Quote from: estarI thinking more of a toolkit approach not some type of uber-theory. Stuff that goes "If you want to do ... ".

Software development has a problem in that nobody has a straightforward way of writing software of arbeitary complexity. Beyond a certain it become an art. However there are things called algorithms and patterns that are useful to a programmer. They are used as a building block to make the final software. Algorithms and patterns nearly always start out as "If you want to do X"

What I am talking about is algorithms and patterns for GMs. Something beyond the traditional "Don't be a dick to your players" advice. A GM can then combine them to get the game he wants to run for his players.

Uncle Bear used to have a collection of GMing articles a ways back - I never read any, as I'm happy with the way I GM - and have no way of knowing if it is still there. He's a member here, though he doesn't post much. Maybe that would help?

-clash

Ryan:

You're slowing making more and more sense to me as you talk more and more about examples and play (or preparation) in action.

In fact, I'm starting to nod along, a bit, now.  I still don't see this line of thinking as revolutionary, or anything, but it does sound like a solid and fruitful line of stuff to explore.

Quote from: flyingmiceUncle Bear used to have a collection of GMing articles a ways back - I never read any, as I'm happy with the way I GM - and have no way of knowing if it is still there. He's a member here, though he doesn't post much. Maybe that would help?

Thanks I will see if I can find them.

To continue my thoughts, would the RPG industry improve it we all started making products that are easy to GM and help teach new players the techniques and tricks experienced guys know. I am not talking about making another "Robin Laws Guide to Gamemastering". Or intro adventures that one step away from a choose your own adventure book. More altering the format what we are currently using for setting books and adventure away from stories and more toward giving options.

Quote from: RPGPunditNevertheless, it now leads me to question why Ryan would call it "story" at all; both from the strategic point of view of knowing that he would inevitably have ended up having his points confused with the conflicts regarding those other two ideas about story, and given that what he seems to be talking about is more to do with the elaboration of Characters, than with anything resembling what people normally think of as "story" (ie. creating a novel or a tv script or something like that, with all the consistency and structure those things demand; stuff that doesn't translate well to RPGs at all).

Two answers:  First, my target audience is "people who play RPGs", not "people who debate RPG theory on the internet".  For the vast majority of people in the player network, using the term "story" is pretty clear.  The biggest confusion point I think is with the Storyteller System, and if I come up with a clever solution to that problem I'm gonna take it.  But for now, I'm sticking with clarity over clever.

Second, while so far we've been discussing primarily matters related to characters, my vision is much larger than that.  When the discussion enlarges to start discussing rights of directing and narration, as well as acting, I expect to get lots of pushback.  So far, most of the debate is with people approaching the idea from the standpoint of players who want to make sure they don't have their play patterns disrupted without any reward (or skepticism that there is any value in even bothering to experiment at all).  When the power & authority of the classic DM is fully challenged, I think we'll hear from people for whom control of the game world is a key value to how they derive fun (i.e. they like playing "the god game").

Ryan

Quote from: RSDanceyWhen the power & authority of the classic DM is fully challenged, I think we'll hear from people for whom control of the game world is a key value to how they derive fun (i.e. they like playing "the god game").

Why do you think a group can do the job better in this regard? How can you be sure that the problem isn't due to lack of knowledge or skill on the DM's part. Whether they are a group or an individual it is going to suck if they don't how to make the game they want.

I have to admit Ryan is sounding more and more sensible as he goes along, putting my mind at ease somewhat that he hasn't fallen to the dark side of pretentious self-serving wankery.

Nevertheless, a significant question remains: there are a lot of systems other than D&D (some of them quite old, like GURPS or Champions) that already incorporate all of the sort of things you're talking about; and yet D&D with its equal starting point and PCs-as-adventurers-not-family-men as default has continued to dominate the market.

Surely, if what the majority of gamers wanted to do was to play a character with deep social ties, those other games would have either outsold D&D or D&D would have ended up integrating those sorts of ideas earlier, right?

