I want to play the "Bang hot goth chicks" game

aka Social Context post #1

So this is the post which I had you read *all* of the Infamous Five for, although I hope that the process was edifying in its own right. If you haven't read the 27 threads yet, please do go and read them, because they provide a really necessary context for this post. In particular, I'm going to be trying to quantify a few of the many issues that they are talking about. (And, by "quantify," I mean "analyze" not "assign numbers to." Smartass.)

At GenCon 2004 (edited typo here, was '03), there was a decent amount of talk about what we're moving towards, in terms of progressive game design and games not just for gamers. (To those that were there -- I'm thinking in particular about the conversation at the Italian restaurant on Sunday night, after enough people had left that we condensed into one table.) One of the ways that people framed it was in terms of the "deck of cards --" some sort of gaming tools which could be used to play a wide variety of games (not a literal deck of cards, mind you, but a universal set of RPG playing tools.) Not being particularly interested in games-not-for-gamers, nor particularly interested in universality in rules, I didn't engage a lot in this conversation, although it was certainly interesting.

At Brand Robin's blog Yudhishthira's Dice he recently made two posts about solo (meaning one GM - one player) games: You and me baby, one on one... oh yeah.... and the deceptively titled Solo Games, post the first. One of the issues he talks about he frames as a frustration that advocates of solo play (of which there are not many) have shied away from the "solo play can lead to fucking" angle, which he thinks is a great aspect of it, and a huge advantage. (and, you know, he's totally right). He rightly decries the general lack of emphasis on sex in RPGs and in RPG circles, and that this is really a big attraction of role-playing, being that it is a highly intimate artform (in either one-on-one or in group situations.)

We get a lot of new game designers on the Forge, people who are totally unfamiliar with the theory work we do and just stumble in trying to design the game of their dreams. This is excellent! Frankly to say, the Forge is probably the best place on the internet for the amateur design to design the game of the their dreams, and a lot of that has to do with the theory that we've developed. Anyway, a lot of these guys, simply because they don't have the exposure and backing of the theory, explain "what I want to do with my game" in terms of techniques -- mostly mechanics and setting. Things like "I want it to use a 3d12 keep the middle die system" or "It is set in a ahistorical version of 19th century Central Europe, with a focus on revolutionaries and rabble-rousers," rather than in terms of the sort of play and the sort of interactions between players that they want the game to consist of, which is usually what they want. What often happens is that people who want Narrativism will try to get it by placing heavy emphasis on Setting elements of Exploration, and people who want Gamism place heavy emphasis on the System elements of Exploration, and both of them usually don't end up with a game that is particularly playable by anyone. It is a category error, and a big one, but it is also a totally reasonable error to make, because they simply don't have the vocabulary to even begin to think about RPGs outside of the technical level.

It is my contention that the folks who are talking about the "Deck of Cards" game that will be accessible to all and Brand when he talks about sexiness in gaming and two-player games, are making the same sort of category error that the Novice designers on the Forge are exhibiting. To whit -- both are trying to change the Social Context, but they are trying to effect such change without considering it directly at all, but latching on to lower-level concerns which may or may not make a difference -- Social Contract, Exploration, Creative Agenda and Techniques level stuff, in other words.

In specific, Brand is trying to change fix / alter the Social Context of gaming (sleazy guy reputations, etc.) by making alterations to Social Contract (two-player games) and and Exploration (sexy stuff.) The "Deck of Cards" discussion was actually about altering rather high level social context (how RPG play relates to our culture-at-large) but focused on something that is situated at the Technical level of the Big Model, or at best at the Exploration (System) level. I think that this path is as mistaken as the path of trying to get functional Creative Agenda play out of fiddling around with the Techniques level, or trying to get everyone to get along by changing setting elements (the wonderfully named "Elven Ear fallacy.")

