An RPG is a game where the fiction is part of the rules
Neel Krishnaswami said, once upon a time in a post I cannot now find, that an RPG is a game where the fiction is part of the rules. I thought it was a very smart statement indeed.
The thing this says to me is that when you’re playing an RPG (and thus when you’re thinking about designing play) options are not limited to (one might even suggest are not always primarily located) in the mechanics, rules, and dice. The positioning of a character in the fiction, control over elements of the fictional world, and how and when and where characters come on and off screen are all powerful tools not just for telling a story, but for playing tactically in a game.
Here’s an example from a recent discussion about a Dog’s game by John (jenskot):
Vincent and I played Dogs in the Vineyard. I played this pissed off kid who had daddy issues. My initiation conflict was, “Do I shoot my dad………. for a second time?” I had a chip on my shoulder for having a dead beat drunk of a father.
Later, some crazy kid is running around causing all forms of un-heavenly chaos. I flip out and confront the kid’s mom ready to beat her down in a conflict over me chastising her for raising such an awful boy. Vincent sees my raise with the mom saying, “I had to raise him all alone without a father.” Holy crap! He hit my buttons perfectly with narration and even though I was kicking ass mechanically I had to give on the conflict.
It also isn’t just about tactical play. Its about ongoing play and continuity and narrative authority and all the rest. As Ron (the Devil Himself) Edwards recently said about Sorcerer:
As I keep saying, and which people only really understand once they’ve been through a few games, Sorcerer resolution and narration is very contingent on things that were narrated or established earlier in play - often which were not presented with any intention of being so important later. That’s the key concept, I think, that keeps judgments about “is intensive care available” away from GM fiat. That question should not be answered by whether the GM suddenly invents a team of paramedics who dash in from off-screen; it should instead be answered by checking around all the details and circumstances of that particular location in the setting. Given all that, is intensive care available? That question can usually be answered without controversy.
Now, I don’t know if Ron would say that the fiction is the important part of the rules there. But when I read it, that certainly is what I think. The things that we’ve made together, the fiction, is the binding rule that keeps these things together, that positions them and determines what is going to happen. We do not, at that point in Sorcerer, go to dice to see who has the right to narrate about intensive care — because it is about the fiction we’ve all created together, and not narration rights determined by dice.
Furthermore this means that when you’re playing an RPG it isn’t always an issue of if fiction or mechanics lead or follow. Most of the time there is going to be a more subtle interplay, and I have a feeling we miss a lot of it. Big chunky conch-passing rules with stakes resolution often make it seem like what is going on is simple, but even in those games I don’t think it actually is.
Now, for me and my group a strong fictional statement has as much weight as something coming from the mechanics, even in games where mechanics lead the fiction. And in games where it doesn’t, I either have to change gears about what it is I’m doing (like I start thinking of the game as a board game without a board, and then can have a lot of fun), or I get bored and annoyed. Which, I think, is one of my growing discontents with games whose rules mostly revolve around who gets narration rights. I don’t find narrations rights and simple stakes resolution interesting — I want something that spins in and around the fiction, something that pushes fictional statements forward rather than relegating them to the role of “mere color.”
Now, this can all be tricky, especially as there often isn’t one fiction in an RPG. Instead there is a lot of stuff from a lot of different points of view, all of which lays in and around each other in different layers. As the brilliant Emily Care-Boss recently said:
“Continuity is short-hand for a large, un-manageable piece of shared, vaguely overlapping mass of experiences interpreted as a narrative.”
So you know what I like? Things that help us keep all those pieces together, that help us develop a narrative and agree about it in some part. The trick about that is that those things don’t have to be mechanics and dice. They can also be lists and guidelines. For example, In A Wicked Age doesn’t tell have the dice tell you when endgame is going to happen (in contrast to, say, My Life With Master), but it does have a list of things that will indicate to you that a chapter is over. And that list, shock and surprise, mostly says “when the fiction tells you its over, and here are how to recognize the signs.” Which is also the kind of thing I was doing with my “A Way To Structure a Narrative Game” post — things about watching the fiction without having to have it mechanically enforced.
