More topics

"Creative Agenda" -

Playing to win vs.

Playing because it's what my character would do vs.

Playing to tell a good story vs.

What other reasons do we play?

Mention that "playing to tell a good story" often backfires.

Idea for a book

I discovered that a handful of people have been playing these newfangled role-playing games that emphasize collaborative storytelling and improv acting over tactical combat and when I started playing them decided they were some of the most fun I've ever had. Now, maybe that's just because of my own tastes, my own freak flag ... some have suggested that imagination is in short supply these days and these games rely on an abundance of it. But I refuse to believe that. We're born with vivid imaginations - my two year old daughter can see a rocketship in the clouds - ("zoom", she says) - and maybe they atrophy in later life but surely we don't lose them forever. Surely anyone can enjoy these games as much as I do.

Why are these games fun?

Imagine reading a novel or some serialized fiction - and being able to add to it yourself, and maybe even edit or rewrite parts you don't like. The show never jumps the shark, because you're there to make sure it doesn't.

Imagine being able to invent a whole story in a single one to four hour session.

Don't have time for a hobby? Unlike older role-playing games, these games don't require any preparation. You don't have to prepare a dungeon or read a module beforehand - you can just show up and play.

The 'acting' component of these games is like karaoke - you're performing in front of other people, but nobody is judging you. It's okay to ham it up, to suck - you get to be the center of attention for a moment and then pass it on.

When you've played board and tactical and computer games as long as I have, you start to notice that they all boil down to, basically, math. Weighing short-term vs. long-term rewards in various resources, odds, statistics.

I love doing this so much I want to share it with the world. I don't see why our community is so small. So I thought I'd make an introductory game - I called it That's Drama - designed just for people who are new to this kind of gaming.

The game didn't work. It was fun when I played it with my friends, but when I sent it out to some volunteers willing to blindtest it, they didn't get it. They didn't have fun. One player said, "I bet this game would be good if you're a good storyteller, but I'm not." Which was a little heartbreaking for me to hear - I thought good storytelling would emerge from the game simply from the interactions of the players and the rules, but it didn't. Instead of sharing my favorite thing with the world, I ended up turning away some people from it.

Now - why was that?

The answer was in my friend Mark Nau's google post:

There is a fictional world where the major national sports are ArenaSlay, BruiseBall, and PunchFest. Points are awarded each team for different goals, and winners are announced and heralded.

I would prefer a totally different game experience and so invent Free Expression Basketball, kinda like normal basketball (an unheard of game in this fictional world) except there is no scoreboard and no winner announced. I try the game out with some like-minded friends and we talk about the game and tinker with the rules and it works.

I invite another friend over to play. First play, he tackles the ball handler, punches him in the face, takes the ball away, and then shoots it through the hoop. "I win!"

"Don't play with jackasses" is not the appropriate response. You were a bad designer, and continue to be one so long as that is your answer.

I asked him exactly what he meant by this post and he said:

I'm objecting to the all-too-common failure of some people in the indie RPG community to face up to the fact that they often make games that only people with a certain type of training operating under a certain set of common assumptions can enjoy.

And now I understand. There are some rules--or maybe guidelines, nothing as strict as rules--to this kind of gaming, that makes it sing. These guidelines are very rarely written in the game books themselves. They are often rules that people who enjoy these sorts of games know implicitly - they may not even be able to put on paper.

These guidelines can spread virally - if I play a game with someone who knows how to play these games, I can follow his example, and suddenly I know how to play the game too, again, possibly without even being able to articulate it. But not everyone gets to learn by playing with someone else - what about an isolated group of people who want to try out this new 'story gaming' thing - and so they buy a game off the shelf (or the internet) and then try it out and it falls flat?

Graham Walmsley, with his book Play Unsafe, has captured some of these guidelines on paper. In a way, every story game out there should also point to his book, because a good chunk of it is stuff you need to know to 'story game.'

Graham's book is great - but could we go further? His book is geared more to experienced role-players - what about complete novices? And his book covers the basics, but what about the more advanced subtleties and nuances that people frequently discuss on story-games.com?

By the way, I'm including 'story game' in quotes because there's a schism among the community about whether we should even call this kind of gaming 'story gaming.' Some say it's just role-playing with a different emphasis, and we don't need a new name for it. Even D&D is a story game if played with this mindset. Others like to differentiate - because we get a qualitatively different thrill out of this kind of gaming than we do from others, we want to let people know that it is something different. If D&D isn't your thing, 'story gaming' still might be.

Here's some topics the book would cover, some of which is stolen from Play Unsafe.

The core: overcoming blank-page syndrome.

- Yes, and or Yes, but

- Go obvious

- Random Inspiration

- Asking questions

- Loaded vs unloaded

- Provocative vs weaving the fictive dream

- Lines and veils - "No one gets hurt"

Advanced techniques

- Antagonism 101

- Agreeing on initial setting and genre, for games that don't

- Beyond lines & veils - "I will not abandon you"

- A survey of conflict resolution

- Conflict in the fiction

- Conflict at the table

The Games

- Fiasco

- Geiger Counter

- Archipelago