I’m making a terrible habit of late posts. Ugh. I need to get on top of this.
One of the games I got to play at Gen Con this year was a three-person playtest of Jonathan Walton’s very interesting take on Avatar: the Last Airbender. The three players involved were Jon, Shreyas, and myself. All three of us are pretty big fans of the show, and had spent part of the trip to the con discussing it.
This is to say, we were all pretty much on the same page in terms of interpretation of what the show is about and how it works. We did not need a game text (either flavor text, atmospheric text, or even mechanics) to make sure we were all working with roughly the same imaginative content.
When we sat down, we pretty much just had Jon’s character sheets and his Dharma Paths (which are pretty dang cool). No real mechanics established yet, other than some sketchy ideas about how the sheet changes and how Dharma Paths progress.
We spent the first half-hour or so tossing around mechanical ideas, trying to figure out enough procedure to sit down and play. We got some really sketchy ideas down based on the four elements (a fairly central concept to the show), and set to playing.
There was a lot of fun stuff going on in the game, but the one thing I wanted to highlight because it’s what I’m talking about today: we didn’t have any mechanics to determine success or failure. Not at the task level, not at the conflict level, not at any level.
This is significant because, as I see it, the vast majority of games coming out of the Forge design philosophy have, historically, been primarily focused on resolution mechanics. (It should be noted that reward mechanics are likely more central to the Forge philosophy, but that they are predominantly tied into resolution.) There has been a shift in recent years toward pacing mechanics (Primetime Adventures) and front-loaded situation generation (Dogs in the Vineyard, Shock:, etc.).
Even with those recent shifts, though, there’s a strong focus on resolution mechanics, especially with tying them into thematic ideas. Shock: utilizes praxis scales, which are highly thematic, Dogs in the Vineyard utilizes things that describe individual characters, as does Primetime Adventures.
I bring all this up to suggest this: resolution mechanics are not a necessary aspect of design. They are an option, and can be a powerful one, but since mechanics necessarily reduce flexibility those mechanics reduce the options available to players. This focusing can be purposeful and powerful, but it isn’t something that your game has to use.
So the question for you, gentle reader, is this: if we dump resolution as a primary focus of mechanics, what else might we pick as a mechanical focus? In Jon’s Avatar game, mechanics are primarily a pacing thing. They are designed to maintain a fast-paced game, and to provide some interestingly varied narration. What else could our mechanics be about?
Thomas
Tags: Applied, Dense-post, Theory
Those of us with impaired imagination may need some help imagining what such a game would look like.
Can you explain how the Avatar game worked?
Fred,
I can sure try!
Here’s how things basically worked. Each character figured out a Dharma Path for each of the four elements. You started with a marker on one of the elements. When you had a scene, you basically free played with the goal of advancing the path for the element your marker was on.
You also needed to demonstrate, in the scene, your embodyment of that element either in its positive form or its negative form. As soon as you feel you’ve furthered your path the scene ends. You then write down on your path some key phrase that reminds you of what happened in the scene (I think Jon has our paperwork from the game, but I remember that one of mine was ‘I’m not a kid anymore!’). Then, if you embodied your element in the scene in its positive form, you move your element marker clockwise to the next element. If you emobied your element negatively you move your marker counter-clockwise to the previous element.
There was some other cool fiddly stuff, but that was the basics for guiding play. We alternated scenes among the characters with each main character getting a scene in turn.
Is that any clearer?
Thomas
That resolution mechanics are unnecesary is one of the basics of the Nordic Free Form scene, and we have had fun with our games year after year…
Well, I’m playing in an Amber game right now where the only mechanic is an advancement mechanic.
One can also focus on event generation: like Whimsy Cards or the Shab-al-Hiri Roach’s Opportunity cards.
Yeah, that’s clearer…
But I would take issue with the idea that you didn’t have a resolution mechanic. You did, it’s just so implicit you didn’t notice it.
Not having been there, I couldn’t say, but would the following be an adequate description of your system? (I use the word ’system’ in the Forge sense).
“Whoever’s taking their turn decides what happens, and the rest of us react to it.”
That sounds VERY strange to me, John. Can you elaborate? An advancement mechanic seems to me to be an odd thing to have as your only mechanic. I can only imagine advancement mechanics in relation to other mechanics — character creation, for example.
Can you elaborate? I’m curious how that works.
Fred,
Not really. There were at least a couple of instances where someone would narrate something and one of the other players would go ‘wait a minute, that doesn’t sound right’. And we’d negotiate something different.
That isn’t to say that we didn’t have resolution procedures. In the LP sense you’ve pretty much got to have them to engage in social activities at all. But I make a distinction between mechanics, which are provided by the rules (making them a design issue), and procedures, which are all the ways the players engage with one another (which is what actually happens at the table).
Thomas
No. It wouldn’t.
I think we were talking about this in the irc - I draw a distinction between credibility (the power to make decisions about the fiction) and resolution (what to do when you reach disagreements in mixed-credibility situations). There is no resolution, because there is nothing to resolve.
Jonas,
This is true, but it’s been my understanding, perhaps mistaken, that the Nordic freeform scene plays for fundamentally different reasons than most people who play Forge-style games. That is, I thought the Nordic freeform scene was about immersion while the Forge scene is primarily about story generation.
That doesn’t really make my personal revelation any more universal, but I do think that it’s slightly different to realize that ‘I can do what I’m interested in without resolution mechanics’ instead of just ‘Other people are able to do what they’re interested in, which isn’t the same thing I’m interested in, without resolution mechanics.’
Thomas
I’m not sure this is quite true. It was more like, all events are open for discussion until we have moved on to another topoc. I still think this is cred and not res.
