Here's what I want to see:
"I played this game X many times, with Y people, in Z circumstances."
"I think the circumstances in which I played the game had the following effect on play:" (If you do a bunch of stuff in play that's not in the text, talk about that and why you did that stuff. If it's in the text, but maybe not obvious, point it out.)
"I was expecting this from the game, but the experience it gave me was like this"
"The effect of this mechanic on play was to..."
"This aspect of the game was effective in producing this kind of play"
"Games with similar mechanics are the following... ...here's how this game is the same, here's how it's different"
Criticism sandwich! Say something nice about the game at the beginning and the end of the review. Even if you don't really mean it. Even if you have to work hard to think of something. I cannot overstate how effective this technique is in making people actually read and understand things they don't want to hear.
Comparison with other games, or other techniques (in terms of effect on play, not in terms of quality).
Discussion of principles of design.
I care about what the experience of play is like, and how the game's mechanics influence that experience.
Oh! Make the review as short as you reasonably can, without compromising the content.
Here are some things I don't want to see:
A review of the game as a product. I don't care whether you would recommend I buy it.
A biography of the designer. It's cool to put the game in historical context, but it's a review of the game, not of the designer.
Words like "good" or "bad" or "quality". I think words like "useful", "effective" and "taste" are better (and more useful).
A review of the text. I don't really care if the text communicates effectively or not. Let someone else review for that.
Argument from authority. Don't reference theory in the body of the review, unless it's straightforward enough to be explained right there. It's cool to link to "further reading" at the end though. Quotes in the body are iffy. Only do it if it's really the best way to communicate the idea, not to make it sound like some important internet person agrees with you.
Don't make a whole bunch of other essays required reading for your review. Absolutely draw on that knowledge and those ideas, but if it's too complicated to explain in the review, it's probably not that clever anyhow.
Don't affect academic language. The Academic style is a shibboleth for excluding those who haven't paid their dues to the academic hierarchy. Just write like regular. Conversational.
Here are the kinds of games I think should be reviewed:
Any game. All games. Probably your decision about what to review should be informed by how useful your review will be to helping people understand broader concepts of design and play. So, probably a bunch of reviews of near-identical trad games isn't super useful. But I'd be pretty interested in a good review of a few of the more diverse traditional games.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Master of Illusion
GM's Guide
When the characters aren't doing anything, choose one of the following:Threaten something they care about
Offer a clue to a mystery
Hint at a greater threat
Introduce immediate danger
When a character does something chancy, have the player roll a die, then choose one of the following:
They get what they want, but with a price
They don't get what they want, but they do get something else
If they rolled a 6, add:
They get exactly what they want
They get what they want, and something else as well
If they rolled a 1, add:
They don't get what they want, and now they're in even worse trouble
They get what they want, but it lands them in even worse trouble
When a character is seeking information, have the player roll a die, then choose one of the following:
They get a small clue, enough to lead them further
They get nothing about what they wanted, but they spot a different opportunity
If they rolled a 6, add:
They get a major break
They get nothing about what they wanted, but some other advantage instead.
If they rolled a 1, add:
They get stonewalled: Nothing
They get nothing, and they land themselves in trouble
In all cases, always:
Misdirect: Don't tell the players which option you chose from the lists. Pretend something in the fiction made it happen.
Make them Work for it: The more the character cares about something, the harder it is for them to get it.
Player's Handbook
Character Creation
Create a character which is a product of your unique artistic vision, and reflects what you desire from play
Make sure your character is compatible with the other characters in the group
Make a character which fits into the setting and story of the game to be played
Players, at all times:
Have your character act as you believe that character would, if they were a real person in those circumstances
Ensure your character is willing and able to follow clues provided by the GM
Speak for your character and have them only act on information available to the character
Express your character's unique personality, and try to "immerse" yourself in the game
Stick with the other characters, and don't fight with them too much
Do not question the Player's Handbook, or the GM
If anyone breaks any of the above rules, choose one of the following:
Accuse them of "metagaming" and make a scene
Complain to the GM that they are hogging the spotlight and being a primma donna
Put up with it, but sulk
Feel smugly superior, and look for a better group
If the player is a woman, add:
Tell them that girls don't understand roleplaying games
Explain to them in simple terms exactly what they did wrong
If you are the GM, add:
Have their character fail more often, until they learn how to do things right
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Modular Pre-gens
I wrote a Story-Games post about the Cold City game I ran at Day of Games, but I wanted to pull out here what I think is the stand-out technique that I used in that game, a technique for producing pre-generated characters, suitable for a convention game or a one-shot, that gives the players some choices about their characters. I think it helps make the players feel connected to their characters and to play them with more nuance and empathy.
I did this for a game of Cold City, but I think it'd work for any game where the characters have shifting agendas or motivations, and where revealing those in play is part of the fun.
