Author: robdalexander

Optimising your idea machine — getting the possible ideas from your mind into play

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The problem — too many ideas, and they scatter to the wind

The basic problem is that I generate lots of ideas and thoughts, for games I’m running and games I’m not. I’m fairly good at writing them down, somehow and somewhere, but I’m not so good at getting them to the point where they are actually used in play. I think I miss a lot of opportunities to put the fruits of my mind into a position where players can experience them.

a_raw_idea.jpg
I had an idea. Now what?

Now, sure, there are some irreducible constraints on this. Play can’t always provide good context to bring in all the ideas you have — you may well generate ideas that require too many entirely different games. And even if everything lines up, you might produce more ideas than can ever be fitted in the playing time you have. Some ideas will fall on stony ground because the world is just like that.

But some losses are accidental. Sometimes, you’ll get an opportunity to use an idea, but miss it. This might be because you forgot it entirely. Or it might because you remember the general idea but you forgot important details (and can’t find them fast enough to not break game flow). Such losses can be minimised if we’re clever about it.

What I want to do is to be as efficient as possible at getting the best ideas from the seething ferment of my mind to the actual world where players can suffer them. I want maximise my ratio of (effort put in) to (amount and quality of ideas that make it to play).

A general model — engineering your idea machine

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Introduction to being an rpg player

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A player in my games who is new to rpgs has asked for recommended reading for how to be a good player. This is hard, because I have been playing rpgs longer than almost anything else — I started when I was 8 or 9, and I’m 40 this Autumn.

I tried searching the web for articles, but many of them bored or annoyed me. Perhaps unsurprising, since I’m not their target audience. However they have other problems. One common tendency is to be patronising, to talk down to the newcomer. Another is to assume a very low baseline of ordinary social skills — in contrast, what most people need is for the article to assume that and to explicitly demarcate those challenges that are distinctive to rpgs (or to common rpg subcultures).

So, despite me being a bad choice to write something on this, I have done it anyway.

Key message

Every game is different, every group is different. Some groups override the rules completely with a local version, and sometimes that’s implicit (just local practice and custom). Some groups do that for some games but not others.

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Three interesting things to read, early September 2019

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System matters, but it’s easy to not know that

Justin Alexander gives a succinct account of why rules matter but many players don’t get the experiences they need to realise this. Key quotes:

“… most RPG systems don’t actually carry a lot of weight, and are indistinguishable from each other in terms of the type of weight they carry.

In theory, as we’ve discussed, there’s really nothing an RPG system can do for you that you can’t do without it. There’s no reason that we can’t all sit around a table, talk about what our characters do, and, without any mechanics at all, produce the sort of improvised radio drama which any RPG basically boils down to.

The function of any RPG, therefore, is to provide mechanical structures that will support and enhance specific types of play.

…

… What I’m saying is that system matters. But when it comes to mainstream RPGs, this truth is obfuscated because their systems all matter in exactly the same way.”

There’s a robust simple procedure for running Into the Odd

As an example of the structure Alexander is calling for, have a look at Chris McDowall’s simple procedure for running Into the Odd.

“Diegetic” and “Non-diegetic” are useful terms for game design

Emmy Allen explained two useful terms for talking about rpgs. They weren’t new to all of us, but her explanation is clear and to the point. Next time someone asks, we can point them there.

Sean McCoy on Twitter then showed how those terms make explicit what he was implicitly trying to do while designing Mothership.

This is good theory — it gives us words for what expert practitioners do.

There is an aesthetic that I want and a way I want to feel

~ robdalexander ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking, and talking online, and I’ve concluded that it’s not quite right that low production values are better for my enjoyment. Rather, what I want on my table, and in my prep environment, is artefacts that have a particular aesthetic and that (partly because of that) give me certain intuitions. There will always be an irreducible element here of “subjectively what I like, but cannot describe”, but I can put some of it into words.

So, in terms of direct things-we-can-agree-we-are-looking-at, what I am looking for in third-party artefacts I put on my game table is this:

  • First, the presentation needs to be unobtrusive. It needs to be somewhat subdued. Put on my table, in my dining room, with the artefacts I’ve made myself, it shouldn’t stand out very much.
  • This pushes design towards plain white paper, with monochrome or muted inks and a matte finish
    • I think there is space here for some colour, for some striking art. It just has to be subordinate to the whitespace of the page. E.g. I’ve not seen Wet Grandpa in full, but the sample pages online suggests it fits in this category.
    • This applies to covers as much as to internal pages, not least because small books tend to end up lying closed. I particularly enjoy matte covers on books, and would like some rpg books with cloth binding.
  • The art can’t be cartoony, because that’s not something I can imagine an rpg world to be like. Cartoony art thus interferes with my internal image-making. Photorealistic art can work, as can more abstract forms. But the art of Dungeon World, D&D 5e, even Fate, doesn’t work for me.
  • Explicit recognition that groups will hack and modify, without pretending that this is novel or that a book can give (or take) authority to do this.
    • Shout-outs go to Knave for its “Rationale” sidebars, to the 5e DMG for its “three things to be really careful with when you’re hacking” (p263, para “Beware of…”), and of course Apocalypse World for its “how to hack this” appendix.

