Vincent Baker on mechanics, system and fiction in RPGs

[pemerton]

Vincent Baker posted this blog nearly 14 years ago, but I don't think I've seen much discussion of it on ENworld: anyway: Things on Character Sheets (2)

The core ideas are this:

*A character sheet will set out different aspects of a character - position (who am I? who am I related to? what is my motivation? etc); effectiveness (how well do I do the things I do? - in Vincent's example, this is how well the enforcer he is imaging can impose is will, and withstand pain); and resources that can be drawn on to stay active (fatigue or wound levels; adrenaline or hit points, etc).

*RPG design involves making choices about how these different elements of the character in the game rules relate to the fictional character - eg which details are emphasised and which elided? which things are quantified, and which left qualitative?

*RPG design also involves establishing how position, effectiveness and resources are related - Vincent's gives some examples, like What's the relationship between I'm afraid (position)
and Adrenaline expenditure (resources)? Or, If I've got Blood Loss (resources), does that affect my Will to Action (effectiveness)? These relationships, he calls "currency". Currency can be formal and mechanical, or can be informal but nevertheless an established part of the process of play.

*And finally - "crucially", says Vincent - there is the design questions about whether the game's currency and, how this relates to both fictional and real world dynamics, says what it is meant to say. To quote: This is where you make sure that your game's design supports fiction that is compelling and convincing.​

In comment 16, Vincent says that how to relate the fictional and the mechanical, other than just telling participants to "narrate stuff properly", is one of the ongoing and outstanding crises in rpg design. In comment 18, he makes this related remark:

In play . . . your rules impose a structured causality upon your game's fiction. If they were a good match in design, then in play the game works the way you meant it to. If they were a bad match in design, then in play the game doesn't work how you intended. Bold barbarian warriors maximize their armor and when they go into battle it's a matter of grinding ablation, not decisive action; your grim & gritty noir detective has to carry an assault rifle because a .38 won't kill a dude; the team of morning-cartoon superheroes bicker, bean-count their resources, and wind up working for the highest bidder.​

I think this is all pretty insightful stuff.

 

[FrogReaver]

Sounds fine. I’m not understanding why the name currency. Nor do i understand what he has in mind for informal currency.

 

[Emberashh]

Id recommend getting ahold of Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans.

 

[niklinna]

That blog post really clarified a lot for me about what makes a game system really sing or not. I haven't gotten to play Vincent's own games nearly enough, but they, and the blog posts of his that I have read, have greatly expanded my idea of what roleplaying games can be. I have gotten to play enough games inspired by Vincent's award-winning, industry-changing work to really appreciate his contributions to the field and industry of gaming.

 

[pemerton]

Sounds fine. I’m not understanding why the name currency. Nor do i understand what he has in mind for informal currency.

I think "currency" because related to exchange between the different components/elements.

A simple example of informal currency would be a D&D table that adopts the view that 1st level PCs are "nobodies", and so to gain social traction ("position"), a character has to increase their effectiveness and/or resources, which in turn requires advancing a different and mechanical element of position, namely, experience level.

Another example: suppose that a GM routinely has enemies focus on the fighter in combat, provided the fighter goes boldly into melee, even though there is no mechanical imperative for this (eg nothing like 4e marking). This connects "position" to both effectiveness and resources, across multiple characters. If the same GM "punishes" MUs who don't hide behind the "meat shields", they have established another bit of position => resources currency.

Hopefully these make sense (and also hopefully it helps see what Baker has in mind for his barbarian example of the currency relationships going awry).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The thing Ive come to learn is that glorified hobbyists really don't have all that much thats actually valuable to say about game design.

Particularly when a specific group of them have had a 20+ year standing motive to push their also very specific playstyle as the second coming.

And while Im sure that'll upset, one just has to look at the obnoxiously pretentious stuff quoted in the OP that obfuscates what its trying to say with unnecessarily verbose and jargon-laden language. Not useful in of itself, and the point even stripped of all that pretense isn't very actionable either.

If one wants to actually learn something valuable Id recommend getting ahold of Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans.

Mod Note:

You do realize it’s possible to post an opinion here without being confrontational, right? Lots of people do it daily.

I strongly suggest you give it a try.