I wrote four characters, each with a different national background and a different draw into the situation. By themselves, the characters were fairly stereotyped, straightforward archetypes. An American ex-diplomat, a Russian former soldier, a French Resistance fighter, and a German Bureaucrat.
I also wrote up four "secret agendas", representing a mission given to the character by the spy agency they work for, organisations like the CIA, Gehlen Org, and so on. Here's an example one:
My hope was that building the character themselves, out of pre-generated pieces, the players would feel a little more ownership of the characters, and play them with a little more nuance. I've found that sometimes in convention games, players can play their characters as slavishly devoted to whatever cause or motivation they're given at the start of the game. For this game, as I think Cold City requires, I wanted the characters to have multiple conflicting goals. I think having the players work on their characters themselves helped them buy into the characters' goals, but also helped them see those goals as negotiable.
In play, it worked out pretty well. The players all reported feeling pretty connected to their character, and they enjoyed answering the questions before and during play. I was really happy with how that aspect of the game worked out.
I did this for a game of Cold City, but I think it'd work for any game where the characters have shifting agendas or motivations, and where revealing those in play is part of the fun.
I wrote four characters, each with a different national background and a different draw into the situation. By themselves, the characters were fairly stereotyped, straightforward archetypes. An American ex-diplomat, a Russian former soldier, a French Resistance fighter, and a German Bureaucrat.
I also wrote up four "secret agendas", representing a mission given to the character by the spy agency they work for, organisations like the CIA, Gehlen Org, and so on. Here's an example one:
CIAAs well as the secret agendas, I wrote "personal motivations", individual motives for the characters, these were also randomly assigned. Here's an example:
Your Mission: There’s a Soviet mole in the RPA. Intercepted transmissions indicate that they’ve been assigned to this mission, but don’t give any clues to their identity. Find the Russian agent and eliminate them. You have a syringe of insulin which will kill someone without leaving any traces.
Questions:
Answer now: How did you come to work for the CIA?
Answer during play: Are you willing to kill a colleague, and possibly a friend?
AbsolutionSo you'll notice that in those examples there's a bit that says "answer now". After the players chose their characters, I randomly handed out the secret agendas and personal motivations. The players then had to work out how these three elements fit together into a whole person.
You did something terrible during the war, something you can’t forget. Maybe this mission is your chance to redeem yourself, or maybe it’s where you finally meet your punishment.
Answer now: What terrible thing did you do?
Answer during play: What will it take for you to find absolution?
My hope was that building the character themselves, out of pre-generated pieces, the players would feel a little more ownership of the characters, and play them with a little more nuance. I've found that sometimes in convention games, players can play their characters as slavishly devoted to whatever cause or motivation they're given at the start of the game. For this game, as I think Cold City requires, I wanted the characters to have multiple conflicting goals. I think having the players work on their characters themselves helped them buy into the characters' goals, but also helped them see those goals as negotiable.
In play, it worked out pretty well. The players all reported feeling pretty connected to their character, and they enjoyed answering the questions before and during play. I was really happy with how that aspect of the game worked out.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The Fiction
This is adapted from the introduction to a game I'm writing.
Imagine you’re watching a group of mimes, performing for you. There’s three or four of them, and they’re doing some ordinary thing, like cooking a meal or cleaning the house, except that all the things they interact with are imaginary. They’re very skilled. When one of them picks up a bucket full of water, we see him strain against its weight, even though we don’t see the bucket itself. He sets it down. Another mime picks it up. We still don’t see the bucket, it’s imaginary, but when the mime goes to pick it up, she picks it up from exactly where the last mime put it down. The mimes pass each other things, open and close doors, trip over objects someone else left lying on the floor, and so on. Even though all the things they interact with are imaginary and invisible, as we watch them we feel we can almost see the bucket, or the doorway, or whatever it is. The rigourous discipline of the mimes, treating every object as if it were real, remembering where things are, their weight, their size, creates the illusion of reality. That’s what makes the mime show compelling (and creepy).
In roleplaying games, we’re doing the same thing as those mimes, except that instead of acting out a scene ourselves, we talk about a scene, describing imaginary characters and things. We each take responsibility for describing the actions of an imaginary person, and talking about how they interact with the world around them. Just like the mimes, when one person describes putting something down, the other players can describe their character picking that thing up. The characters pass each other things, open and close doors, trip over things, and they also explore dungeons and fight monsters.
Just like the mimes, the illusion of reality is important. We know the things we describe aren’t real, but we treat them as if they are, in the game. The sword your character wields has a particular weight and length, the weather is a certain way. Your character dodges like so when the strange subterranean horror lurches in her direction. We remember these things, and they form part of the ongoing narrative of play. They take on an illusion of reality.
In roleplaying games, that narrative, the things we’ve said, the weight of your sword, the slavering fangs of the monster, is called the “fiction”.
