We put off the question of “how many players do RPGs involve?” with the first post and it seems we need to address it right away.
The next chapter in Characteristics of Games is about multiplayer games. It covers such topics as player elimination, interactivity, politics, kingmaking and teamwork. “When a game has multiple players, many phenomena arise that are absent in two-player games.” (p.37) These are, broadly speaking, elements that stem from the natural progression of established game rules. For instance, a game that removes players from the running obviously identifies itself as a form of player elimination; but a game that allows for one or two players to surge ahead, such that other players are incapable of gaining a lead or influencing the outcome, can be said to be a form of player elimination (even though, technically, everyone is still involved in the game).
Here’s the thing, with regard to RPGs: they’re not about player vs. player. Some RPGs allow for PvP. Some GMs will run RPGs with PvP elements. Some RPGs are designed without a GM, and those may or may not allow for PvP, as part of their design. By and large, however, RPGs are not meant to be played out with the players vying against each other. “Player vs. Player” is a technique or a play style, similar to how we apply storytelling techniques to RPGs; it’s a purely optional approach . . . but let’s put a pin in that, for the moment; more thoughts below . . .
There is a particular question concerning RPGs that I think is worth discussing before we get into the details of today’s post: is the GM a player?
I submit to the reader that the easiest answer is, no. The explanation is only slightly more complex: if we sit down to think about what the player does in the game, we find that their role does not match the GM’s, either in substance or in style. The player controls a limited number of characters (usually one, though some games allow for more); the GM controls everyone else. The player has no control over the game’s world; the GM has all the control. (Indeed, that is one of the things that challenges the player: once they’ve decided to accomplish a particular task or goal, how will they go about it and how will the world resist them?) Traditionally, the player has no say in which rules are used in the game, while the GM has all the say (I say “traditionally” because a more appropriate take is for the GM to seek the players’ input for any rule changes she desires to implement). If the player wants to do something, he has to struggle to do it. If the GM wants to do something, she simply has to say, “It is done,” and like God above, it’s done.
Of course, we might quibble over the specifics of these standards. Social norms may give more or less power to the GM, or a particular game might have a rule that affects how she runs the game and what she’s allowed to do. But in the end, the common interpretation is that the GM is the sole authority of the game. She is, effectively, God.
Which forces us to ask the question: what game is the GM playing? Is she even playing a game?
Remember, we have a definition for a game: “a form of play with goals; rules or structure; a system of conflict or opposition; and active, voluntary participants.” How does this apply to the GM’s role? What are her goals? While the game has rules and the GM is expected to follow them, particularly during a session, are there any rules that apply outside of that framework? As stated, if the GM wants something to happen, it can happen . . . can’t it? Doesn’t this imply that the only time the rules truly apply to the GM is where the players’ characters are interacting with the world? What conflict exists for the GM, if she has this kind of power? How can anything be said to manifest effective opposition to the GM? And sure, yes, the GM is an active and voluntary participant in the game . . . but given that the previous questions do not lend themselves to easy or obvious answers, how can we say with any assurance that the GM is actually playing a game?
My take away is that this is not the case. The GM is not playing a game when she conducts a running for her players. And if we insist that she is, it’s certainly not the same game that the players are involved with. Thus, the characteristics under discussion today should be viewed from this perspective.
Returning to that pin from above, we need to address another dynamic at the RPG table: is the game a one-sided team or a true multiplayer? In other words, does your game allow for PvP interaction? I tried to push forward with this article by ignoring this, taking my time to explain the text and how its concepts apply to RPGs, and I kept finding myself turning back the question. While I, personally, find PvP games to be distasteful, I cannot reject them out-of-hand. I’ve played in one or two that weren’t horrible; and I’ve had many discussions with players who genuinely like PvP. And given my view on the intimate nature of RPGs, I’m forced to conclude that there are games (and groups of players) where PvP is structured and executed in an effective, safe, valid manner.
Thus, I think it’s important that we consider RPGs as being one of two classifications (where the number of players is concerned): 1) a one-sided team game (for non-PvP) or 2) a multiplayer game (for PvP).
With that established, let’s consider the following characteristics of multiplayer games and see how we can apply them to RPGs.