And no, it doesn’t have to be dice free or mechanics free, it just has to have some cognizance of how it is that it is working with the fiction. Sorcerer and Trollbabe and In A Wicked Age all do this in different ways, as does Spirit of the Century (in a whole different paradigm) and Nobilis (in yet another paradigm). I don’t think its an accident that all of those games are hot in my brain right now.
P.S. Jonathan Walton just tipped me to Sweet Agatha by Kevin Allen jr. I’m not sure what I think about it yet, but I do have to say that I enjoy his exploration. In some ways I think he may be headed off in a direction almost the opposite of what I’m talking about here and at the same time opposite to what a lot of mechanically conditioned games are doing. Diversity is wicked cool.
So, the thing is that I think the words “tactical play” are more central to this than the narrative focus might indicate. On a practical level, that engagement with the fiction is the heart of tactical play. Our fiction agrees that it’s hard to fight a guy behind you, so I’m going to move to get a bonus to hit by engaging that element of the fiction.
I think I’m now trying to find a clear way to express how that differs between, say, D&D and Amber. I mean, it’s obvious when you see it, but it’s difficult to express without dismissing one or the other.
(All that said, man, if paramedics aren’t fiat because the table has a shared understanding and the GM’s decision doesn’t raise good flags, that suggests that fiat is so subjective as to be kind of useless as a descriptor. If the problem is that the GM is violating the sense of fiction, then the problem isn’t that he has power, the problem is that he sucks)
Rob,
Also the words “tactical play.” Like, you’d be amazed how many times the first draft said “tactical play” until I realized the words wouldn’t mean anything like the same thing to different folks reading them.
For example, getting behind someone is tactical play — but could be done by miniatures on a map. Convincing Luke that you are his father is also tactical play — but not so doable on a map.
I’m really wishing now I hadn’t used the words at all and had stuck with positioning and focus, or similar terms. Because those work both for narrative and for tactics, without quite so much baggage included.
I think one of the things to look at is maybe in this kind of sense: If you’re looking to maximize your fun and involvement in a game, what different modes do you take in a freeform text chat game, Amber, D&D, Shadows Over Camelot, and Civilization 4? What is it you are actually doing there and how are you relating to the fiction (if there is a fiction) in each of those?
See I’m in a Mage the Awakening game right now in which my character has fewer dice in a lot of areas than the other bad-asses at the table. (I’ve been playing for one cycle, where some of the other PCs were in for two and have more XP.) Despite this I’m terribly, terribly effective at the game without the usual scape-goats of “bullying” or “social pressure” or “fiat” simply because I have a very clear vision of my character, know what he wants, what I want for him, and when to introduce him into a scene and when to keep him off stage. That simple positioning in the fiction makes the character a force to fear where dice, fiat, social status, and other issues wouldn’t.
Oh, as to the Fiat or not in the quote from Ron… it does show how much the word “fiat” means different things to different people. For some “fiat” is anything that doesn’t come right out of the dice. Just say something? FIAT! For others “fiat” comes only when the GM does somethiing you don’t like. Which is pretty much the way “railroading” gets used by some folks.
However, I do find an internal consistency in the way Ron said it that I very much like. For me, it has to do with who gets to contribute what to the fiction and when, and what role that plays in the flow of the game. The example he gives is not Fiat in that sense because it isn’t essentially about the GM making a decision and having a first and final say, which of course isn’t final because the players can whine about it or put social pressure on it. It is, instead, about the group as a whole checking their mutually authored fiction and coming to a consensus. If the GM is the final arbiter of that consensus or not probably doesn’t matter so much. It isn’t the GM making up the fiction, it is the group using its own fiction as binding and building over time.
So if we’re sitting around and I’m making up most of the fiction and you’re mostly just reacting to it, and then you’re down and bleeding and you look to me and say “shit, can we get medical help” and I just say “yes” or “no” then.. yea, I’ve kinda got a fiat power there. I get to just make it up. I may well, if I’m a good GM, be making it up based on what makes sense in the fiction, but its still really me having first and full say (unless someone else whines about it). If, otoh, we’ve all been equally contributing to the fiction and then you say “shit, can we get medical help” and we kinda toss it about as a group, looking back at things we’ve done in the game, and I say “I don’t think so, we’re out in the middle of the Australian outback and there has been no sign of qualified professionals the whole game” then its less fiat. Its about what we’ve done together, even if I happen to be the one making the call at the moment.
