Momentum and modern game design

Time to refine a word I’ve used in the past – Momentum.

Before I used it to talk about the flow of play, thinking it came mostly from the group dynamics of the people playing. I think it’s better stated this way:

How often and reliably can everyone playing experience and participate in the fun of what this game is about?

Now, an important shift I had to make, was that I thought Momentum initially as a result of group dynamics, and it is, but I didn’t think back to the fact that the group dynamics (“how do we play this game?”) come from the text.

A lot of rpgs simply don’t have good rules to facilitate momentum for their play – individual players and groups have to make up the difference and become “good roleplayers” for basically kludging together something that was missing key components.

We see this a lot of times in rpgs when groups spend a lot of time, sessions, months even, meandering around and unable to get a solid grasp on not just what “the characters” in the most abstract sense do, but what do THESE characters, Mr. X, Ms. Y, Mr. Z, do in THIS situation? This isn’t an issue of learning the rules, this is an issue of the core focus of play being absent, and the result of a game failing to give people tools to even know which direction play is supposed to go in, much less facilitating that process.

No momentum.

This is basically the point that I think is the defining line between modern rpg design and “broken wheel” design – can the game effectively communicate what play is about and give tools so that a group can reliably hit what is fun for this game?

When you’re having fun, things go by quickly – it has momentum and a lot happens in play. When things are dragging, nothing gets done in play. When the D&D team brought up “20 minutes of fun in 4 hours”, that’s a place where we’re talking about failure of momentum.

This is why games like Riddle of Steel or Apocalypse World tend to get labeled, “traditional” but in fact are very, very different experiences than most traditional games. This is also the reason why nearly any traditional game becomes 1000x more functional and entertaining when you throw a Flag-based reward mechanic on it – it becomes a way for the group to hone in on what play is about and to engage it meaningfully. (Flip side, it’s also why games that reward, “showing up” above actions in play, tend to suffer this problem of stalling out.)

This last year of doing 1 hour games has really taught me that the two aspects of play that define the entire experience for people are 1. Logistics to start (how hard is it to learn, how much set up including character creation, conveying concept & setting, etc.) and 2. momentum in play.

If you can’t reliably deliver fun in 1 hour (really, in 15 minutes), your game just isn’t working.

Short further thought on Procedures & Directives

A really simple idea on Procedures & Directives – both are telling you “how” to play the game, just on different levels.

Procedures are like knowing how to row the boat, Directives are knowing which direction you’re trying to go – just because everyone knows how to row an oar, if you’re not coordinated, the boat doesn’t go anywhere really.

While you certainly can make procedures and lock down more play, directives are what allow people to fully exercise creativity and leave things open – this is pretty much where many people who are into traditional rpg design become very excited when they look into how Apocalypse World works- it’s Principles are clear directives which is something lacking in many games (or, worse, games that give directives that are impossible to achieve with the procedures laid out…)

Iterative Rolls and Excitement (or not)

Further thoughts on yesterday’s 90 minute D&D game, has me thinking about the part where things slowed down – the boss fight.

I’m realizing a key aspect of game design that infuses most of the rpgs I play at this point is how much the game state changes compared to the amount of effort put into resolution (dice rolling, card drawing, etc.) – very much the stuff I was talking about Whiff Factor.

D&D has you roll an attack, then roll damage – if the attack misses, nothing changes, and technically, until hitpoints are 0 (or, the monster is bloodied in 4E) no changes happen either. Add in the fact my boss had 30 hitpoints, and 15 AC, meaning a) it’s going to take an average of 9 hits (3.5 damage on a D6) and b) at best 50% of any attacks will hit.

This means we’re talking (average) 18 attack rolls (assuming no one does anything else, like heal, or stunt, etc.) and 9 damage rolls. Divided by 4 players, 4.5 trips around the table. In actuality I think it was 6-7 trips around the table, because, as I pointed out, people end up doing more than “attack, attack, attack”. The last 2 rounds for the players were pretty slow because everyone started rolling poorly, and you could see the energy starting to drop around the table.

This makes it very different than say, a fighting videogame where you’re not going to get too many misses before the counterattack, and 3 seconds is a lot of time for things to happen. It also is very different than craps, which at least for being a completely randomized game with no real strategy or dressing, changes the game state (do you win or lose money?) very quickly. In both cases, at least, the turnaround time between “failure result” and changes to game state are very quick.

This is also why a lot of D&D ends up talking about “the sweet spot” which is a place where the iterative rolls are not too out of hand (because, the hitpoint totals are not too high, such as “E6 D&D”). 4E tried to add conditions on to failed rolls, but either the effects were too small, or only useful in narrow situations.

