Below I posted an article of mine from RPGNet from 2002. I reposted it for two reasons, one to give what is in effect my 'top level view' of rpg design on this blog. The second reason is to look it over and how it seems to apply to rpgs today.
Naturally (not lacking in ego) I feel it remains sound and rather intact. RPGs haven't despite the efforts of some changed to any extent that would cause a revision of the article (although I did correct a couple of typos as I was copying it over). Another thing that hasn't changed is the fact that many don't understand the concepts covered in the article. Stated as it's most simple, this can be expressed as: The sum total experience of a rpg campaign is driven by a large number of factors much of which exist outside the rules.
Yet today there are many who feel that unless something is hardcoded in the Game Layer (or *maybe* the Near Game), it doesn't exist at all. From the old cries of 'roleplay not rollplay' to today's critics of D&D 4E (who say the detailed combat system prevents roleplay), to http://www.indie-rpgs.com/ and its depressing theory of GNS, this mindset remains a bedrock of the rpg hobby.
Pity. Games are worse for it, and players poorer.
Each Layer of a game design can and should of course be judged on it's own. One may for example examine combat rules and determine that they are too complex for one's own use or taste. One may even find rule loopholes and failures. That's fine and fair. One cannot however say that it isn't roleplaying. To do so is ignoring the most important Layers- those the players and the GM exist at, for it is there that any RPG campaign is given form and brought to life.
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I've been looking for design theories that broke away from the three-fold/GNS models. I think your Layers approach is definitely a better approach since I felt that the other theories were too confining.
Thanks for reposting the article!
It's a solid way of looking at game design. I think it tackles RPGs from group dynamics down to the dice without infusing an ideology, not any ideology that I can tell anyways. Also the terminology is much clearer to me than describing an idea as "John's out for cigarettes".
It's already of use to me in analyzing the way I like to run my games. I prefer RPGs that are relatively simple at the game level so I can emphasize play at the near-game and near meta-game levels. There my players may refer to their character sheets, but their own wits and savvy can provider to be even better than trusting to a roll of the dice.
As a bit of history, it was developed back during the end period of the 'great' threefold debates in rec.games.frp.advocacy.
I felt at the time that there was a serious danger of missing the forest due to an extreme focus on a tree or two, and my response to that developed into this.
At one time I intended to contain other models for each of the layers, but abandoned that as unnecessary complexity as well as somewhat dangerous as I watched what other models mutated into it.
Zweihander- you hit the nail on one of the prime goals I had for it. Not so much to answer what an rpg is (as that's a rather detailed question), but rather to spark thought about what you or any other individual wants in an rpg.
I always felt the GNS model and its derivitives seemed to advocate one method of play (ideology) over another.
Heh, as far as answering what an RPG is, well I attempted that recently... the jury is still out on how well I did.
That was certainly true of GNS and even the threefold although it was unintended in the latter case.
Both were driven by the nature of the people who created the models, Simulationist in the case of the threefold and Narrative in the case of GNS.
Both basically attempted to define their 'home' corner in as good of terms as possible, and threw anything they didn't like into the others. The result was predictable.
gleichman: Tell me, was that the case with GDS, too, and was it to as a great an extent? I missed that entire era of discussion.
Great article, by the way. A very intentions-driven way of looking at design.
Yes, I'm afraid it was very much the case with GDS.
The origin is somewhat interesting. One of the author of Theatrix posted for a while in rec.games.frp.advocacy back in the day. And the flame wars flew as he insisted on a type of diceless drama driven play.
The answer by the more traditional people was the start of the Threefold as they defined Simulation vs. Drama resolution. As the Sim people made up most of the posters, Sim became well defined adn the Drama side was always the ones saying 'but you aren't defining us right...".
Later Irina (one of the posters) suggested that there was a third element- Gamist. And thus history was born.
But there were very few Gamists to define it, leaving the Sim people to do so. And of course the tendency in all of this is that anything you don't like gets assigned to a corner other than your own.
Needless to say, very few desiring the title of Gamist could accept the result.
More flamewars. Death of newsgroup followed.
And then Edwards came along and continued the worst elements of that in GNS.
And that's the short history.
Interesting stuff. I find it pretty illuminating to hear the history of some of the stuff that goes on in arguments now. I hope that's something you can touch on in greater detail as it avails itself within the scope of your blog...
I'm trying to get a post working. This is a test.
-Marco
Ahh--that worked. Here is my comment: I believe that the idea that system elements--i.e. a combat system--dictate play is backwards. I have seen it postulated that the more pages of the book spent on combat, the more the game is "about" combat (see the "D&D really is hack and slash" argument).
I don't think this is true: systems tend to focus where the designers think the play will be exciting--not necesssarily the most common or even most important.
No one thinks most of the time in a James Bond game will be spent in a car chase or that most of the important decisions in play will be there. Instead, James Bond had revolutionary chase mechanics because (a) it fit the genre and (b) it was really exciting.
So, in fact, each element must be looked at in the proper context (indeed, in a James Bond game you can probably expect a car chase somewhere) and utility (hopefully the car chase will be exciting)--but still in the larger context (James Bond is not about racing cars).
-Marco
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