Also, JHKim in his own backwards way brings some good points into the mix; I'm sure he thinks it would be fine and dandy that PCs get to start being the son of a King for "story's sake"; but what about those of us who find the challenge of the game more important; should players be allowed to shit all over game balance because they want to create a good "story" (or rather, want to use "story" as an excuse to create a character that will outshine everyone else)?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RSDanceyWhen the power & authority of the classic DM is fully challenged, I think we'll hear from people for whom control of the game world is a key value to how they derive fun (i.e. they like playing "the god game").

And from the players whose sense of immersion is a key value to how they derive fun, and whose sense of immersion will be ruined if they have creative control of anything more than their PCs.

Quote from: RSDanceyWhen the power & authority of the classic DM is fully challenged, I think we'll hear from people for whom control of the game world is a key value to how they derive fun (i.e. they like playing "the god game").

Ryan, you're either communicating very poorly, or you're contradicting yourself. Maybe it's a matter of scale and timing.

I.e., since this all basically boils down to "what does 'the main network' of RPG players really want", if you're talking about things like pitching a campaign and then going back & forth with the players on background and fitting the PCs into the action, or even some light intentions-based task resolution, I think you'll find a fair amount of enthusiasm among RPGers--perhaps most among those groups that you think are "immune" to the pull of computer games.

But talking about "the god game", once more conjures up images of players doing "neat stuff" like establishing major twists to the situation in ways their character couldn't even intend much less bring about. While there's undoubtedly a spectrum of tastes, I think you'll find that if you push it, you'll end up fracturing your "network" over this issue. E.g., I think some players of traditional RPGs would appreciate the ability, when in extremis to call on a "luck" ability and, say, have the daughter of the villain take pity on them and help them escape from a dungeon cell. I believe you'll have far less success "selling" the idea that a player who makes a successful "investigation" roll will be able to declare that the enemy's army of undead has a heretofore unestablished vulnerability, or that the President is really a Red Lectroid, etc.

EDIT: What Haffrung said.

Quote from: HaffrungAnd from the players whose sense of immersion is a key value to how they derive fun, and whose sense of immersion will be ruined if they have creative control of anything more than their PCs.

Correct.  I don't want authorial control over the setting.  I want control over my character and want the setting to respond to my character as if it were a real place.

I think there will also be objection from other types of players who are not interested in authorial control, either.

Quote from: John MorrowI think there will also be objection from other types of players who are not interested in authorial control, either.

The lazy, for starters. Hanging around internet RPG forums, you'd get the impression that everyone who plays RPGs is either a frustrated world-builder, budding game-designer, or wannabe novelist. That may be true for a lot of GMs, but in most groups I've see the GM is the hardcore gamer and the players are more casual players who aren't itching to take on more responsibility for running the game. GMs aren't people who jealously hoard authority - they're people have to take on responsibilities and work that most gamers simply don't want.

Quote from: HaffrungThe lazy, for starters.

I prefer to call them casual players.

Quote from: HaffrungGMs aren't people who jealously hoard authority - they're people have to take on responsibilities and work that most gamers simply don't want.

Yup.  And the advantage over video games is not only that the GM is more flexible than any MMORPG software but also that the players don't have to master any sort of interface or buy any special hardware to play.

It's nice to have a bag of generic mooks.

Quote from: RPGPunditSurely, if what the majority of gamers wanted to do was to play a character with deep social ties, those other games would have either outsold D&D or D&D would have ended up integrating those sorts of ideas earlier, right?

It may get me in a lot of hot water, but I think that in general, D&D has always been "the best" RPG.  Mechanically, it has struck a better balance between various competing agendas than most other games, and it has been updated regularly enough that it has remained reasonably close to the front edge of game design theory (although it got pretty long in the tooth in 2E).

Most other games have started life by saying "this game is different from D&D because..." (even if sometimes the word "different" is replaced by "better").  By moving off of D&D's baseline, the result has been to miss that subtle point of balance that D&D has always intuitively hit, with a reduced player network as a result.

