Q: What do you mean, you neither railroad players nor have a prepped sandbox?
A: Improv!
Q: But wait, what does that mean?
A: OK, ok. Here's the long answer. Games like Dungeon and Dragons necessitate a lot of GM prep, because building monsters and dungeons is hard work. It takes time and energy and brain juice. And then you have an incentive to get the players to do the things you've prepped. But, here's the secret, deserving of its own paragraph:
That is a product of game design.
There's a whole other way to do game design where play emerges from player choices, and this is baked right into the rules.
Some examples, from most accessible to least:
1. Dungeon World (DW) has many of the trappings of Dungeon and Dragons: classes, hit points, even a move called "hack and slash". The GM has to do a lot of prep compared to some others, mostly in figuring out what the players may face. Still, this game can represent a radical departure from traditional games and change people. Lots of dice, but no d20.
2. Fiasco, by Bully Pulpit games. Fiasco gives 3-5 players, in 2-3 hours, the ability to play through their own Cohen brothers style film. Fiasco is GMless, requires no prep, and is single-session driven. You -- as a group -- choose the playset, which determines the genre. From there, individuals make decisions and act in character in ways that determine the course of events. And yes, dice help, too.
3. Apocalypse World (AW) has characters (playbooks) which, by their very nature, alter the game, set its tone, and can determine how play starts. The obvious example is the hardhholder, who is the leader of a settlement and has a private army. At the start of every session, the hard holder rolls to determine if there is trouble. This trouble can readily create the course of a session or even campaign. In AW and its ilk, while the GM is encouraged to come up with "fronts" the players will face, these are meant to emerge from the first session of play.
+Alex Schroeder , who asked a simple question and got a long-winded response.
A: Improv!
Q: But wait, what does that mean?
A: OK, ok. Here's the long answer. Games like Dungeon and Dragons necessitate a lot of GM prep, because building monsters and dungeons is hard work. It takes time and energy and brain juice. And then you have an incentive to get the players to do the things you've prepped. But, here's the secret, deserving of its own paragraph:
That is a product of game design.
There's a whole other way to do game design where play emerges from player choices, and this is baked right into the rules.
Some examples, from most accessible to least:
1. Dungeon World (DW) has many of the trappings of Dungeon and Dragons: classes, hit points, even a move called "hack and slash". The GM has to do a lot of prep compared to some others, mostly in figuring out what the players may face. Still, this game can represent a radical departure from traditional games and change people. Lots of dice, but no d20.
2. Fiasco, by Bully Pulpit games. Fiasco gives 3-5 players, in 2-3 hours, the ability to play through their own Cohen brothers style film. Fiasco is GMless, requires no prep, and is single-session driven. You -- as a group -- choose the playset, which determines the genre. From there, individuals make decisions and act in character in ways that determine the course of events. And yes, dice help, too.
3. Apocalypse World (AW) has characters (playbooks) which, by their very nature, alter the game, set its tone, and can determine how play starts. The obvious example is the hardhholder, who is the leader of a settlement and has a private army. At the start of every session, the hard holder rolls to determine if there is trouble. This trouble can readily create the course of a session or even campaign. In AW and its ilk, while the GM is encouraged to come up with "fronts" the players will face, these are meant to emerge from the first session of play.
+Alex Schroeder , who asked a simple question and got a long-winded response.
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- My next claim is something like: Games are better if they are opinionated and cater to specific needs of their target audience. Or maybe: providing for a variety of perspectives is an interesting design goal, but it's only one among a large number of goals.
To be honest, I think this conversation is done? This last claim is rather vague. Is there some specific point you wanted to mention? Here's what I got from you so far: 1. sandbox vs. railroad is a false dichotomy 2. improvisation has improved your game be cause it reduces prep which you don't enjoy 3. you appreciate games that require less prep because that turned more of your players into GMs 4. a game depending on a community to explain the game is badly explained. Anything else?Apr 21, 2016 - Nah:
2. on the fly creation improves my games because a wider range of people can run games.
Its not really about my enjoyment; lonely fun is still fun.
I'm not sure what you are saying is vague.Apr 21, 2016 - I read your last point ("Games are better when they benefit from a variety of perspectives.") and wondered whether this was something you wanted to argue for, or that you felt was obvious, and didn't know what to do with it. My only thought was that a broad appeal or multiple ways to approach a subject or whatever you mean with "a variety of perspectives" was surely just one of a gazillion parameters that make good games and it wasn't immediately obvious to me that the set of good games (for some definition of good and some definition of game) was even defined by a single set of parameters. It seemed to a statement as true as "good art is good for a game" or "having an index for a game is good" or "wargamers appreciate clear structure and wording". In other words, there are successful games with practically no art (chess), confusing structure (AD&D 1st ed), unclear wording (In a Wicked Age) which can still be considered "good" games. Now the obvious answer would be that your preferences go in a particular way but you started the statement with "My next claim is" which seemed to indicate a certain general application which I failed to see. So... I felt it was vague. :)Apr 21, 2016
- Ah. It was a moral claim. Games are morally superior if (among other things), the game encourages expression. And a game is morally odious if it (among other, worse things) reinforces privileged positions.Apr 21, 2016
- How weird. Many games have non-symmetrical roles, starting with hide & seek. I seem to make a different value judgement regarding the role of referee.Apr 21, 2016
- That's a false equivalence: suggesting that non-symmetrical roles is somehow the same as encouraging non-privileged people to speak up.
But, you are right: we've gone about as far as we have. I'm gonna shut off comments.Apr 21, 2016
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