D&D and the Goal-Unit Gap
In my article Goals and the Units of Play, I suggested that a gap between the theme of a game’s units and the actual goals of the players might enhance play—and its lack could make a game go flat. Could it be that persistent critics of new-style RPing are reacting against the absence of gaps n new games?
Game designers are much more aware now of the units of their games, about goals, and “incoherence” between them (thanks to the efforts of Ron Edwards and others). Games have been created in the last five years with enormous care toward these elements, and with enormous focus. That is, the goals are defined very precisely so that all the mechanics “fit tightly” and are used in specific ways to create specific kinds of play. Such definiteness is not only in a game designer’s head, but is stated explicitly in the rules, for players’ understanding.
The Naked New
We are really just beginning to understand game design. I think this is why we see such focused games: analyzing the elements of a design is still hard, and a narrow set of elements is more manageable. (There are also the realizations that focused games are possible, and fun, and may even be inherently the most coherent possible.) I also think our inexperience has led to such explicit written rules. As it is, new games almost expect players to be designers themselves; to be very reflective about the medium and the process of play. If RPGs were an old medium, with highly experienced and comfortable designers, this wouldn’t be necessary: RPGs could be designed and written to subtly lead players toward a desired experience. That is, games could be like every well-developed artistic medium and offer enjoyment to lay-viewers as well as to critics and artists.
The above facts are some of the reasons traditionalists have resisted the new games: they do not want to become art critics just to appreciate Van Gogh. They do not want to become specialists. And perhaps they sense, through the nakedness of the new game texts, the uncertainty of these designs: they are waiting for things to settle down and become more polished—because while traditional games may have severe problems, they are familiar and their texts suggest confidence.
Focus and nakedness are appealing to some and not to others. But both contribute to a third, even more important, feature of many new games: units that align very closely with the goals of play. For instance, the acclaimed Mountain Witch is a narrative game largely about trust. And it contains “trust points.” Ron Edward’s Sorcerer is about humanity and has such a statistic. Even when there is a gap, it is usually smaller than we were used to in the days of AD&D and Whitewolf. Because the goals are also fairly explicit, this creates an incredible nakedness of design, startling and foreign. It is no wonder that some have rejected it absolutely.
Gaps of Yore
The gap of AD&D, by contrast, was incredibly large, if it is definable at all. The currencies of the game were experience, money and treasure. All share the same essential unit, character effectiveness—specifically violent success over enemies. This is a gamist unit type, unsurprisingly since the rules trended in that direction. But traditional games rarely stuck to any single mode and certainly never stated an explicit goal for the players, who used the rules in many ways, some having little to do with dungeons or character advancement.
Attempts at D&D campaigns with goals completely disjunct from the units of the rules were likely short-lived, or survived because of innumerable house rules—which eventually constituted an entirely unique system. But many groups learned to adopt goals that were not so extreme; only a bit off from simple dungeoneering. Such moderate gaps can create the “empty middle” phenomenon where enough space is given to the goal that it can be explored more deeply than simple mechanics allow. Like this, D&D was used to create many good play experiences.
Unstated goals, creating a moderate gap, allowed many styles of play, and adherents came to love D&D for is “flexibility.” But the rules did nothing to support these styles of play per se, and did nothing to help you identify a goal. Because so many were possible, negotiating a shared goal was often a perilous endeavor, full of trial and error. Gamers came to be wary of anyone who used language different from their own, or focused on different mechanics. All such outsiders were “bad role-players” who didn’t understand.
Munchkinism
There is one prime example of the above. Most groups were not interested in the hard-core gamism the rules of D&D directly suported, and such play may indeed have had problems because the gap was so small (lapsing into simple strategy gaming rather than role-playing). Numerous gamers came to see a small goal-unit gap as an abuse of the rules: as munchkinism or “power-gaming”; facile and superficial kinds of play. This association may explain long-time role-players’ resistance to the new, “indie,” games. To talk about goals at all stinks of munchkinism because it used to be that only munchkins had a way of doing this talking—since they could use the language of the game itself, rather than inventing their own.
It need not be an interest of new game designers to be advocates, or to “convert” traditionalists. But if it is, they will have to forego nakedness and focus as necessary design elements. They will have to experiment with larger gaps. To do this, they will have to become subtler and understand their craft even better.