The Spectrum of Game Design

Ask anyone who speaks with me and I likely have at some time lavished them with a discussion of design of RPGs.  Well, likely I bored them and they happily suffered through it because the opportunity were favorable.  So aside from my dreams of world domination and my ten million novel ideas, it is safe to say I have a thought or two on game design. A recent article over at EN World dredged up these thoughts and  I came to some conclusions.

I will offer my response to the article as it appears over at EN World and then expand on it.

A few short thoughts.

RPG Game design and by extension some computer and "board" game design are a reaction to the point of origin. That would be the strange singularity where Kriegspiel melded into rpg (technically this happened twice and or was a longer process than we think). All role playing games even the first are a blue shift or red shift in reaction to that point of origin. In my mind the PoO is not a specific game, but a specific question needing answered:

"Why do I need to make an rpg?"

In a world of needs and wants, with a million ways a Gygax or Arneson or Stafford or St. Andre might decide what they want, the "need" to make an rpg, whether conscious or unconscious, was imperative. The first time I designed a game was when I was 10. The game (which I am reworking into a modern OSR) was a reaction to D&D. The first draft done I toyed with it and I answered the question "Why did I need to make this?" with the answer "I didn't". The reason? The Red Shift from D&D was not significant enough. It did not meet any real needs.

We get so caught up in mechanics and story and to dice or not to dice, that we sometimes forget to answer that basic question: Why do I need to make this game? Profit? A need in the greater community? I have my own vision or version? What makes this game different from just some house rules? 

Additionally I think there is a desire in gamers and game designers to impose a certain amount of order on their games, with some wanting more and some less (again another spectrum) through probability or Improv (or a combination of both). This manifests itself in another question: "What would I have done, if...?" The question pertaining to other stories we hear and our reaction to them and whether they ended the "right" way. 

Just my thoughts.

The Point of Origin

Young children, mostly boys but girls as well, have been playing with toy soldiers for a long time. Branwell Bronte' and his sister Charlotte used to create elaborate stories and role playing games that they put on as plays (I am guessing?). Many consider this to be the first move from make believe to actual rpg. One hundred and fifty odd years later Gygax, Arneson, and Stafford were doing the same thing. That moment when the wargamer or board gamer became (becomes) the role player is a seminal moment for modern society. While not every action or reaction to role playing games has played a role in the development of the modern American / European it is safe to say the development of RPGs has been a significant influence.

Within role playing game design itself, most games are reactions to the point of origin, by their own admission. To suggest it isn't is a bit of arrogance that is unnecessary; this is how revolution and evolution work.  As more and more games became public knowledge* / were published the spectrum of possible games were created. I suspect the spectrum is a finite one, but am not enough of an expert on probability to know for sure.  In any case we now judge games not just on their merit but on whether they are Red Shifting (heading away) or Blue Shifting (heading towards) the point of origin. This plays an important part in our playing, liking, and giving franchise to a new rpg.

Order & Chaos

What would you have done if you were Gandolf? What would you have done if you were Larry Underwood or Stu Redman? What if, what if, what if? As readers and viewers, as the audience of myth and story, we often take a personal role in our favorites. We are sure that, had we been there, things would  have turned out better. How many people are yelling at their TV or their book, telling Ned Stark to ying instead of yang? This is part of why we role play.

Role playing is based on make believe but it is not entirely governed by those unspoken sets of rules. Make believe is mostly improv, where people sometimes say no but generally say yes. Even though we try and take possession of those stories or create our own, we want to keep a certain degree of order in the process, a certain bit of fair play. So we have probability, for which we use dice. The rule of dice replaces the rule of "yes" in improv play, though it could also be said that "yes, you can try" replaces a simple "yes".

An action may fail or succeed. How much we want to create the illusion of choice and how difficult we make the challenges help place us on the various spectrum. The Universe of RPGs is amorphous and has many variables and a spectrum for each set of variables.

Why it Matters

Anyone can create a rpg and even an rpg that people want to play. They might even pay for it. However, our best creations come out of some kind of understanding of our need to to make the game in the first place and our reaction to the Point of Origin. Are we Red Shifting or Blue Shifting? Once we have those answers, we can create a coherent game based on our needs.