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Re: (TFT) Rules?
I'd actually argue that the "social contract" and problem solving are
far more important, to the exclusion of control and competition as
part of what defines a game.
Control and Competition really only come up if they are part of the
nature of the social contract and problem solving.
But thats really just a bunch of philosophical mumbo jumbo. What does
it actually mean?
To explain, I will use some games (some simplistic in nature, others
not) as examples.
Chess is a good place to start.
The control is obvious- everything in chess is just what you choose to
do (although you share this power equally with an opponent).
Competition varies, because in the world championship you have that
highly competitive aspect but also a grudging respect for your
opponent, while a random pick up game with a friend cause you have
nothing better to do while you talk is much less competitive and there
is general understanding that no one's reputation is at stake. Its
still defined as "me versus you," however. But all of this leads to
the social contract-
Social Contract- Arguably, the very idea of rules is somewhat
arbitrary and is social contract between players- if you want, you can
play some weird variation of chess, if both players agree. In general,
however, the level of seriousness and competition is what this
determines.
Problem solving- this is really where competition and control stem
from in Chess. The game is essentially an ever changing puzzle that is
NOT predetermined because every time you play the opponent may do
something different. This, in my opinion, is where the whole part
where there is competition stems from. Why competition? so that you
have two halfs of the puzzle being made at once, and so that the
halves contradict each other- solving the puzzle in favor of the side
you create is the whole point. So really, the competition is an
extension of the puzzle. Obviously, to have this sort of puzzle, there
is no need for randomness (and having it would only take away from the
whole point of the puzzle).
So basically, Chess is puzzle solving game, with the variable being
the players, leaving control in their hands, and using the competition
as a tool for the puzzle. The social contract barely exists in chess
from a gameplay standpoint, although socially, how we play and enjoy
it are still very dependent on this social aspect.
The next game will be Chain Reaction 3, a miniatures wargame (Two Hour
Wargames). Its quite fun, and free... its not very well known, though,
so this example might not help clarify. Still, bare with me.
Control- you basically control your character, the "star." the star
can sort of command his squad or platoon or whatever, but the "Grunts"
will do stuff based upon many random reaction tests. The game has a
high level of strategy and tactics, but part of this is coping with
the chaos that is presented by having a large number of random factors
(unlike in, say, 40k, where because there are actually much FEWER
variables, one bad or good roll decides the game. In this sort of
game, the winning team is almost always decided by tactics, but this
is in fact facilitated by having many more variables that mean you
have to adjust strategy as time goes on). So there is control, but a
lot of it is more indirect than direct control over who shoots and who
is pinned down, for example.
Competition: This game is probably most often played solo by its fans,
with cooperative games coming in at a close second. Head to head
fighting is actually fairly rare, and when it does happen, due to the
social contract, it rarely is considered 'competitive' as much as just
a way of having fun. It certainly is competitive in nature though,
with the competition often being against the mechanics (or against a
player). However, I'd say its far less competitive than chess, which
is inherently built on the idea of competition.
Problem solving: similar to chess, the opponent is essentially
creating the problem, but in this game you don't have full control
over even your own side, so sometimes your own sides is part of the
problem. Its essentially a way of creating an ever changing, complex
puzzle that is never the same twice. This is similar to chess, but
instead of doing it by giving you total control of half and putting
you against someone with total control of the other half, you are
instead forced to deal with the problem with your hands tied behind
your back, with the pieces not entirely under your control, but
instead following their own logic. This means you have to deal with it
in a simulation-esque way, viewing yourself as a commander in charge
of actual troops who think and react (hence the name of the system)
like people as well. In short, a rather complex puzzle to solve that
sometimes has no good answer, but is the core idea behind the game.
Social Contract: arguably the most important part of the game. Even in
head to head games, the overall feel is either more of a simulation or
of a movie. This largely depends on whether the players want a more
cinematic feel or a more realistic feel (as the system, with minor
variations, does both fairly well). With a simulation, winning is
often not possible for one side, and there is no shame in losing
(indeed, survival is more of a goal than beating your opponent, and
often scenarios will make one or both sides incapable of entirely
defeating their opponent, the object being to survive, often by
retreating). Even if your opponent was really playing to BEAT you,
there are still no strings attached- no tournaments, no feeling of
losing a fair game (in simulation style games its usually not fair,
just like in real life), and afterwards, all of your dead characters
can come back to life and play in the next game (if you choose- thats
part of the social contract). In a more cinematic game, its often more
FUN to lose in a dramatic last stand... people will often do this
intentionally (can be funny if both people do it, as one usually ends
up winning in a landslide if both are trying to lose...). The feeling
becomes even more like an RPG, in that both players are cooperatively
trying to make a cool story more than trying to win. Indeed, with the
right social contract, the game can basically ignore most of the rules
when you feel like it, letting players get away with things that
usually wouldn't work, but sound cool, and are therefore fun. Hence,
the social contract really defines this game as much as the problem
solving.
