The long journey to simplicity

Looking at Time Lord twenty years later, I find myself thinking that simpler RPG mechanics have both become more common and more accepted. 

Of course, the truth might be that I have just become more aware of them and I am more accepting. After all, you can find examples of simple RPG mechanics from back in the 1980s. Toon, which is pretty darn intuitive and simple, was first published in 1984, to give one very clear example.

At the same time, it really does feel like there has been a move for game mechanics to be more user friendly. Which does mean more intuitive, more consistent and, yes, more simple.

Which only makes sense. Role playing games were developed out of miniature war games. The oldest systems were really designed to let you role play with miniature rules. I can pound in a nail with a screwdriver but I'll do a better job when I get a hammer.

For me, there was even a certain level of shame in playing a simple system. I spent years having tons of fun with the Original Marvel RPG with its one chart for everything. But now, looking at it as a system that was streamlined and just let us focus on over-the-top, super hero action, I think it's great.

A huge turning point for me was the third edition of D&D. Which really wasn't simple and, after endless supplements, got downright convoluted and even contradictory. However, having the system built around rolling high on a D20 is good made it much more intuitive and consistent then earlier versions. Having a single, underlining principle made the whole game hang together.

Another important game for me was Once Upon A Time, which I didn't consider an RPG when I first played it but I do now. Even then, though, I viewed it as a great tool for teaching RPG basics.

A game about collectively and competitively creating a Fairy Tale while using cards to add specific elements, Once Upon A Time uses simple rules to let folks explore the complex freedom of creating your own narrative. 

Learning to let go of complexity and learning to have story telling be the main focus of a game was a valuable lesson for me.

Now, I'm don't knock games that are mechanically driven and are simulations. They can be very immersive and engaging, as well as rewarding for using the system well. I still think that may be the best way to play an open-ended campaign that could last years.

However, it is okay to have a game that lasts only a handful or even one session. It's okay to have a system that uses broad strokes for simplicity's sake. It's okay to have a rule set that takes five minutes to explain.

And the success of games like Fiasco, as one good example, indicate that I am not alone in changing the way I used to think. This is something that a definite segment of the hobby wants and is prepared to support.

My changing philosophy of role playing games

I don't know if it is a shift in my interest in role-playing games or if there is an actual shift in the industry or culture of role-playing games. However, 15 years ago, any game that I would be involved with was at least theoretically a long-term campaign and commitment. Now, there are a lot more games that can be over and done with in one sitting.

I didn't make a Dungeons and Dragons character with the idea that I would only play them for one session. Sure, sometimes that happened because the game fell apart or the character died horribly. But that wasn't the plan. 

But now there are games like Fiasco which tells the whole story in two arcs or games like The Quiet Year or Ribbon Drive or Baron Munchausen that are clearly designed for one session. Even indie games designed for longer play, like Polaris or Apocalypse World, are still designed for a limited number of sessions. 

Some of that comes purely from mechanics. You can get a game of Fiasco rolling in ten, fifteen minutes. On the other hand, you would spend hours just making a character for Role Master. (And then have them die in five minutes due to the critical roll charts. There's a reason I only played Role Master once)

But the mechanics for a short form game wouldn't exist if the demand wasn't there. More importantly, they keep on coming out which means that there is an audience for them. Possibly even a growing audience.

In the boardgames and now in role-playing games, I find that the concept of accessibility is becoming more and more important. When I first got into role-playing games in the 80s, you had to be pretty serious and dedicated because the rules were so complicated and convoluted. Now, there are games that you can pick up and play, even if you don't have years of Dungeons & Dragons under your belt.

Which has led me to another change. At least for me, I would only be playing two or three rule systems at any given time. Often, only one rule system. Games like Dungeons & Dragons or Call of Cthulhu are life style games. They don't leave a lot of room in your calendar for other systems.

But games like Fiasco or The Name of God are small enough commitments that it's much easier to put a lot of different games. That is definitely a change in how I think about role-playing games.

There is a definite switch from game mastery to game exploration. With more complex systems designed for long term, virtually indefinite play (I knew a D&D campaign that went on for over twenty years on a pretty much weekly basis), you end up doing a lot of research and, by virtue of extended play, practice. In some cases, I've seen it turn into who can use the rules better.

With short forms, it becomes about story exploration. You aren't trying to explore how the nuts and bolts work. You are exploring how narratives work. Sometimes in a comic form and sometimes in a tragic form. And, in my experience, the players are more inclined to collaborate.

I think there is a legitimate shift not just in the design of games but in their philosophy.

The two voices of RPGs, confrontation and conversation

A lot of folks like to break down role playing games into two camps, traditional and indie. 

Traditional or trad refers to games that harken back to the original RPGs, like Dungeons and Dragons. They tend to be more mechanically-based and more complicated. Indie games, on the other hand, follow a more narrative tradition and major examples include Fiasco or Apocalypse World. They tend to be mechanically lighter and more driven by the tropes of storytelling.

Here's the thing. A lot of the ways that I have heard people break down the two categories tends to be more about the philosophy of the people playing them as opposed to the actual design itself. You can have a character driven, story based game using a traditional system. And you can have a conflict driven Game that's all about fighting with an indie system. Some of them, it won't work very well but you can still do it.

If you strip away the people playing the games and just look at how the systems work, here's what I think you will find the real difference between the two is. Traditional games are about creating a concrete world for you to interact with. Indie games are about creating a story for you to interact with.

Hopefully, you're going to get a story and a concrete world in either case but I think each philosophy has it's own priority.

Another way that I personally tend to think of them is that traditional games are about confrontation and indie games are about conversation. 

Traditional games come out of wargaming. As a general rule of thumb, if most of the rule book is about fighting, you're probably looking at a traditional game. In fact, Shannon Appoline wrote in his book Dungeons and Designers that in the earliest days of role-playing, the game master actually was trying to win against the players.

While traditional role playing games have developed a lot more depth compared to the days when it was just about beating each other up, it is still build around interacting with the environment. That environment can include obvious things like weather and rain or more esoteric things like monsters or politics. And there are mechanical ways of resolving all of your interactions with them. The rules have built a world for you to interact with and that is what drives the system.

On the other hand, indie games are driven by the story. The actual world itself takes a backseat to the needs of the story. The game is not about how you do something but how you tell the story.

For me, the game that really made me realize the differences between the two philosophies was Polaris. Polaris was not the first indie game that I ever paid but it was the first one that made me fundamentally realize what an indie game was trying to do.

You see, at its heart, the rules for Polaris resemble a great we simplified Roberts Rules of Order. They form the procedure for the players to debate with each other. I had never seen anything like it and I still think it is pretty amazing to this day.

Both philosophies are perfectly valid and both will give you an engaging experience when done well. Traditional games will give you a world to be drawn into and indie games will give you a story to be drawn into. 

At the moment, I am much more into indie games. Part of that is because they take less time. I don't have to worry about the mechanics I just need to worry about story and that something that I understand innately. But I also have a long history with traditional games. They are also the deep and enriching experience.

These are two different voices that are important to the hobby.

http://dnd.wizards.com

http://www.tao-games.com/polaris/