Races & Brawls
Races are built by gluing together a number of copies of a one-player game, one for each player. Each player is pursuing her own victory condition. A footrace, Scrabble, and golf are all races. Although there are multiple players, one can imagine the race taking place with just one player (perhaps with some rules tweaks). Brawls are built by taking a two-player game that is not built up from one-player games and adding more players ~ think, for example, of adding more players to chess. Risk and free-for-all Scrabble are examples of brawls . . . Unlike a race, it is hard even to imagine reducing a brawl to one player. (p.38)
This chapter refers to these concepts several times so it’s important that we understand them, particularly as they apply (or don’t) to RPGs.
The definitions are fairly straightforward: if you can remove all other players and still have a game, where a single player is pursuing a victory condition, then you have a race. If you can’t, such that the victory condition is predicated on the presence and actions of another player, you have a brawl.
Regarding RPGs, I’m not entirely convinced that these terms are terribly useful. We might argue that, since it’s technically possible to play an RPG with a single player and GM (or, assuming you have the rules for it, a single player against a system), all RPGs are per se races. But this approach makes the assumption that we struggled against with our last post: that RPGs have a defined victory condition. Obviously, they don’t; but there are many instances where a desired endstate develops naturally through play. Whether the GM presents a structured adventure or whether the players just . . . play . . . at any given moment, we can probably pause the game and ask ourselves, “What’s the goal here?” and come up with an answer.
From this, I’m left to conclude that RPGs are races . . . but I fail to see how that’s terribly relevant to understanding them at a higher level. Perhaps I’ll change my mind before this chapter is done.
Player Elimination
In a game, players can be eliminated: they're out of the game, but the game continues. Players can be eliminated strictly, in the sense that they are entirely out of the game, or logically, in that they have no chance of winning although they continue to play. (p.38) One can also speak of effective or perceived elimination: where a player has a chance to win that is extremely low, but not quite zero, so that she is effectively eliminated, or she thinks of herself as all but eliminated. (p.39)
A strict example of effective elimination is musical chairs. Each round is played with one fewer chairs than there are players. The last person standing when the music stops is removed from the game. Play continues until there are two players and one chair. Poker, if played to its extreme conclusion, is another example: players are eliminated when they run out of chips and the game keeps going until one player takes all the chips from one other.
Most games, however, don’t operate in this manner. Instead, they exhibit varying degrees of perceived elimination. In Settlers of Catan, if one or two players secure a strong starting position, they can quickly acquire enough resources to stay ahead of the other player(s). No single player is ever removed from the game but trailing behind the leaders can have the effect of making it appear like the player has no chance of winning.
COG discusses various aspects of player elimination, such as how it manifests in one-player and two-player games, or how the degree by which a player loses can change the player’s interest in the game. The primary issue, where elimination is concerned, lies in the individual player’s ability to continue engaging the game in a meaningful and satisfactory manner. For instance, before online play was a regular venue for games, local area network (LAN) parties were often coordinated for people who enjoy Quake or Starcraft (games of the first-person shooter and real-time strategy variety, respectively). Each game has a variety of customizable settings but Quake lends itself to effective elimination while Starcraft can easily straddle the line between the two. In both cases, however, when a player is eliminated from a match, they have to wait until the next match is started up. The limitation to continued player engagement has to do with the number of players present. LAN parties with a small pool of players are forced to wait until everyone was ready to start a new game, else there’d be too many overlapping matches with too few opponents in each. Large LAN parties are better at maintaining player engagement because each individual player wouldn’t have to wait as long for a group of eliminated players to form a new match. This issue, for the most part, goes away with the advent of reliable online venues. If you get kicked out of a match, there’s always a new one ready to start. (The downside, for those who care about such things, is that you find yourself playing with more strangers.)
This leads me to conclude that the true concern for player elimination is whether or not the removed player can still partake in the game.
Which warrants a quick reminder about “fun.” Normally, I ignore conversations about what is (or is not) fun for any given player or group, on the basis that it’s far too subjective. What you find fun, as opposed to what I like, in our games isn’t relevant to understanding how a game functions or how to improve a game (that is, unless you and I are playing a game together). That said . . . I think there is a way that we can meaningfully talk about “fun,” but we have to accept a few assumptions first. (And yes, I outlined this in yesterday’s post but I want to reinforce it with a more direct statement . . .)