The rules of the game will sometimes refer you to the fiction of play. They’ll ask you “what is happening now?” and say “when this happens, do this”. You’ll know what rules to use by looking to the fiction of the game. You make a decision about whether the rules apply, but you make that decision based on the things people have said and that everyone has agreed to. It's not the same as looking at a number someone rolled on a die, or the card they drew, or the position of a miniature on a map. But it's not the same as someone making an arbitrary ruling either. You make your decision based on maintaining that illusion of reality. Just like a mime can't walk through the imaginary wall they've created without shattering the illusion, when you look to the fiction in a roleplaying game, you're making a judgement that's constrained by that illusion of reality, the fiction.
Imagine you’re watching a group of mimes, performing for you. There’s three or four of them, and they’re doing some ordinary thing, like cooking a meal or cleaning the house, except that all the things they interact with are imaginary. They’re very skilled. When one of them picks up a bucket full of water, we see him strain against its weight, even though we don’t see the bucket itself. He sets it down. Another mime picks it up. We still don’t see the bucket, it’s imaginary, but when the mime goes to pick it up, she picks it up from exactly where the last mime put it down. The mimes pass each other things, open and close doors, trip over objects someone else left lying on the floor, and so on. Even though all the things they interact with are imaginary and invisible, as we watch them we feel we can almost see the bucket, or the doorway, or whatever it is. The rigourous discipline of the mimes, treating every object as if it were real, remembering where things are, their weight, their size, creates the illusion of reality. That’s what makes the mime show compelling (and creepy).
In roleplaying games, we’re doing the same thing as those mimes, except that instead of acting out a scene ourselves, we talk about a scene, describing imaginary characters and things. We each take responsibility for describing the actions of an imaginary person, and talking about how they interact with the world around them. Just like the mimes, when one person describes putting something down, the other players can describe their character picking that thing up. The characters pass each other things, open and close doors, trip over things, and they also explore dungeons and fight monsters.
Just like the mimes, the illusion of reality is important. We know the things we describe aren’t real, but we treat them as if they are, in the game. The sword your character wields has a particular weight and length, the weather is a certain way. Your character dodges like so when the strange subterranean horror lurches in her direction. We remember these things, and they form part of the ongoing narrative of play. They take on an illusion of reality.
In roleplaying games, that narrative, the things we’ve said, the weight of your sword, the slavering fangs of the monster, is called the “fiction”.
The rules of the game will sometimes refer you to the fiction of play. They’ll ask you “what is happening now?” and say “when this happens, do this”. You’ll know what rules to use by looking to the fiction of the game. You make a decision about whether the rules apply, but you make that decision based on the things people have said and that everyone has agreed to. It's not the same as looking at a number someone rolled on a die, or the card they drew, or the position of a miniature on a map. But it's not the same as someone making an arbitrary ruling either. You make your decision based on maintaining that illusion of reality. Just like a mime can't walk through the imaginary wall they've created without shattering the illusion, when you look to the fiction in a roleplaying game, you're making a judgement that's constrained by that illusion of reality, the fiction.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
A Thing I Noticed
Recently I've been interested in how players make decisions during play - how they decide what to say next. I made a diagram of it, and posted in in some places. Here it is again:
The things around the outside are what influence the things on the inside, if you see what I mean. Maybe it's interesting to some people? There's no space for "What would my character do?" I'm not sure if that's a mistake, or the whole point of the thing.
The things around the outside are what influence the things on the inside, if you see what I mean. Maybe it's interesting to some people? There's no space for "What would my character do?" I'm not sure if that's a mistake, or the whole point of the thing.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Abandoned Games
Vincent was saying on a podcast somewhere about how folks could talk more about abandoned games - that it's dangerous to think you've gotta publish every idea you have.
Since apparently I do everything Vincent says, let's talk about that!
I'm a really productive writer. Or at least, recently I have been. I can crank out pages and pages of notes for games, polished game-text, layouts, designs and such. I think part of what fuels this is that I absolutely do not edit myself in terms of what I produce. I work on whatever I'm excited about, for as long as I'm excited about it, and then I stop. Recently I've been pushing myself a bit more with On Mighty Thews, but what I find is that I actually do more work on difficult projects like that when I give myself the time to also work on fun, exciting ideas that may never see the light of day.
I used to be worried about being a chronic non-finisher, always starting new projects and never bringing anything to completion. I think what I decided was that this is my hobby, not my job, so there's no reason I shouldn't work on stuff that's fun, even if it might not become something one day. It's valuable for practice and for the joy of it.
Where I do make more of a commitment to finish things is as soon as other people have commited their time to a project. I find it much harder to abandon playtested games, especially when they've been externally playtested. Other people's enthusiasm is a valuable resource, and I'm loath to waste it. It's a conundrum though, because often it's only after playtesting that you really realise that a game isn't going anywhere.