And as for the feelings and intuitions I get from them, I am looking for these:

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Low production values are better for my enjoyment

~ robdalexander ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking some more about my concern in my previous post – that “high production values” are a net negative for my pleasure in rpgs. There are three reasons for this. For clarity, I will express them purely in terms of art:

First, if the art doesn’t work for me, it damages my fragile images of the imagined world. For example, anything cartoony feels wrong to me — Dungeon World, Masks, Fate… even D&D 5e is too far down this path. I’m sad to say that Silent Titans gives me trouble, too — I find Leichty’s art powerful, but too abstract and far too garish. It thus prevents me visualising the Silent Titans world.

Second, even art I like can be a problem if creates an unwelcome contrast with things I’ve brought to the table. My own rules and texts have basic typography and little or no art. I might have art printouts or a Pinterest board, but they’ll have a mishmash of artists and styles. I might have made a map, but it will look a bit shit. If there’s a game text on the table produced to a high standard, my work will look poor by comparison.

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Idea — a prize for the “Best RPG product with modest production values”

~ robdalexander ~ 2 Comments

I think David Grogan is right, in that improving production values in rpgs may be antithetical to improving actual gameplay. Now, sure, people can make what they like, charge what they like, and buy what they like… but I don’t think the move towards ever-fancier production is net-improving our gameplay experiences.

(for a narrower, more personal, angle on this, see my post Low production values are better for my enjoyment)

So, I have a proposal — we could start an annual prize for the best rpg product with modest production values. This would reward people who come up with good ideas, good words and good game design, but don’t want to (or can’t) take the cost, delay, and risk of fancy art and layout and printing.

A few possible rules:

  • Bottom end of “modest” is “competent use of a word processor”
  • Upper end of “modest” is “POD-quality book with some spot art and maps”
    • So e.g. Patrick Stuart’s Deep Carbon Observatory might scrape in at the top (although that feels a bit like cheating as Scrap’s art has a misleading effortless quality)
  • Middle ground might be something like Archipelago III
  • No weird distribution channels e.g. “You have to get it from the author at a con”. Has to be easily available in at least one Anglosphere country

Ideologically, I’d like to make it PDF and POD-only, because it supports idea that this competition is about avoiding barriers that some creators put between (their ideas and design expertise) and (people who might use and benefit from them). But I’m not wedded to that.

I envisage this as being something I run alone, and that has no reward other than glory — something in the vein of the Rammies. If I’m feeling extravagant, I might send out hand-signed certificates.

A player’s introduction to A Broken Candle

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A Broken Candle combines rules similar to those of Immergleich with a setting not unlike Beyond the Forest — 14th century Britain with modernised norms and fantastical elements. The most powerful influences are medieval history, folk horror films, action-horror video games like Bloodborne, and OSR/Post-OSR/ArtPunk D&D. There will be of course be meat, and there will of course be liquids.

Ahead of the first test session this week, here are key documents for A Broken Candle:

I have also started a Pinterest board to set the tone.

D30 reasons two people are married

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  1. The tax benefits were substantial
  2. The priest insisted
  3. One is anxious, one unflappable
  4. One is slothful, the other beats them
  5. A love potion, mistakenly administered
  6. One made the other, and felt responsible
  7. One rescued the other from a troll
  8. One talks too much, one never listens to anyone
  9. They are both a strange shape, like a lock and its key
  10. They have never thought about it, they just are
  11. One’s mother schemed extensively
  12. For the sake of the child
  13. In the hope of a child
  14. So that the child would face the curse, not them
  15. Because no other would have either
  16. The thing in the well told them to
  17. Only one had money
  18. Only one had good sense
  19. To make eachother keep a secret
  20. It was the only way they could share the treasure
  21. They’re actually not, but nobody knows that
  22. …not even them
  23. The authorities won’t be looking for a married couple
  24. The presence of the animal made it necessary
  25. They already had the same name
  26. There was nowhere else to hide
  27. They are always ill in different seasons
  28. They were born married
  29. They are actually one creature with two bodies — saying they are “married” is just the least-hassle way to describe it
  30. No reasonable explanation, but here they are