(I’ve no idea if this is what Ron was getting at or not. Its just what I think about the issue.)
On the contrary, I think it’s _great_ baggage and I;m glad you used the term. I think there’s a lot of power to the bad in finding the synergy between those different priorities - they have so many things in common that I think their differences might be useful to kick.
Heh, I don’t know that I agree fully, but fuck it, lets go ahead and see what we come up with!
Here is one of my favorite tactics that works in an RPG due to fictional position: I screw my own characters blue. I fuck up their lives, destroy their egos, and burn down their bars. Anything the GM offers as adversity I jump on and let it punch me in the throat. I one-down my own character until everyone at the table is worried about them. And then I stage a come back.
The tactics of this are probably obvious: it has to do with controlling your own opposition, gaining buy in, building a sense of giving the GM what they wanted (which works well with games that do things like Fate point compels), and — if you do it right and make your character a human being — you get everyone rooting for you when you come back from the bottom.
Its crude, and obviously doesn’t work for all games, but its a pretty common fictional positioning tactic.
On Fiat, I think it highlights a distinction between how much power the GM has and how much power the GM _uses_, but I think you’re right that it gets used in different ways. If fiat means misuse, then sure, that’s a problem, but conversationally I seem to see fiat defined as the GM having the capability to abuse power, and the solution that comes from that is to remove the power, not fix the behavior, and that’s problematic.
Oh, I agree.
Actually, and this is where I piss people off, I think there is a trend in some game design to be about stopping bad play rather than encouraging good play. A lot of things seem to hit points of “how do I stop this asshole from ruining the game” and less points of “how do I subtly provoke people to address judgement, without actually forcing them to do it?”
A lot of games feel rather handcuffy to me, personally, because I’m less interested in avoiding the bad than in finding the good. I do not believe in a value-neutral table without complexity of human interaction, and so I don’t believe in games that try to achieve that.
Ok, looking at the tactics, This might be where the utility is going to be found. I’m going to make a potentially spurious assertion - Tactics are a clear (possibly the clearest) revelation of the player’s play goals.
from another angle, tactics are the foundation of player empowerment - they presume that there is some cause an effect over and above an entirely capricious and arbitrary on the GM’s part. They are the reasonable expectation that you can predict an outcome of an action, which in turn allows the player to feel better about making decisions.
Dammit, I feel like there’s an iceberg under here.
Rob,
Iceburg, yes.
Tactics, yes and…
See, tactics work that way in as much as play goals are a defined, consistent thing that are whole unto themselves. Play with players who aren’t sure about what they want, or have goals that radically shift from game to game and it becomes problematic. But even with more or less consistent and self-aware players, the truth is that goals shift from time to time and often there are multiple goals at odds with each other.
Presentation, social pressure, mechanical pressure, and other issues also change goals. If you have someone in a D&D game who wants to tell a story about a character who gets kicked around at first but then comes back (that fictional tactic I talked about above) you’re going to find out in short order that’s probably a very bad idea. After that the pressure of the game system may get you working in gamist mode, or it may just get you into the mode of “protect all my shit or it could be taken away from me.”
All of this is just to say that tactics are things of the moment. They are about what you’re going for right now, in exactly this situation. I think what you may be looking at in some way is more like player strategies — the way players attain goals over the long term, and how they decide what those goals should be and how that relates to the various pressures around the game.
And if you want to talk about strategies of play, well, shit… I’m into that. But its a topic that gives me vertigo, cause it covers huge amounts of ground.
Still, I think the grounds of distinction is fuzzier than that specifically because players are not always aware of their own goals in any long term sense, and sometimes work against their own stated goals.
This gets into some weird space of whether or not the reality of what the player is really after can be found in the moment or in the long view. The answer’s probably both, of course, but it’s kind of a crazy train of thought.
It’s like quantum physics. The cat is alive and dead.
I must think more on this.
Brand - this is a great post, as was your narrative-structure post beforehand.
