10 by 10 room

In a brainstorming RPGnet thread on mixing D&D and, um, communism, brianm came up with an interesting scenario…

First, you make firearms as dangerous in the game as they are in real life. Bullets penetrate any mundane armours, so your AC is based only on dodge and magical bonuses. Second, give muskets exploding damage dice, meaning any roll of the maximum on damage gets you another roll, added to the first, until you stop rolling the max number. Finally, give a volley bonus, so that groups of musketeers are more dangerous than the same number of individuals.

Now you have a recipe for replacing those uppity heroes with common folk. You also have the makings of the birth of the modern nation-state.

To play epic-level heroes at this historical moments sound to me like a very awesome idea.

From Zak Arntson, both an rpg author and video game developer, comes this fantastic essay: Story Now in Game Design.

At its simplest, Story Now in a video game would be the following:

1. Present an emotionally compelling situation which allows for a response.
2. Accomodate different responses.
3. Allow these responses to have different effects on ensuing gameplay.

This is really a fantastic article, and it’s worth reading the whole thing if you have interest in game design in any field, digital or acoustic. There’s even detail about how to make the algorithms work to implement “Story Now” concepts into video games.

From Malcolm Shepherd’s new “Shooting Dice” blog: Getting Real About RPGs and Mainstream Culture. A lot of intersting points, including a skewering the two most common modes of rpgs:

RPG design usually picks one of two routes. We either get well-defined complexity or vague simplicity. Neither of these fly with people who aren’t going to get fannish over it.

Here’s the originating RPGnet thread: RPGs need their Neil Gaiman…

The idea is that he managed to make comics more acceptable to the mainstream, albeit by rebranding them as “graphic novels”. So there’s a wish by some (which Malcolm, above, feels is misguided) to upscale/intellectualize RPGs to make them more acceptable as art. Rebecca Bergstrom was mentioned as a possible analogue; “Forge games in general” was also suggested.

I’m not looking to make things more highbrow myself, but I have seen inadvertently occur. I have a friend who didn’t really “get” the RPG thing, and was even turned off by Nobilis (!) or at least from overhearing a geekish discussion of Domains, Powers, etc.

However: when I described Primetime Adventures to her, she very clear change in understanding, saying “Wow, so these are more like improvisational storytelling than roleplaying games…” I found that a very interesting reaction.

Bear in mind that I don’t have an investment in actually making a distinction or break between kinds of games or terminology, nor am I selling any particular set games as fancy heralds of fancy intellectualism. Nonetheless, this is still the one time I’ve seen that change actually occur.

(If you’re unfamliar about the larger past discussions of the mainstream and roleplaying, check out the Forge for Mainstream: a revision, and other related threads.)

“Boys,” I finally said, standing up from my computer, “what you need to do is design your own game. Until you do that, you’re just tweaking something you don’t like.”

“That’s too much work,” they told me.

“Bullshit,” I told them. “Here, let’s make a Spy Game.”

I did it in ten minutes.

And so it was that John Wick created: THE WICKED SPY GAME. It looks like an awesome game, and with luck the Brewery will put it out in a few. One of its cool mechanics: for every 20 minutes of real time that pass, the difficulty numbers go up by one.

Interesting RPGnet thread on Wushu. In case you’re not familiar, Wushu is a game by Dan Bayn that’s focused entirely on action – the mechanics basically just do two things:

• pacing a conflict (usually a fight)
• incentivizing free narration, where each extra embellishment on your action gets you an extra die to roll towards your ultiamte goals

And beyond that, it’s quite nearly free narration. So reading this thread (and hwo people have internalized how Wushu works) is interesting, because I see two things going on here.

Firstly, Wushu’s rules are focused towards just those two things there (pacing conflicts and incentivizing narration).

But secondly, Wushu’s rules don’t give you ANYTHING else towards playing into a genre, and it seems like the consensus is that while you can add crunch to Wushu to fit it into a genre, it runs contrary to how many people play. Getting play to fit a genre or other expectations seems to be accomplished by the group at the social level, and with the rules just getting out of the way.

So it’s both: focused rules that also get out of the way. (It reminds me of dicussions of designing what matters vs designing what doesn’t matter.)

Will Right (of Sim City and, soon, Spore) argues in Wired that games can unlock human creativity: “Dream Machines”.

So it’s time to reconsider games, to recognize what’s different about them and how they benefit – not denigrate – culture. Consider, for instance, their “possibility space”: Games usually start at a well-defined state (the setup in chess, for instance) and end when a specific state is reached (the king is checkmated). Players navigate this possibility space by their choices and actions; every player’s path is unique.

Games cultivate – and exploit – possibility space better than any other medium. In linear storytelling, we can only imagine the possibility space that surrounds the narrative: What if Luke had joined the Dark Side? What if Neo isn’t the One? In interactive media, we can explore it.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of Borgstrom’s essay ; while Borgstrom talks about paring down an infinite space of possiblities into a single line of stories, Wright talks about the opposite effect: starting from a static effect and reaching out to an larger range of possibilities.

From the Daedalus Project: Slideshow of Emergent Social Beahvior (i.e. ad hoc fun stuff) in MMORPGs. Did you know there was a Gay Day in City of Heroes? Now you do.

Article by Allen Varney (designer on Paranoia XP) in the Escapist: “My Eyes Glaze Over: Roleplaying theory for short attention spans”. It’s a good intro to theory, and he manages to touch briefly on how the theories could be useful for online rpgs, as well.

Board game pokes fun of the Patriot Act:

The object of the game is not to amass the most money or real estate, but to be the last player to retain civil liberties.

“I’ve had people complain to me that when they play, nobody wins. They say `We’re all in Guantanamo and nobody has any civil liberties left,’” he said. “I’m like `Yeah, that’s the point.’”

(via Slashdot)

Games with a message are always a cool idea. Of course, politically driven games are nothing new. Surely you’ve heard of the Landlord’s Game? (Some may know it by another name: Monopoly.)

My friend (and long-time White Wolf fan) daobear shares some insight about what’s going on with Mage: the Awakening.

I’d like to contrast the new Mage the Awakening with the old Mage the Ascension. Despite their superficial similarities, these are radically different games. As far as system goes, the new one is clearly superior in my opinion, and I think one could easily apply the new system to the old setting, which is cool. But the settings and general themes of the game are as different as epic, Tolkien-inspired fantasy and Sword and Sorcery.

I think it’s an awesome parallel. (Also, he finds the new Mage more reminicent of Sorceror, which is interesting since we’ve played / are playing both games togther.)