To continue pounding on Brand (who really does get this stuff, I'm just being me): It is, in truth, not entirely possible to sell a game that can be used explicitly as a flirting / pick-up game in today's RPG scene. The unpleasant social context (too many gamer girls getting awkwardly hit on) poisons the great potential. Thus, if you want your pick-up game to exist, you must change some of the things within the game and around the game in order to make it more possible. Here are some considerations:

• Make the goal of the game less obvious / direct, or possibly even sublimate it entirely, instead focusing on having it consist of activities that build trust and intimacy and sexiness.
  
• Sell it to a crowd of people who does not have the prejudices and experiences that gamers have. This, of course, suffers all the disadvantages of selling a role-playing game to non-gamers.
  
• Do something to change around the social context so that it does not mirror the past sleaziness of the gamer experience. For instance, you could sell it to the girls, and encourage them to use the game to pick-up guys. But you may want to adjust the rules, presentation, etc for your new audience.
  
• Many other things
  

A great example of a game that fails to consider the social context level of play is my own Polaris. My self-identified "target audience" is people who have been through the Amber / Nobilis / Theatrix / Freeform cycle of play, and are frustrated at the stalling of those games and the "certain sameness" that creeps into the play of each one -- essentially a slow drift towards Gamism with a strong emphasis on precedent and pre-positioning. Systematically, Polaris can answer to this in a number of ways (giving strong system tools for making things happen without a heavy mechanical component), but it totally fails on the social context level. The players we're speaking of are largely mid-20s to late-30s. They are professional types with jobs, children, highly stable gaming groups, etc. The game fails in two ways. First, it requires a specific number of players (to be fair, optional rules allow for 3-5, but it should be four, and the rulebook says as much.) This may require breaking up the old gaming group, something these players would never do. Furthermore, it absolutely and totally requires everyone's presence at every session. (Eric Finley's group is playtesting some optional rules to divert this, but...) And, by presence, I mean full on-the-ball awareness. It has no concessions for sick kids, vacations, a rough day at work, whatever. This, it will be attractive to them as a game, but I imagine most players will find getting through a full 4-6 session storyline difficult.

So here are some hard questions for any designer about their own design work:

• How do you want play of your game to be integrated into the lives of your players? Answers can range from "just like an ordinary RPG" to any number of exotics, but if your answer is "just like an ordinary RPG" do realize that that answer covers a great deal of territory. Have you done anything in terms of design, presentations, or marketing that would help them play the game this way? Have you given an indication of how you want them to play? How else might they try to play it? Do you need to add anything?
  
• How do you want play of your game to relate to previous experience playing RPGs? Answers can range from "the bestest game ever" to "new players only" to "I don't care," but each of those answers, again, means a wide variety of things. Have you done anything to support this? How else might you support this?
  
• How will the contents of your game seem to a role-player who has been exposed, previously, to the various sub-sub-cultures one encounters in gaming? How will they react to it? Does your marketing and game text answer the questions and concerns that they might have? Does it need to?
  
• How will the play of your game integrate into the wider gamer subculture? What preconceptions are your players going to bring to the table? How will it be perceived by others? How would your players talk about their game experiences with their peers? Do you care?
  
• How does your game text relate to other game texts, in terms of differences and similarities? What systematic parts and social assumptions have you borrowed from other texts? (Commonly: one GM many players, illusionism, etc.) What parts are "gestalt" and must be taught, and what parts can be learned from the text? Do you mind?
  
• Given the general context of how gaming is perceived by the culture at large, how do you want your game to fit into that or not? What can you do about that, in terms of marketing, sales, target audience, presentation, game text, and rules? What can't you do? Can you accept the things that you cannot do? If not, what are you going to change so that you can?
  

*None* of these questions is written with a pre-determined answer, at least not from me. These are questions to ask yourself as a designer and as a game player, and I think that asking them will make your game better, and possibly make it sell better.

P.S. Two commendations I have to give: Both Ron Edwards and Emily Boss are extraordinarily forward thinking designers when it comes to Social Context and the hard questions listed above. While I may not like all of their answers, they have asked these questions to themselves and by God they know their answers to them.