When I was writing up TV Action, I found that I wanted to put in all the stuff about structuring TV-style episodes as a kind of mechanic. It’s not something that ever asserts authority over play - it doesn’t make you roll dice at certain times or distribute authority this way or that way or whatever - but it is a shared understanding of the fiction that is binding.
It is definitely rules-text to me, even though it states explicitly that every part of what it says can be defied or ignored. These two posts give me more comprehension of what that was about.
[...] We Ready to Lead with the Fiction? This is largely a response to Brand’s post about fiction being part of the rules which, I think, came partially out of our conversation about Vincent Baker’s In a Wicked [...]
That is a really great point!
It looks like you’re writing from a bit of an embattled perspective. (Do you expect people to vocally disagree? It doesn’t really seem likely.) I have been thinking about the things which may give rise to the sentimentality of being embattled in your own blog.
As I detailed here, I think you’re simply working from a different approach. Specifically, one where apportioning credibility and authority simply isn’t the point.
I really like where you’re going with this! May I request that you continue with this in future blog posts? I would find it very interesting to hear you explore some examples of what you did in the MtA game and how you might clarify different concepts used in those examples.
Truly fascinating!
Fang Langford
The subject of this post is the insight I had when I tried to make a competitive RPG (Power/Evil, for those who remember it from the Forge). I realized after the first draft that the fiction had NO impact on how the game was going. And that, by all intents and purposes, that disqualified it from my own previously unspoken definition of what an RPG is. After all, that’s the advantage TTRPGs have over CRPGs and MMORPGs.
And that’s when I started working on Beast Hunters–to fully leverage that what makes TTRPGs special.
I claim some of this iceberg. Even if I can’t describe the part under the water, either. I think that the above about tactics and goals is semantic gobbledygook unfortunately. But don’t stop. At this point it seems that all we have is semantic gobbledygook to work with. That’s all I’ve been tossing about lately, it seems, in some ways.
But Christian gets it right above, in identifying one of the main parts of what we’re all talking about here. And that’s the strange feeling that if play becomes solidly tactical, that is when it’s about players showing off their skills by manipulating the rules of the game into strategies, it often feels like the fiction doesn’t any longer matter. That it’s simply color laid upon the rules for kicks, and that the activity could go on with as much ability to determine player value as if there were no color at all.
And the question becomes, “where’s the link?” At what point does narration positioning actually start to matter? Does the timing matter in Vader’s revealing to Luke that he is his father? If so, how is that determined?
I have a question about this, that seems to get at the crux of the issue, but which probably still only hints at the iceberg. Is it that the GM or some player gets to make a judgment at some point regarding a declared action, an arbitrary judgement, that gives a mechanical effect, that makes the connection between fiction and the mechanics? Or, again, is that notion only indicative of the iceberg somehow?
For a zen moment, think about the games from these guys: http://www.looneylabs.com/whybuy/treehouse.html
The pyramid games. One of the things that they try to incorporate into such games is the idea of the games being without turns. Any player can make any move at any time. What’s fascinating is that, and it hasn’t been proven yet, but there are many boardgame theorists who figure that these games are somehow broken. But they can’t explain why.
RPGs are like this, but worse. Not only can you make a move at any time, it can be anything. Worse, whether or not you’re included in a scene, and other very “meta” things of that nature determine if you actually can make a move. We’re very much limited by the fiction in that the GM usually stands there to veto implausible moves. But do we avoid them because they’re implausible, or because we feel likely to be vetoed.
This is the “Sim” problem. Are we exploring, or preventing bad feelings by adhering to some quality of “plausibility” or such, so that we don’t have to deal with “gamey-ness?”
Fang’s work is seminal in this area in that it boldly has attemtped to say, “We can compete now, and do the other thing later, and here’s how we can systematically deal with that.” But does the fundamental problem of fiction meeting mechanics create a situation where we simply can’t mix these elements functionally?
From one perspective, isn’t this just El Dorado approached from a different angle? From another, couldn’t we ask, isn’t all fictional play bogus? Maybe we should go back to boardgames, or just write novels?
Mike
Hm. This topic seems somehow familiar. Oh right, I was run off of story-games when I proposed it, because it didn’t include D&D and WoW.