Role-Playing Structures II

In my previous essay, I introduced what I see as the two major “structures” of role-playing, mechanisms and imaginings. Here I’ll explore them further: their components, their interaction, and their use.

Nouns and Verbs

I wrote previously as though the structure were relatively uniform, but in each we can find nouns and verbs.

Nouns are contents. These need not be static things: they can be events; and they need not be strictly concrete: they could be souls or feelings of characters, morality, etc. But they describe things, and what happens to things. In the case of formal rules, we might call nouns variables; and in the world of imaginings, symbols. The distinction is not absolute, but let us accept it for now. Variables are formal and discussed openly; they are quantified. Symbols are fuzzy and usually far broader. There will inevitably be more symbols than variables in an RPG.

Verbs are the methods by which nouns are created, changed, destroyed. Let us call a verb that affects variables (i.e. mechanical nouns) procedure, and one affecting symbols (imaginary nouns) process. Processes are not obvious: they are highly internal to the players and may be based just on a fleeting emotion. But if we assume symbols are not changed in people’s minds randomly or arbitrarily, there is some pattern, some rhyme or reason; so we can call it a process.

We can thus draw two large boxes for each of the major role-playing structures, mechanics and imaginings, subdivided into nouns and verbs. Some other elements in the diagram will be discussed below.

Mechanics                Imaginings
+---------+              +----------+
|         |              |          |   
|variable |    joins     |  symbol  |
| ------- |              | -------- |
|procedure|   <------>   |  process |
|         |              |          |
+---------+              +----------+

^       ^       ^           ^       ^
text    notes   discussion  custom  props

Texts and minds

Nothing I’ve described is necessarily present in a game text. All that matters is what’s in the players’ heads; these ideas are the real structures of the game; which constitute it and will be used in it. That they are held in any other mind — another groups’, a game designer’s — or in a written text, or an audio book, is irrelevant.

This certainly includes very mechanistic rules, which might seem to operate without any subjective player input. That fact, too, is irrelevant, for a player must posess the idea of the mechanic in order to execute it. In some ways then, mechanics and imaginings blur together. But at the practical level the distinction is worth making: mechanics are stable, their nature fixed and known; imaginings are fluid and ephemeral, recorded imprecisely if at all.

A text attempts to transmit a way of playing. It attempts to give some nouns, some verbs and some things in between. It gives some vague and subtle hints and clues, and it gives some very “hard,” explicit mechanics. It attempts to convey these with words and diagrams; it gives instructions.

But a text can never give everything you need to play: all texts make assumptions. The game designer assumes common ground between himself and his audience; and if it exists, the experience will match what he intended — and perhaps will accordingly be good. But if commonalities do not exist, the game will be different. To some extent, this is inevitable, and not necessarily bad; but if extreme, players lose the benefit of the designer — of design — and ad-libbing game rules is not easy.

Congruence

Players have separate minds, and all ideas in role-playing must be held individually; there is ultimately no collective thought. However, variables and procedures are functionally collective: being formal and largely written in the game text, agreement about them is easily found. Conversely, one of the larger problems of game design is orchestrating congruence among the imaginings of different players.

A close pairing between formal rules and imaginings can achieve some congruence, but is not enough: players also have to talk to each other to negotiate agreement, perhaps explicitly, perhaps subtly. Game texts can help with this process—though they seldom have—with softer rules and advice. No matter how it’s done, conrguence is critical, for if it breaks down, so will everything else.

Techniques

The little rules and methods players have for getting congruence are just one kind of technique. Techniques are what players actually do to bring play about; to manipulate mechanics and imainings. I see them as the glue holding everything else in the diagram together. We can have enormously important conversations about particular techniques, and which ones work for what larger structures and goals. But for now, it suffices to say we are only using a very small number of possible techniques, and much work exploring them remains.

Joins, relating the formal to the informal, are perhaps the thorniest techniques of game design. Many of the words floating around the diagram may function as joins, as well as help with congruence. Remember though that joins are much more specific than illustrated here, connecting specific pieces inside each box.

Semi-formal

Really, there is a continuum between the formal and the informal. If players write down little summaries of their imaginations, this is more stable than a symbol but is not quite a variable either.

It is common for processes to gain stability in a single person’s mind, as patterns emerge in how he thinks and makes decisions (indeed, we all have such patterns before we begin playing). Such regularity could be communicated to the other players, creating an established custom of the play group. This is neither process nor procedure, but technique.

Objectives

Besides many details, there is something major missing from the diagram: a third structure that encompasses mechanics and imaginings, and relates especially to the verbs: player purpose. Why do the players activate the procedures they do? Or the processes they do? To include techniques, we must broaden the question further: Why do they play as they do? Obviously, this is no small matter.

At this point I am not even talking about psychology, though obviously that’s present. I refer more narrowly to each player’s conscious objectives. In a strategy game, this is probably to win. But in role-playing, objectives are enormously varied. I don’t want to get into this issue now—by trying to create a typology of objectives, for instance. It’s enough to point out that objectives are fluid: they differ between published games, instances of those games (“campaigns”), players and play sessions.

Breaking the Boxes

The above diagram is helpful, I think. But I’ve alluded often to the fact that things are flexible: those categories are just shorthand. So we could instead imagine a field of space, with two axes, describing all the game concepts in a player’s mind:

               nounish

                  ^
                  |    
                  |
formal            |          informal
stable    <-------+--------> ephemeral
mechanics         |          imaginings
                  |
                  |
                  v

               verbish

All the structures of a game could be placed on these axes. Consider hit points, a highly nounish, formal idea (a variable). Players can give hit points various meanings, such as how bloody a character is at a given moment. Such a definition is nounish but informal (a symbol).

Techniques don’t appear as items on the graph per se, but as arrows connecting the structures (with directionality). Techniques also relate one graph, in one player’s head, to that in anothers’, which we could visualize as lines extending into a third dimension. Player objectives are a kind of all-permeating field that affects everything else.

Conclusion

This framework is obviously just a beginning. Much remains to be said, especially on such topics as joins, congruence, the writing of texts, and the alignment of objectives. If these ideas are pursued, I see very tangible benefits: perhaps in the categorizing of games or gameplay; in detecting problems and avoiding them; and generally in designs and play that better meet our purpose, whatever that may be. Like any complex subject, role-playing may profitably be seen from multiple perspectives, so this formulation must be but one among many; but I hope it is thought provoking at the least.

Nov 03, 2009 | Filed in design | Tagged: , , , ,