Re: (TFT) Abstraction in game design - rpg design.

[Joseph Beutel <mejobo@comcast.net>]

To clarify my point regarding computer games: I’m merely suggesting 
that the idea of a game as a story-telling device that forms story from 
the combination of (multi)player input that is ‘resolved’ by game 
mechanics so that there’s a concrete final form to the story that has 
some sense of reality that is universal to the audience can be applied 
to both tabletop games and to video games. Tabletop games certainly do 
have more player input, at least in their inherently easily customizable 
nature. 

But when I play (for example), Mass Effect, I’m at least given some 
slight ability for player input (dialogue choices, my physical action 
with the controller in combat and the like) which are then interpreted 
by the game’s mechanics (dialogue trees, combat rules) to give some 
clarified result (depicted almost entirely visually in this case) that 
any audience member (usually just the player in a single player game— 
but the popularity of sharing Let’s Plays and stories from games that 
have common dialogue tress suggests this is not always the case) will at 
least sort-of agree about. You never really reach the point of 
universally shared interpretation in any story, of course, but at least 
the book is the same.

I bring it up only because I think applying this sort of logic to a 
wider genre of games creates some interesting questions about game 
design. 

For instance, pretty large amounts of abstraction in a hypothetical 
battalion-level command game makes sense. But a lot of existing games at 
approximately that level abstract the position of the officers/players 
even more than combat. Things like command dice, a lack of 
communications rules, or completely random fog of war elements arguably 
are examples of “bad” abstraction if the objective is to tell a 
story from the perspective of commanding officers that everyone at least 
kinda agrees about— at least if they aren’t explained narratively in 
the rules in some way. (“Command Dice” are an easy one to explain; 
they represent officers putting particular effort into coordinating the 
actions of a particular unit, usually. Good officers could be said to be 
giving orders more efficiently, or have better connections with 
sub-commanders and so have more efficient chain of command in the first 
place, or might just need less time to be sorting themselves out before 
getting to ordering others around.) 

Of course maybe this casts some doubt on the entire idea that this is 
the objective of our rules. Many tabletop war-games are probably more 
focused on providing interesting decisions and exciting results to 
players than in telling a story, particularly one based on the RPG-ish 
notion of showing a particular set of perspective rather than something 
more third person. I don’t think there’s one ‘right’ objective 
for games, though, so…

> On Dec 7, 2015, at 2:14 AM, Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca> wrote:
> 
> Hi Joseph,
>  As a professional designer of computer games, I can say that the art
> is highly limited by design constraints.  I prefer face to face RPG's 

> because the players have far, FAR more freedom to do weird ass
> things than in a CPU RPG.
> 
>  Your point about abstraction is dead on.  The war game "War in
> North Africa" had an immense amount of detail.  Rescuing downed
> pilots from aircraft, complex rules on water (Italians needed more
> water because they wouldn't give up their pasta), etc. etc.
> 
>  You could say, "This game details the decisions that the commanding
> Generals (Rommel and various Allied generals) had to make.  But
> the level of detail, actually worked against this fantasy.  Rommel 
would 
> not worry about hunting down individual pilots.  Some levels of 
detail,
> are not only less playable, but actually break the fantasy that the
> designer is trying to create.
> 
>  Abstraction is a key (perhaps the key) element that designers have
> to get right.
> 
>  Warm regards, Rick
> 
> 
> On 2015-12-07, at 12:02 AM, Joseph Beutel wrote:
>> I don’t know that this is necessarily distinct, though. I’m not 
sure that RPGs are unique in being story-telling games that use 
mechanics and various models (maps, miniatures, images, etc) to help 
resolve a common vision from several separate creative minds. I’m not 
sure that video games aren’t doing the same thing but using a much 
more clear visual representation to resolve at least the physical 
components of imagination— and even then I’d say only certain video 
games (modern “show everything,” highly graphical video games) even 
attempt that in a way that is any different from tabletop games. 
>> 
>> That said I think the overall point is accurate— even if it is just 
accurate to a wider range of genres than you have suggested. But where 
does abstraction come in?
>> 
>> I think the key is that abstraction must serve the purpose of the 
story-telling. While any abstraction inherently hurts ‘common 
resolution’ of the story, the concession can be made when it allows 
the story to be told more effectively overall. The most common example I 
see cited in game-design discussions would be designing a higher level 
skirmish game— say World War 2, battalion level— where players are 
meant to be the officers leading a battalion. While one could use a 
highly detailed set of rules to accurately resolve all of the combat 
that takes place at a 1:1 level, it would actually hurt the 
story-telling. It does this mostly through perspective; our officers 
don’t know what the 2nd squad of the 3rd platoon of Bravo company is 
doing at a man-to-man level at all times, and so abstraction is actually 
necessary here (and not just desirable from a ‘playability’ 
standpoint) to make the story work properly. 
> 
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