Last, but not least, RPGs.
I say RPGs in general, because once you come down to it, RPGs are all
the same core idea:
EVERYTHING is the social contract.
The rules are entirely determined by what the GM, players, etc, feel
like. They will mix and match rules, make their own, ignore the ones
they are using, etc. Its all at the whim of what the players want the
game to be like (including the GM in the use of the word players).
Problem solving, therefor, is simultaneously inherently rejected by
RPGs (in that, in a system/world that can be bent to you, no problems
actually exist) and are at the same time at the core of most games, as
most players want there to be problem solving.
Control? Arguably, you could say this puts all control in the hands of
everybody, but thats basically just the social contract being restated
under the heading "control."
Competition? Only present at ALL if everyone agrees on it, pretty much.
So, I view it as a sort of scale:
Problem Solving-Both-Social Contract.
With Chess being one end (not quite, as all games include social
contract, and a crossword puzzle being the true end of the scale),
most games being somewhere in the middle, and RPGs being what we call
the farthest extreme of social contract to the point of making set
rules, problems, and competition nonexistant. Thats not to say there
are no rules, there are no puzzles, and there is no competition in
RPGs, but by their very nature those things are alterable (to the
point of being the focus or being nonexistant) by the social contract
involved in RPGs.
This is why many of Jay's very detailed connections to the real world,
with many intricate, complex rules, in some ways are contradictory to
the whole style of play of my group of friends. My group prefers to
play fast and loose with the rules to keep the action flowing, with
simple rules (like Chess, Chain Reaction, and TFT) dominating our
games for their simplicity. That is our social contract. We play for
fun, and we don't want to have to memorize too much. Chess is simple.
It is fun because of its fairly complex problem solving. Chain
Reaction is pretty simple. It is fun because of a mixture of the
social side and the puzzle side. TFT is simple. It is fun because our
imagination is given free reign over the rules, but if we want to
introduce problems- killing a guy with a sword, picking a lock,
creating an empire- we are given a simple system to use if we don't
want to come up with something ourselves.
However, Jay's group, probably, prefers a more complex form of play.
Their social contract is that they will all take their imagination and
kind of document it using many, many complex rules.
Basically, the social contract of my sort of group would be that we
all imagine things and talk about it, and when we feel like applying
rules to it, we take something simple and use it as the rules. Jay's
sort of group's contract is more that they will have a complex set of
rules, and then take their imagination and use the rules to explain it.
Thats basically the two opposite extremes of role playing, IMO, and
basically is the reason that RPGs are fun. With the free reign of the
imagination, groups are capable of defining their own terms of play.
This is why discussing these two sides of RPGs on this email group is
really the main thing- Jay presenting his rules ideas and asking about
applying it to real world physics to get the right answer, with others
asking about ideas for what a group of dragons should be called (the
best example, as recently this group has been dominated by Jay.... not
too many others seem to be reading anymore =(
On Jan 4, 2011, at 11:52 AM, catchy24528@mypacks.net wrote:
Hi Jay,
I think you might be overlooking the social contract aspect of games
that occurs even in as lowly a game as Tic-Tac-Toe, and becomes more
and more important in games like RPGs where the competition aspect
is (or should) be somewhat reduced. In TTT, there is the agreement
about who goes first that needs to be agreed upon, a very simple
social contract. Obviously in RPGs, the less that the rules define
explicitly, the more the social contract comes into play.
Also, another key aspect of games is problem solving. I get mad at
myself when I "lose" if I had figured something out and then made a
mistake. Sometimes it's also easy to get frustrated if I never seem
to "get" a game. Worlds of Darkness games were like that for me. The
ability for the GM to select both the number of successes required
AND the target number made for incredibly unpredictable odds, not to
mention the "when you roll a 1 it cancels a success" rule which
really wreaks havoc on gameplay. To date, it's the only RPG system I
won't play.
So I think you have:
1) Problem Solving
2) Social Contract
3) Control
4) Competition
The ratios of which depend on:
1) the game itself
2) the people that are playing
3) How I'm feeling at the time
Enjoy!
- Marc
-----Original Message-----
From: Jay Carlisle <Jay_Carlisle@charter.net>
Sent: Jan 2, 2011 9:17 PM
To: tft@brainiac.com
Subject: (TFT) Rules?
I believe that human beings engage in the playing of games largely
because
good games can satisfy two very strong urges that motivate a human
life,
namely the drives for control and competition.
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