So, with the above in mind, here are two games I wrote just for the fun of it, and for practice. They've never been played, and they maybe never will be:
Beneath the Honeysuckle
Beneath the Honeysuckle is a game I'd been thinking over and stewing in my mind for a couple of years, and then Ben Lehman had a contest to write a game about love, so I banged it all out in a week (the first game contest I've ever entered). It's about Arthurian Knights and Ladies in love, jousting, going on quests, casting spells and doing embroidery. Ben described it as "surprisingly gay", and still owes me a review. I hereby let him off the hook for it though.
There are things I like about the game, and definitely some fun ideas in there. I think the main thing holding me back from finishing it is that I'd never be able to playtest it enough with the players around my town, and the game would need a lot of playtesting to get right. It's got a kind of economy, which I know would need careful balancing and I can't really see myself doing all that work. I'm still kind of in love with the concept though and the art makes me think it would make a really pretty object.
Shadow of the Ninja: Everything you've ever heard about ninjas is true
Shadow of the Ninja I actually kind of sweated over. It took me a few months. It's a game about Ninjas sneaking into fortresses, and the horrible life they lead between missions. It's kind of "My Life with the Master Ninja". I wrote it mostly to get to grips with some of the stuff Vincent was talking about with judgements of the fiction and such. I still like how in the game mostly all the mechanical information you need about a thing is embedded in the description of it.
I guess I think the world doesn't need another game about ninjas? I don't have much insight into the genre, I suppose. There's some stuff in the game about bullying and power, but it's mostly the same stuff that My Life with Master did with more subtlety and power, so I don't feel a pressing need for it to be in he world.
Of course, I'm working on a bunch of other things at the same time. A thing about medieval fantasy war stories, a thing about what if David Cronenberg wrote D&D, and of course On Mighty Thews, which is actually going pretty well at the moment!
Since apparently I do everything Vincent says, let's talk about that!
I'm a really productive writer. Or at least, recently I have been. I can crank out pages and pages of notes for games, polished game-text, layouts, designs and such. I think part of what fuels this is that I absolutely do not edit myself in terms of what I produce. I work on whatever I'm excited about, for as long as I'm excited about it, and then I stop. Recently I've been pushing myself a bit more with On Mighty Thews, but what I find is that I actually do more work on difficult projects like that when I give myself the time to also work on fun, exciting ideas that may never see the light of day.
I used to be worried about being a chronic non-finisher, always starting new projects and never bringing anything to completion. I think what I decided was that this is my hobby, not my job, so there's no reason I shouldn't work on stuff that's fun, even if it might not become something one day. It's valuable for practice and for the joy of it.
Where I do make more of a commitment to finish things is as soon as other people have commited their time to a project. I find it much harder to abandon playtested games, especially when they've been externally playtested. Other people's enthusiasm is a valuable resource, and I'm loath to waste it. It's a conundrum though, because often it's only after playtesting that you really realise that a game isn't going anywhere.
So, with the above in mind, here are two games I wrote just for the fun of it, and for practice. They've never been played, and they maybe never will be:
Beneath the Honeysuckle
Beneath the Honeysuckle is a game I'd been thinking over and stewing in my mind for a couple of years, and then Ben Lehman had a contest to write a game about love, so I banged it all out in a week (the first game contest I've ever entered). It's about Arthurian Knights and Ladies in love, jousting, going on quests, casting spells and doing embroidery. Ben described it as "surprisingly gay", and still owes me a review. I hereby let him off the hook for it though.
There are things I like about the game, and definitely some fun ideas in there. I think the main thing holding me back from finishing it is that I'd never be able to playtest it enough with the players around my town, and the game would need a lot of playtesting to get right. It's got a kind of economy, which I know would need careful balancing and I can't really see myself doing all that work. I'm still kind of in love with the concept though and the art makes me think it would make a really pretty object.
Shadow of the Ninja: Everything you've ever heard about ninjas is true
Shadow of the Ninja I actually kind of sweated over. It took me a few months. It's a game about Ninjas sneaking into fortresses, and the horrible life they lead between missions. It's kind of "My Life with the Master Ninja". I wrote it mostly to get to grips with some of the stuff Vincent was talking about with judgements of the fiction and such. I still like how in the game mostly all the mechanical information you need about a thing is embedded in the description of it.
I guess I think the world doesn't need another game about ninjas? I don't have much insight into the genre, I suppose. There's some stuff in the game about bullying and power, but it's mostly the same stuff that My Life with Master did with more subtlety and power, so I don't feel a pressing need for it to be in he world.
Of course, I'm working on a bunch of other things at the same time. A thing about medieval fantasy war stories, a thing about what if David Cronenberg wrote D&D, and of course On Mighty Thews, which is actually going pretty well at the moment!
Monday, May 3, 2010
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