game that uses die rolls that have bell shaped probability distributions -- games like Feng Shui, Dream Park, and Battletech (notice I am counting "opposed" d6 rolls as the same as a 2d6 roll as they are the same for probabilistic purposes) -- one should examine what significance the individual penalty or bonus will have when making a decision. The human mind typically inducts all +1 or -1 modifiers to be the same, but this isn't the case when the die rolls have a bell shaped distribution. This means you might take a risk you might otherwise ignore if it only has a moderate affect on your probability of success. You need to know when +1 means +10% and when -1 means -2%. This lets you take more rational risks, ones that are more optimal.

Kit uses this analysis to come up with a quick equation that can be used "on the fly" to determine whether you should take a particular action. All you need to know is your initial target number, your opponent's initial target number, and how much your action will affect each of these. This is a powerful tool that can be used in a number of games and will help the player play more efficiently.

One doesn't need to be a mathematician or statistician to utilize these tools either. Thankfully, there are plenty of mathematicians and statisticians who are willing to write their discoveries regarding a particular method, and put it in layman's terms. Perhaps Kit will follow up his article with one including specific examples of how his quick equation is used. Besides this, the massive number of Chess and Poker books available at bookstores is testimony to the fact that there are those willing to share optimal play. Likely because they like to play with others who care about playing well as much as they do. Take some time to find these resources, if only to find out more about how a game works.

There are many games, Dream Park I'm looking at you, that could have benefited a great deal if they told the players a little bit about the mathematics behind their opposed roll systems. Many a GM running Feng Shui has misinterpreted the significance of adding as little as 3 points to a villain's skill/statistic. It can change the dynamic from a fun night gaming, to one where the villain is impossible to defeat. In role playing games, GMing optimally, means understanding how changes in one part of the game affect the probabilities of success. In Candyland, playing optimally means not minding that the results are predetermined the moment the cards are shuffled -- though you don't know the result -- unless you shuffle the full deck after each move in order to intentionally create a Markov-chain.

Responding to Things We Think About Games -- Gaming Expectations: Heroic Endings or Doomed to Failure (Case Study One: Robotron 2084)

In 2008, game designers Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball released a very useful book entitled Things we Think About Games. The book contains 101 statements by the authors, with a couple of additional statements by guest gamers/designers. Some of the comments are common sense, some are blunt, and all are thought provoking. Things We Think About Games is a book that belongs on every gamer's bookshelf, and Will and Jeff's website belongs on every gamers rss feed.

At the San Diego Comic Con this year, I asked Jeff Tidball if he would allow me to write a series of posts featuring the statements from the book. Each blog post would be a gamer reacting to one of the statements in the book, and eventually I'd like to address all the statements made by the various game designers. I will also continually belabor the fact that Will and Jeff asked Wil Wheaton, and not me, to write the introduction to the book. While this is a common mistake, it is one that I will point out at every opportunity. Yes, Wheaton is more famous (and is in Secret of Nimh which I recommended as last week's Hulu recommendation), but I am less likely to use expletives.

This being a blog, and not a Thesis or Dissertation, I will address the statements in no particular order, but I do hope to address them all. Today's blog topic is inspired by the 101st entry in the book.

STATEMENT 101
Know Why You Play Games.

The statement is simple enough, and is a gamer's version of Oracle of Delphi's famous dictum Gnōthi sauton or "Know Thyself." It is a statement seems to have an underlying claim that some ludophile Socrates might adhere to, "the unexamined gaming experience isn't worth playing." That may, in one way, be the whole point of Hindmarch's and Tidball's book, but this quote provides a nice starting point for any discussion regarding games and spurs one on to think philosophically about the subject.

It was this thought that was lurking around my subconscious when I read an article at Gamasutra about Robotron 2084. The article is an historical article about the game and its legacy with regard to game play. A good amount of time is spent discussing the games innovative use of a two joystick system, an innovation that couldn't be accurately emulated in a "home experience" for many years. It makes for interesting reading, but there was one quote which mixed with STATEMENT 101 to inspire me to think about why I play games. The quote was a simple one, "The player is tasked with the grim, desperate, and ultimately futile task of saving the last family of Humanoids (emphasis added)."



Ultimately futile -- the words echoed in the back of my mind.

Why would I want to play a game that I cannot, no matter how skilled I get at it, "win?"

What particularly bothered me about this statement is that it pointed to a contradiction in my game playing habits. I have been a fan of Robotron 2084 for decades and have played it uncountable times. In that time my skill level has migrated, from poor to excellent to poor to average, depending on how often I have played the game during a given time period. I am not always in the mood for Robotron, but I never find the game -- as it was designed -- to be a bad game. As big a fan as I am of this particular futile effort, I was seriously disappointed by the end of Dawn Of War. After many hours of game play, and total victory over the forces of Chaos, I watched as all my hard work evaporated in a "1970s Satan has eaten your soul Bad ending" as my Space Marine Captain unwittingly released a new demon into the universe.

The futility of all my hard work playing Dawn of War was made clear to me during the final animated narrative sequence. Lucien Soulban's scripted ending undid everything I had struggled for in playing the game -- and it seriously aggravated me. I was all the more aggravated because an author/game designer I respect was the one who dropped the "futility bomb" on my head.

Why was I experiencing such a strong emotion that was, on its face, a contradictory sentiment to my thorough enjoyment of the equally futile Robotron 2084? To answer this, it was helpful to contemplate statement 101.

Why do I play games?