 

[pemerton]

The thing Ive come to learn is that glorified hobbyists really don't have all that much thats actually valuable to say about game design.

I'm a hobbyist, and not particularly glorified.

Vincent Baker is one of the most important RPG designers ever. It would be completely misguided to describe him as a "hobbyist".

Particularly when a specific group of them have had a 20+ year standing motive to push their also very specific playstyle as the second coming.

I don't know what you mean by this. Maybe you mean that Apocalypse World and its offshoots are a hugely influential collection of RPGs?

one just has to look at the obnoxiously pretentious stuff quoted in the OP that obfuscates what its trying to say with unnecessarily verbose and jargon-laden language. Not useful in of itself, and the point even stripped of all that pretense isn't very actionable either.

If one wants to actually learn something valuable Id recommend getting ahold of Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans.

What important RPGs have been designed using this book? What are its principles about the relationship between mechanics and fiction in the context of RPGing, a game form in which most participants play the game by declaring actions for a character in an imagined situation?

 

[aramis erak]

Vincent Baker is one of the most important RPG designers ever. It would be completely misguided to describe him as a "hobbyist".

While he's important, his work does not stand alone.
He stands not only on the shoulders of others, but with his wife, who is mentioned often in his designer's notes. And he in hers.
He was influenced by The Forge. And by Burning Wheel HQ - Luke Crane and Thor Olavsruud. And influenced them, too.

Of major importance? For RPGs, he certainly falls after Gary Gygax, David Arneson, and David Weseley. I don't much care for Gygax, but no one can eclipse him but Daves Arneson and Weseley... Weseley and Arneson literally create the genre out of minis wargaming. Gygax and Arneson get it into print.

It's arguable whether or not he's more important than the greats of that first generation after D&D OE... the outside-TSR crowd... Ken St Andre (T&T), Bear Peters (T&T), MAR Phil Barker (EPT), Greg Stafford (RQ), Ray Tourney (RQ, BRP), Steve Perrin (RQ, BRP), Marc W. Miller (Traveller), Frank Chadwick (En Guard), David Hargrave (Arduin)...
But without them, we wouldn't get the widening out in approaches both mechanical and mental. Approaches which lead eventually to Marc Rein-Hagen (WoD)... and WoD prompts Ron Edwards, and he does the RPG Forge site...

There are a lot of people using AWE/PBTA to write new games - but are they a majority of players? Doubtful. Vincent has done games before and since that don't use AW's engine.

No designer stands alone in the RPG field, because no design is without influences from others... including Weseley's influence from educational sims, wargames, and Diplomacy...

And wargames? Well, the initators are truly lost to time, but the modernish ones begin with Henry Michael Temple and HG Wells... Kriegsspiele from HMT, and Little Wars from HG Wells... but both cite other sources...

I suspect we can all thank some unknown from either the Harrappan culture or the Akkadians, or maybe even older... That person, who first decided that rules make a game more interesting... He's definitely as important...

Vincent Baker is one of the greats, but he's absolutely not the most important designer or RPGs. He can't be, since he doesn't create the genre - hell, he's not even the creator of storygames as a distinct subset - tho' he's been influential in many - both directly and indirectly.

 

[pemerton]

I think it might be worth elaborating on some fundamentals.

At the core of RPGing, as Baker is addressing it, is a relationship between shared fiction and participation in the game.

Shared fiction: the game participants are collectively imagining characters in situations, such that those characters do things, as a result of which the situation changes.

Participation in the game: this can mean establishing a situation, or declaring an action for a character, or establishing how the situation changes as a result of a character doing something. Typically, there is a tight correlation between particular participants and particular characters, such that the same person gets to declare the actions attempted by a given character.

A well-designed RPG should make it clear which participants, and when, gets to contribute to the shared fiction in these various ways. Mechanics are one technique for doing this.

It's the mechanics-fiction relationship, together with the centrality of the participant-character alignment (at least for many of the game's participants - ie those in the "player" role), that imposes distinctive demands on RPG design, which Baker is addressing in the blog referred to in the OP.

 

[pemerton]

While he's important, his work does not stand alone.

<snip>

No designer stands alone in the RPG field

<snip>

Vincent Baker is one of the greats, but he's absolutely not the most important designer or RPGs.

I don't see that any of this contradicts anything I've posted.