Fun, in the context of a game, occurs when the player is fully engaged with the game’s content.
To be clear, engagement means more than, “Is there something for the player to do?” There’s technically something to do when you’re playing Candyland but because the game is so incredibly simplistic ~ all you do is draw a card, move your piece, and do what the board tells you ~ there are no meaningful choices. By our standards, Candyland lacks engagement (and is even a poor activity for play, since the freedom of movement within its structure is very limited).
We should also note that a game with a wide variety of options and choices is not necessarily a highly engaging activity. The human mind is limited in terms of how much information it can process at one time (despite the fact ~ or perhaps because of it ~ that it’s processing billions of bits of data at any given moment); studies show that the sweet spot for decision-making in games is between five and nine meaningful or viable options. (That is not to say that more advanced games cannot have more options; nor that more advanced players cannot handle more choices.)
Finally, let’s consider that our definition of “fun” allows for personal preferences. Axis & Allies has a great deal of player engagement ~ up to and including the end-game, where perceived elimination can be high, depending on how well a player has done throughout the game ~ but if a given player isn’t interested in the game because the mechanics, themes and/or aesthetics don’t hold their attention, then engagement for that player will be very low.
Since, however, we recognize the challenge of having meaningful conversations about personal preferences ~ that an overreliance on talking about what you or I, personally, like or don’t like in our games, often leads to a stalemate, where can draw no conclusions about the efficacy or quality of the game in question ~ since there can be no improvement where personal preferences are concerned, we must accept that in any given instance and for any given game, there is someone, somewhere, who will enjoy the game on a personal level.
In other words, we’re going to ignore the issue of personal tastes and assume that every game is “fun” to someone, such that the only question at hand is whether the game is engaging enough to maintain that sense of fun over the length of its playtime.
Very good. How, then, should we think about player elimination where RPGs are concerned?
For the one-sided team role-playing game (which I’ll refer to T-RPG), player elimination occurs under one of several circumstances. First, the player’s character might die. When this happens, the player typically has three options: make a new character, play the same character according to special rules and restrictions, or wait until his character can be brought back into the game. The latter is considered a standard option because most RPGs include some amount of fantasy, such as healing or resurrection magic, or perhaps the character possesses the ability to cheat death.
The amount of engagement ~ and therefore, the amount of fun ~ in the game is dependent on the degree to which character death (player elimination) does not hinder the player. A game with quick character generation rules is more forgiving of character death, allowing the player to more quickly return to the game’s action. However, it’s worth noting that an RPG with complicated or time-consuming character creation rules is not necessarily less engaging. It might be considered harsher than other games, by those players who are more interested in actively playing the game than making a character, but that is a personal preference.
Second, the player’s character might be restricted in such a way that they’re unable to participate in the game for a period of time. This can easily happen in a fantasy game like D&D, where magic like dominate person or monsters like the mind flayer (with its suite of psychic powers) can easily lead to a situation where a given character is incapable of taking meaningful (or truly player-directed) action. In a situation like this, the player may perceive their character as being eliminated from the game. A key difference from other games, however, is that these conditions are usually temporary. Your vampire might be psychically dominated by a more powerful member of your clan and that can result in your character performing actions that you’re not really responsible for; but it’s a temporary thing. Eventually, you’ll regain full control of the character.
In some respects ~ and for some tables ~ this form of player elimination is a feature rather than a bug. A player may perceive the restriction on their actions as a barrier to be worked around or overcome. An adventurer that discovers a magic sword might succumb to the weapon’s curse, turning into a vile murderer; and one player may see that as limiting/removing their agency in/from the game, while another sees it as an opportunity to exercise their “role-playing skills.”
In a multiplayer role-playing game (M-RPG), player elimination is largely unchanged ~ being in the form of character death or limited/restricted actions ~ but the source is expanded to include other players. In a T-RPG, the GM is the sole source of the game’s conflict. She is responsible for presenting a world, with all its inhabitants, which challenge and frustrate the players’ attempt to meet their goals. In an M-RPG, there is an added source of conflict in the form of other players. (Granted, the players are just as likely to work out their differences and form a team as they are to work against each other; the specifics will vary wildly from table to table.)