That balance point was based on the old 4+1 player segmentation.  If the community becomes a 3+1 network, D&D's balance point will fail.  And that is what I am predicting will happen.

There's a challenge to losing the Power Gamers.  They serve as a force to push things forward.  They're little engines of pacing.  Without them, games bog down.  The Power Gamer's need to always be doing something helps to keep the overall group focused on forward progress.  Mechanically, D&D does not have much support to generate that force.  It has always simply been a covert assumption that the players provided the motive force.  In their absence, we'll want to consider ways to make "pacing" something that happens by design, not by accident.

However, the Power Gamers also bring a lot of baggage to the table.  They tend to "break" things.  Power Gamers don't like character-driven rationales for making sub-optimal choices.  Groups with Power Gamers are also groups that fight against a subtle tension to keep the Power Gamer under control, lest the game devolve into an environment where everyone else has to behave like the Power Gamer to avoid being dominated.  D&D does have lots of rules designed to constrain that behavior, rules that inadvertently also limit the creative abilities of players who might otherwise be able to moderate their competitive instincts towards a common goal of shared fun.  A redesign that begins by losing the assumption that certain kinds of activity must be strictly regulated will produce interesting new approaches.

So my argument is not "change for change's sake".  My argument is "let's project the impact of change that is going to happen no matter what we do, and try to get out in front of it and benefit from those changes wherever possible."

QuoteWhat about those of us who find the challenge of the game more important; should players be allowed to shit all over game balance because they want to create a good "story" (or rather, want to use "story" as an excuse to create a character that will outshine everyone else)?

Ah, now we come to the heart of the matter.  How do we generate balanced play and fun play in a world where everything that is not forbidden is permitted, vs. the world we have now, where everything that is not permitted is forbidden?

I'm going to honestly tell you that right now I don't have answers to all the potential questions.  I'm going to work on generating those answers as I work.  I find that for me, the process of setting my thoughts down in writing, sharing that with others, and debating the material tends to help me generate solutions to problems.  My instincts are that my brain has good ideas on how to solve these problems, but to get them into some kind of communicable form, work needs to be done first.

I can sort of feel the guidelines that shape those ideas now.  I have a sense that there's an aesthetic power to the idea of a shared story experience that doesn't exist in the DM vs. Player (or DM owns world, Player owns Character if you prefer) mode of play.  I think that defining that aesthetic will help create limits mutually acceptable to all the participants.  I think that we need to evolve rules of group decision making that supersede individual decision making when there is intra-participant conflict.  And I think that we can create "costing models" so that people have to make economic decisions (here I am using economics in its broadest sense, that of balancing risk vs. reward) and don't feel like there are never consequences for selfish actions.

One of the things I like about Ron Edwards' thoughts about game theory is that he identified a number of dysfunctions which I accept on the basis of personal observation.  There are certain kinds of behavior, and certain kinds of people who can be extremely disruptive of the game group.  I think we can learn a lot about how healthy game groups work by considering the kinds of dysfunctions that sometimes infect them.  From that analysis we may be able to develop rule-based safeguards to help avoid those kinds of problems in a more open ended, less constrained story telling mode than what D&D uses as its baseline.

So in summary:  Answer hazy, ask again later.

Ryan

Ryan...

This may sound totally odd, but have you considered the possibility of games where the authority structure actually changes during play based on group choice?  

So, for example, there might be one structure for times when "GM plays the setting" (exploration), a different one for "We're making story together" (authorial), and yet another for "GM as the enemy" (adversarial), with smooth transitions between them.

This is something I'm screwing around with right now, and it...   certainly has an effect on the landscape, so to speak.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenThis may sound totally odd, but have you considered the possibility of games where the authority structure actually changes during play based on group choice?  

Yes, I absolutely have.  I think that there are times when it makes sense for everyone to be involved in everything, and times when it makes sense for there to be advantages to hidden knowledge.  I think that sometimes you want a "banker", and sometimes you want a "referee", and sometimes you want a "judge".  Flowing seamlessly between various modes will be key to success, in my opinion.

Ryan