I play different games for a variety of reasons, but one reason that keeps me coming back is "story." I like the way that games, of all kinds, tell stories. It's one of the reasons I am a "good loser." I don't mind losing to someone who is better than me at Chess, all I want is my learning experience to be a good story. Candyland, with its pre-determined gameplay, taught me the importance of story in play and de-emphasized "winning." Both Robotron 2084 and Dawn of War contain story elements. Robotron's appear to be "weak" at first, but they are deeply embedded in gameplay -- if simple narratively. Both games contain narratives where the actions of the player, in the end, result in failure -- so there must be some element of the game and how it interacts with story that allows me to enjoy one in its entirety while feeling dissatisfied with the ending of the other.

Aha! It isn't the futile ending that is disappointing. It is the fact that the futile ending was not a part of game play -- it was a forced narrative tacked on to the end of the game. When the player inevitably loses in Robotron it is because the game has finally become too hard to finish, the game has literally beaten you. When you "lose" at the end of Dawn of War, it occurs after you have achieved "final victory." The contradiction lies in the interaction between the mechanics and the story -- a contradiction made even stronger by the underlying expectations of Real Time Strategy games. The underlying expectation of an RTS is that you can win, any advantage in supply or troops the computer opponent has is usually made up by an imperfect AI -- necessarily imperfect as a perfect AI would likely win all the time and lessen the fun.

Would I have felt differently if I had actually lost the final scenario of Dawn of War rather than have a scripted 70s ending? Not if the game had followed standard RTS genre conventions, the player "must" have a chance to win in the conventional. If the game progressed in a manner similar to other RTS games, each level getting slightly more difficult but winnable, with a final impossible level, the game would have likely been as unsatisfactory. This dissatisfaction would likely have been accentuated by the interstitial narrative clips.

On the other hand, if the game lacked interstitial clips and the narrative left only to game play I would probably have accepted an unwinnable level. At least possibly, especially if I knew going in that the game eventually becomes unwinnable as each level becomes more difficult than the last. But that isn't the central conceit of an RTS campaign, the central conceit of an RTS campaign is that the player is unlocking a heroic narrative. In this case, each victory leads to a new chapter in the hero's tale. A hero can hit a low point, like the one at the end of Dawn of War, but that ought not be the end of the story. In this case, it is. There is no sequel to the narrative, though there are many sequels to the game. My Blood Angels forever stand defeated in their victory, where my mutant defender of humanity just ends up dead after finally facing overwhelming odds.

I think it would be interesting for someone to design an RTS where each level becomes more difficult than the last, with no end in sight. Then the story changes from how my victory was taken from me, to how far I was able to get and who is able to get to the farthest level. I think I might prefer traditional RTS games -- with victorious endings -- to that "futile" RTS, but given my love of Robotron 2084 I'd probably like that killer RTS more than the end of Dawn of War because the ending would be driven by the mechanics of the game.

I don't mind losing when it's a part of the rules, but I hate losing when I won fair and square.

Jess Hartley Provides Convention Advice for the Aspiring Game Professional

It is a maxim that every Game Master is a game designer to one degree or another.

It is also a maxim that every Game Master believes that he or she is a good enough designer to make a living making games and supplements.

The hard truth is that not every Game Master has what it takes to make a great gaming product, even when he or she is a wonderful Game Master. Additionally, there are some very talented designers out there in the gaming community who lack the confidence and experience to properly sell themselves to game companies who could use their talents. Sadly, there is a dearth of really great resources for advice for the aspiring game designer.

Okay, I hear you disagreeing already. There are a few tomes on Game Design Theory that reference bizarre sounding names like Huizinga and DeKoven. There are also hundreds of books covering Game Design for computer games. Then there are the "how to work for company x" panels at conventions and the recent Mongoose product "I am Mongoose and So Can You."

But even with all these resources, there is still a dearth really great resources for advice for the aspiring game designer...on how to acquire a career in the gaming industry. Truth be told, when you look at how many of today's giants in the gaming field became game designers there are a seemingly endless variety of paths to becoming a game designer -- and little guidance. Do I work in the warehouse shipping out games like Greg Costikyan did? Do I send my game setting in as a submission to a major company? Do I submit articles to their online/print magazine? Do I write some of the most rigorously researched campaign compilation material ever imagined for free consumption on the internet?

There are a hundred different stories to tell, each is different and none are really helpful to the mildly socially awkward individual that is your average gamer.

What is the best way to get that foot in the door and start building a professional relationship with a company you might want to work with? One answer, though certainly not THE answer, is to use the convention circuit as a "job interview" resource. It can be a daunting prospect and one that might make you nervous, but if you talk to most gaming professionals they will let you know that many business decisions are made at conventions or based on convention experiences.

This is where Jess Hartley's "GenCon for the Aspiring Professional" comes in handy. This sixteen page document provides a veritable crash course on "pitching" behavior at conventions, and its information can easily be applied to other situations. The document is a nice step by step guide of things to consider, things to bring, things to say, and things not to say. It must reading for anyone who wants to work in the gaming industry.

Jess knows what of she writes too. She is a veteran game designer who has worked on a number of wonderful products. She has worked on game related fiction -- including Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas (as a Savage Worlds fan any one who writes for the Pinebox setting gets bonus esteem points in my patented gaming professional esteem-o-meter 2500). Additionally, she has been a central author in White Wolf Games new generation line of World of Darkness products and their exciting Scion game line. She is also one of the contributors to Green Ronin's upcoming Family Games: The 100 Best.

If you're interested in working in the games industry, check out Jess's pamphlet. You might also want to check out her excellent website which features a fun advice column entitled "One Geek to Another."

My only complaint about the website is that the "heading banner" doesn't have an embedded link to the home page. The link is on the side banner, but I like clicking on the header.