Compared to other games where either the iterative rolls/resolutions are limited to specific, short number (Covenant, Trollbabe), resolution spirals towards completion (Sorcerer), game states change quickly (Apocalypse World, Riddle of Steel), the typical assumptions in a lot of D&D and D&D descended design where misses and non-results approximate 50% of the results, are kind of a thing to just avoid or keep minimal from the get-go if you’re making a new game.

The Stakes Hurdle

I’m realizing that one of the core aspects of most rpg play is a major hurdle – the whole process of conflict/task resolution and stake setting. What situations should we roll the dice? What are the possible outcomes?

Modern conflict resolution is simply an evolution of the past with fences put around to avoid the dysfunctional zones: railroading, test-spamming until someone fails, setting reasonable stakes, declaring stakes, negotiation amongst the table about what makes for reasonable outcomes, etc.

While this is functional enough, it’s also a high mastery technique- it demands the GM or the group be conversant enough to recognize what conflicts matter, what levels of failure matter, in the moment of play. Which is why you see groups trying a new game and having moments of “Oh, do we roll the dice now? Oh wait, maybe we should have done 5 minutes ago when you first started talking?” It’s procedurally simple and complex as a directive, which means – it works well enough, but it’s a terrible way to introduce new people and takes time to master.

Cutting Away Messiness (Game prep)

Here’s a creative process I do, that works for me. Your process may be completely different.

All my good ideas start as bad ideas

I get an idea, and I get excited. I brainstorm a lot of stuff. In this case, I’m putting together a game scenario, and I’m writing up setting, a history of the city, politics, cultural bits.

Next, I go back through that, and focus on the situation, first. If I only have a one shot, what’s the stuff I could reasonably explain to a player and have them remember, and understand the scenario?

Usually I find the scenario was messy- there was probably 3-4 things that could be the focus, but now I cut it to 1-2 things that are the things I really am excited about. Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean the scenario will play out as a one-trick pony – the focus makes it easier for me to adapt in play because I have a better grasp of what is cool about the scenario…

Funny enough, I have to go through this process- if I just started with a “simple” idea, it inevitably turns out to be too broad, vague, and bland – the complex idea gives me a lot of edges and angles to choose from, and cutting it down lets me pick the best, most compelling stuff. And, the process of having done that gives me a lot of background ideas that I can pull out during play and make it seem like it’s off-the-cuff when it’s partially discarded or reworked ideas.

A cleaner idea is a cleaner game

My group and I play lots of short campaigns or one-shots – we get to switch being the GM often enough, and we get to look at what each other is doing as GMs or players and compare notes about what is easy or hard for any of us. We learn from each other.

A lot of times, a common thing for all of us is the tendency to get derailed or unfocused – to spend too much energy as a GM on something that ultimately doesn’t contribute to the game. It makes it harder to adapt in play to what is really interesting and cool, and also confuses the players along the way.

An unfortunate thing I see happen a lot in rpgs is that many folks try to be “clever”.

Other media have the advantage that people can re-watch/reread something to figure out if something is complicated or unclear. Rpgs do not have that luxury, and, furthermore, because the fiction is created by the group, it becomes absolutely vital to clearly communicate what is necessary to know about the fiction – or you end up with situations like, “I grab the bag”, “But you’re in the other room!” “Wait, there’s two rooms?” “Yeah, you went through the door” “Oh I thought I was on this side of the door…”

When you can have mixups on simple things, being clever is often asking too much.

Good prep is a seed, bad prep is a husk

Good, clear prep that is focused works as a seed in play- it naturally creates more things.

An old piece of gamer baggage is to over-prepare material on the idea that “it’s better to have too much than it is to risk not having enough”. This mostly comes from D&D dungeon building or railroaded encounters- where anything that is available had to be prepped before hand, and usually took 2-5 times as long to make as it took to play through.

Problem is, that stuff is all 1-shot material (“We had the encounter. We’re never going to have that again…”) and you end up having to navigate through it during play, instead of having a flexible idea you can build off of.

Worse, if the material isn’t relevant or interesting, then it becomes something you have to work to discard, or, the players have to wade through to figure out what is important. (“Ok, so in the room description he just read 3 paragraphs about the tiling design. Is this a clue or is it just a place where Gygax decided to go off?”)

Bad prep is a husk you have to peel away to not let it clutter up the things that matter.

My recommendation is to brainstorm, then cut it down to elevator pitches and reframe any idea cleaner. You’ll get more from it, and better play.