“Ever since I began thinking explicitly about RPGs from this angle — as being engines for making interesting decisions — my perspective on gaming has shifted. I find myself drawn more and more often to game systems that do that well not just in combat, but in other areas, too.”

- Martin Ralya

RPGs Are Engines for Making Interesting Decisions – from Martin Ralya via Gnome Stew.

Martin is probably not saying anything that’s particularly new or surprising to people who hang out in some play cultures, but I’m very appreciative of the clear and fairly universal way he expresses his point – and that he’s sharing it on Gnome Stew where he’s likely reaching a lot of folks who maybe are thinking “Hey, I haven’t really looked at it from that angle before.” Martin has a nice habit of doing that fairly often, actually, but I think this one is especially potent.

When you look at rpg mechanics from the perspective of empowering players to make interesting decisions and choices (and I include whoever’s running the game as a “player” too) then I think it re-frames the whole process in a way that really appeals to me. In fact, when it is spelled out as clearly as Martin has done, it helps me realize that I would not personally be interested in a game session where players making interesting decisions/choices was not an explicit priority of play.  For me, it’s the baseline. Sometimes I’ll be in the mood to make interesting tactical decisions, oftentimes I’m in the mood to make interesting narrative decisions, and there are different points-of-focus and different sockets that I might want to plug into at different times, but I’m always going to want to have compelling choices and make interesting decisions – and experience my friends making them as well – and see what comes of them. Any sort of play that doesn’t facilitate this is going to turn me off. In fact, I have to admit that I am capable of becoming pretty childish and petulant when I encounter gaming situations where I feel like player choices and decisions are not made a priority. I think maybe that’s my personal definition of railroading. And I tend to be that guy who will do everything I can to knock the train off the tracks if I feel railroaded.

Anyhow, that’s a bit of a tangent.

Getting back to the concept of rules-as-decision-engine, I think that Martin’s essay has also helped me clarify something that I think is in the process of forming over my last few Waypoints posts and will continue on into the next several. Now that I so clearly recognize that “interesting decisions” are my baseline for enjoyable play, I can build on that and clarify some other things about my preferences.

For example – let’s say we add in the idea of “meaningful choice” alongside “interesting decisions.” Some of you may recall that last September on Canon Puncture we discussed illusionism, participationism, and meaningful choice, which was inspired by an LJ post from Adam Dray that really rocked. In a blog post related to that discussion, I wrote this:

“It’s all about being able to make meaningful choices. Choices that affect the world, the fiction, the other characters, and my own character as well, of course. It can be big and dramatic and world-shaking, or it can be small and subtle and personal, or anywhere in between, as long as it is a true choice that affects the way things play out.”

Well, I still feel that way – but now I’m able to recognize that there is a difference between “interesting” and “meaningful.” I think if a decision or choice is meaningful, it is also always going to be interesting. On the other hand, I think there can be interesting decisions/choices that need not necessarily be meaningful, at least in the sense that they “affect the world, the fiction, the other characters.” And while in most cases I tend to prefer my play experiences to have lots of meaningful impact, I think I can still occasionally have fun playing in a so called “non-meaningful” way as long as it is still interesting.

I think this whole thing is related to a couple of my recent posts, especially the one about John Harper’s thoughts on “story” games.

I think that somewhere in the nebulous aether between interesting and meaningful is the line (or my line, at least) between focusing exclusively on dynamic moments of collaborative play and focusing at least to some extent on “storyforming” in the literary sense. To me, adding in the notion of “meaning” suggests that a narrative is being enacted – that an interesting premise is being transformed into a meaningful theme.  (see the Forge’s provisional glossary if you’re wondering where the hell I pulled out the distinction between “premise” and “theme” in rpgs)

Now, those interesting dynamic incidents of cool collaborative play – those “pearls” if you will – seem to me to only be possible if the players are making interesting decisions in relation to conflicts that arise in a given situation (conflicts of any sort, by the way – not just physical ones). That’s why I would consider the “interesting decision” thing to be my essential baseline.

But I also have to admit that most of the time, I also prefer that there be some discernable objective meaning in my play. Say, a cause-and-effect throughline that strings those pearls together to form something that ends up being more than the sum of its parts. And thus far in my roleplaying experience, that end is usually best served by some attention being paid to story structure. And so that has been my default way of thinking up to this point.

However, later this week I plan to share some interesting points from John Harper, Rob Donoghue, and a few others that have made me see some other angles regarding story-play. So please stay tuned over the next few days as I work through a few more waypoints. And of course, depending on the nature and content of any comments I might get about this or other recent posts, maybe also engage in some cool dynamic collaborative discussion that takes this whole semi-planned process in possibly surprising directions. Who knows? That’s the beauty of this thing.

EDIT: I thought I’d add an example in case I’ve convoluted things too much above.

Railroad: (GM sez) “You’re here to rescue the princess. Roll with it because it’s what I’ve planned”

Decision/Choice: “There’s a princess imprisoned here on this enemy battle station, and you want me to help you rescue her, Farmboy? Yeah, so what?”

Interesting Decision/Choice: “Oh, wait, she’s RICH? And there will be a big reward? Hmmm.”

Meaningful Decision/Choice: “Okay, I’m in, and I’m going to say it’s because of the money, but really, I am a big softie and your idealism is sort of making my own deeply-buried idealism stir, kid, so yeah, let’s go rescue her, and who knows, maybe I’ll even end up falling in love with her and having Jedi babies.”