It’s a new thing, Gameplaywright, and it’s about games, and it’s about stories.
It makes sense to start this new thing with a statement for the record — I’m not sure I’ve ever done this — about what I think a game is, and what I think a story is, and what I think makes a given example of each better or worse than others of its species.
Caveat 1: This is what I think today. If you read About Gameplaywright, you’ll see that I’m not afraid to be wrong, and hopefully you’ll also get the sense that part of the point is to evolve better ideas through writing.
Caveat 2: This is top-level thinking, in the broadest possible terms. It’s a blog post, not a 12-volume encyclopedia.
The chief ingredient of a game is gameplay.
Gameplay is the thing a game player does, which makes a game interactive by definition, whether its responsiveness comes from other players, a computer running code, or a set of rules about how physical objects are to be manipulated.
A decent game has an atomic unit of gameplay that repeats itself over the course of a game, probably many times, probably in variations. In Dungeons & Dragons, the core gameplay is attacking a monster. In Yahtzee, it’s rolling a cup of dice. In most first-person shooters, it’s shooting. In a good game, the core gameplay is fun.
I draw the line between games and toys by segregating things you can win or lose from things you can’t. (However, it’s not necessary for someone else to lose if you win, and vice versa, for a thing to be a game.) This may make RPGs toys; I may be willing to live with that.
What I like in games, perhaps most of all, is when they give their players the opportunity to express creativity: to solve problems in interesting ways, to show off their skill with flourish, to make up characters and situations and awesomeness. Obviously, I’m drawn to RPGs — be they games or no — largely because their canvas is so broad.
The most important thing about stories is drama.
I think it’s possible to have a story without drama, but I think the people creating and experiencing them are wasting their time.
My dictionary says a drama is “an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances,” but I say that’s insufficient. Having studied film and screenwriting formally (for better or worse), my take on drama runs to the filmic: Good drama is about people, who try to do things, but have trouble with that, but also, good drama requires the people experiencing the story to care about whether the people in the story eventually get whatever-it-is done.
To say that I’m inflexible on these characteristics constituting worthwhile drama is an understatement in November, 2007. If I experience your story and do not care about it one way or the other, no matter how cunningly I see that it was crafted, you have not made a good story.
Games, meet stories. Stories, meet games.
Welcome to Gameplaywright.
The chief ingredient of a game is gameplay.
Gameplay is the thing a game player does, which makes a game interactive by definition, whether its responsiveness comes from other players, a computer running code, or a set of rules about how physical objects are to be manipulated.
A decent game has an atomic unit of gameplay that repeats itself over the course of a game, probably many times, probably in variations. In Dungeons & Dragons, the core gameplay is attacking a monster. In Yahtzee, it’s rolling a cup of dice. In most first-person shooters, it’s shooting. In a good game, the core gameplay is fun.
I draw the line between games and toys by segregating things you can win or lose from things you can’t. (However, it’s not necessary for someone else to lose if you win, and vice versa, for a thing to be a game.) This may make RPGs toys; I may be willing to live with that.
What I like in games, perhaps most of all, is when they give their players the opportunity to express creativity: to solve problems in interesting ways, to show off their skill with flourish, to make up characters and situations and awesomeness. Obviously, I’m drawn to RPGs — be they games or no — largely because their canvas is so broad.
The most important thing about stories is drama.
I think it’s possible to have a story without drama, but I think the people creating and experiencing them are wasting their time.
My dictionary says a drama is “an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances,” but I say that’s insufficient. Having studied film and screenwriting formally (for better or worse), my take on drama runs to the filmic: Good drama is about people, who try to do things, but have trouble with that, but also, good drama requires the people experiencing the story to care about whether the people in the story eventually get whatever-it-is done.
To say that I’m inflexible on these characteristics constituting worthwhile drama is an understatement in November, 2007. If I experience your story and do not care about it one way or the other, no matter how cunningly I see that it was crafted, you have not made a good story.
Games, meet stories. Stories, meet games.
Welcome to Gameplaywright.
Eric Lang and I have talked a lot about gameplay in games. We’ve come to refer to “that part of the game that you do over and over and over” as the “game ritual”. And yeah, if your game ritual isn’t any fun, there’s no real hope that the game will be.
Somewhere along the way, since learning to appreciate that core ritual of play from you and Eric and Scott, I learned to call that the “core minute” of gameplay. I think it’s more of a video-game form, but the idea is the same. The dynamic between that core minute of play and anything else you’re tasked with doing is not just vital to the experience, but very revealing when reviewing a game. It’s a great way to get perspective on a game.
Of course, that core ritual may or may not be a minute long. That doesn’t mean anything.
For example, in Assassin’s Creed the core ritual is Stalk-Kill-Escape. I know that from the marketing. An hour or two into play, though, and I still might not have known that. What does that say?
I do agree that there must be a repeating action, no matter if it is clicking a button or rolling dice. However I don’t think that is necessarily the fun part at all. Yeah, I could sit around with a cup of dice all day long rolling them over and over (hopefully someone would put me on meds after noticing this), but the reason WHY drives it and is what makes it fun. Does the outcome of the dice win me points… so I can beat my cousin at Yahtzee? Does it determine how much damage I do to the dragon… so I can win the magic artifact and heal the land?
I say that perhaps it is a good thing that the Stalk-Kill-Escape core ritual wasn’t recognized until late in play. If you are having fun then the details will not be apparent, right? Doesn’t time pass quickly when we are enjoying ourselves? Yet minutes and the small details of what we are doing all melt into the whole experience and largely go unnoticed at all.
A good story teller is all the difference between a dull RPG and a fun one. This I think is extremely important to note. If the group isn’t into it and the game master cant tell a good tale… then break out the Monopoly board. It doesnt involve the story telling end and you still get to have time with your friends.
This blog looks awesome. But… on topic… yes, I agree calling an RPG a toy is okay. For me, after years of intervening competitive TCG play between bouts of RPGing, the only way I could get back into a real tabletop RPG was to approach it as a social experience. Hell, I even play Rock Band with too close an eye on the score. This topic is a good foundation. Since I’m a guy who writes stories for our games, I find this blog to be particularly interesting.