Shreyas,
I believe you might be right. But I’m not entirely sure… yet.
Thomas
Thomas, you seem to be contradicting yourself.
In your first paragraph, you seem to say, “When there was a disagreement about narration, we would negotiate something different.”
Down below you seem to say, “Resolution is what you do when there are disagreements about narration, which we didn’t have.”
I must be missing something because I know you’re not a disorganized thinker.
A valid point indeed…
But there are groups making games that do not aim at immersion at all and is more geared towards story making. But immersion is what is most often associated with the genre, I give you that.
Fred,
I’m not sure which two statements of mine you are referring to. Quotes maybe?
Thomas
Jonas,
I wouldn’t be at all surprised. However, my ignorance of the Nordic ’scene’, inasmuch as there is one, is pretty scant. There may be tons of people doing this all over the place, but not in my own social circles.
Which, really, is pretty sad. If other people have things to teach me, I wish I knew about them and the things they were doing. (Which is one of the big reasons I love Push so much. It’s aiming to be a place where we can all get together.)
Thomas
Never mind; on re-reading I see that you make a distinction between “mechanics” and “procedures” in order to be able to say that you didn’t have a resolution mechanic.
Would it be fair to say, then, that you replaced a formal resolution mechanic with a formal resolution procedure?
Fred,
I’d be pretty hesitant to say such a thing for two reasons. The first is Shreyas’ note about credibility and resolution. Any point of ‘disagreement’ took the form of ‘that doesn’t make sense to me’ rather than ‘I am going to exercise my authority to make you change your narration.’ I’m not entirely sure that resolution was going on.
But, even if it was, we didn’t have a formal procedure for it. Each time something like this came up, we handled it in some slightly different way. I really wish we had a recording of this so I could point this stuff out, but using the term ‘formal procedure’ is definitely not going to be accurate.
Thomas
From another POV, Avatar is entirely an advancement mechanic. Dharma Paths specifically inspired by the Keys in TSoY and are basically just “key chains” (if you’ll pardon the pun). Characters are predominantly defined by what they are becoming and how close they are to becoming that.
I can imagine John’s game may use advancement more as a way to record and reward things character have done, in a situation where they ability to do something doesn’t change in a quantitative fashion.
I think that regulating the addition fictional content (i.e. resolution) and structuring the game are the most important, if not the only things that mechanics do.
That is why resolution mechanics are usually tied to resolution or structural mechanics.
Victor Gijsbert’s Shades focusses completely on structural mechanics.
Stefan,
I’d be curious to hear about why you think that’s the most important thing that mechanics do.
It seems to me that all mechanics do is provide you with procedures that your group wouldn’t have come up with on its own. If your group has great procedures for resolution and structure already, but (say) could use some different procedures for coming up with good characters, then it seems you need mechanics that teach you to do good characters, not mechanics to help with resolution.
Thomas
To me, a mechanic is a rule including numbers or similar variables. (Do we use the term in the same way?)
There is nothing like a good mechanic. If there was there would be a best mechanic, too - meaning that we’d could write the game to end all games.
A mechanic may be well suited for certain games depending on the scenery, core story, the preferred processes (as in the Process Modell).
It does NOT get obsolete, when I could play without.
So I can choose to play a game without resolution mechanics for various reasons. And I can use a mechanic that does something else.
But there is nothing like a mechanic for just building a character. Let’s say I have extensive rules to determine various stats for my character. If those numbers are not used during to either change the SIS or affect the structure of play, there isn’t any reason to make them up in the first place.
Stefan,
We weren’t using the same definition of mechanic, but I’m willing to use your definition for this discussion.
I concur that there is no such thing as an absolutely good mechanic. Mechanics are only good or bad in relation to specific play goals.
So, I’m with you all the way to your final point. Character generation impacts play. So if we imagine a Dogs in the Vineyard character in a game that never rolls dice ever. Those stats, the names of them, will impact the SIS. There’s no need for any resolution mechanics at all here, you can still get use out of character generation.
Thomas
Thomas,
I agree. My last character had Loud Voice 2d10, and I could use his loud voice in a game without rolling the dice. But to me this would not be a mechanic. ;)
I think I do understand now, what you mean by ‘mechanic’. Any rule that orders the players to proceed in a structured manner is one.
The rule ‘Write down 5 stats.’ would be therefore a chargen mechanic. Is that correct?
If so, I have a problem. If I read the rule above I would still think: “What do I write down these stats for?” There must be a reason.
Let’s take Crime&Punishment. That one works like that. You write down a certain number of key words, and the rules say clearly how to do that. But then there is another rule saying: “Those key words must be used during the game.” And that is the important one. If that rule wasn’t present, the whole preparation would be meaningless.
Stefan
Stefan,
Your final sentence is something that we’re probably going to end up fighting over. The suggestion that things without mechanical weight are meaningless seems pretty crazy to me. It matters that I didn’t get enough sleep the night before the game, it matters that I’m hungry, it matters that I just saw The Matrix again, it matters that I’m dating the GM, it matters that you’re the new guy in the group.
All this stuff undoubtedly matters to the game. By the same token, it matters that I spent two or three or five minutes writing down five important things about the character. Even if there’s no mechanical weight to that, it’s going to matter to play. So, looking at your example, if you wrote down that your character has a Loud Voice 2d10, but you never, ever roll those dice, that doesn’t suddenly make the fact that you wrote it down worthless. It still matters, it’s still important.
So, sure, there must be a reason for you to write down the stats, but isn’t ’so that you think about the character and firm up who and what they are in your head’ a valid reason? While you certainly could have a different, more mechanical reason, surely there’s no need for one…
Thomas