Interactivity
Games vary widely in their interactivity: the ability of players to influence the progress of players other than themselves. A boxing match, or a game of chess, is highly interactive. A footrace is almost entirely noninteractive. (p.44)
In terms of interactivity, we’ve drawn back to the discussion of races and brawls. Generally, a game with very little interactivity lends itself to being a race. Golf is a good example. As the game’s victory conditions ~ achieve as low a score as possible, at least one per hole ~ can be applied equally to a single player, without effectively changing the nature of the game, it’s fair to call it a race. And the amount of interactivity in golf is fairly low. There are instances where your ball can physically impact your opponents’; but when it comes time to take the next stroke, if your ball is in the way, you remove it.
By contrast, games with very high interactivity are more likely to be brawls. Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros. are brawls, in the sense that there must always be another player (even if that player is run by the game’s programming), and both present a great deal of opportunity to affect your opponents’ standing in the game.
Following up on the conclusion above ~ that RPGs are closer to races than brawls ~ it seems that addressing the topic of interactivity results in a different perspective. Clearly, RPGs have a great deal of interactivity; we might argue that they have more interactivity than any other game. This would suggest that RPGs are closer to brawls than races. Yet the quality that defines a brawl is the irreducibility of the game to a single player and we’ve demonstrated that such a reduction is very much possible.
It seems, therefore, that RPGs are both brawls and races . . . which makes me wonder whether those terms have any significance for us.
On the matter of interactivity, I think, if we accept the term as defined by COG, it’s worth exploring further the idea that RPGs are more interactive than other games. Let’s start with a game that’s kind of, sort of like an RPG: Betrayal at House on the Hill. In this game, the players each control a single character and are part of a small group that’s exploring a haunted house. In the early stages of the game, they move through the house, revealing sections (tiles) as they go. Each tile has symbols that direct the players to reveal things like events, items or artifacts. Whenever an artifact is revealed, the active player rolls dice and checks the result to see if the game transitions to the “haunt.” The haunt is a special scenario, defined by the combination of artifact, location and character, which sets up the action for the rest of the game. Once the haunt has been revealed, the active player reads from the scenario book, identifying the threat (monster) and the special rules for play, win and loss. The game them proceeds under the scenario’s rules, with the players trying to win and escape the house while the threat tries to kill them off one-by-one.
Like an RPG, Betrayal has a lot of flavor and anthropomorphization to it. Each character has a stat card with a short description (including quotes and comments about personality). The house looks like an old, rundown mansion. Overall, it’s very easy to make up a story about the game as it unfolds (and this is exactly what I’ve seen players do, in almost every instance of playing this game). None of this characterization or “role-playing” makes a difference, however, because the game has very clear rules and limits on the players’ actions. The game’s interactivity is fairly high, more or less depending on the scenario, because the “fiction” surrounding it is written into the rules. For instance, players can pass items and artifacts between their characters, or attack other characters; and they can pick up fallen (dead or unconscious) characters and drag them through the house. But if a player wants to chop a door down with the rusty pickaxe the found in the shed? Unless the rules explicitly state you can do it, it’s not allowed.
RPGs are not limited in this fashion. If Betrayal were to be written as an adventure for a TTRPG, the rules would have to take into account the possibility of players making up something unexpected. The scenario “The Invisible Man” has a player finding a magic ring that turns them invisible and twists their mind into that of a murderer. The villainous player, taking the role of a monster, stalks through the house looking for his former friends, so that he might cut them to pieces. The game includes rules for how this player keeps track of his location, how he attacks his friends, and how the other players can detect his presence (and attack him in return). Yet in a proper TTRPG, a clever player will address this threat in a variety of ways. He might fill a spray bottle with white paint and go about spritzing the air. He might move to a part of the house where there’s a lot of dust, kicking it up in to the air to create a cloud that will be disturbed when the invisible man comes into the room. When playing Betrayal as a board game, we can talk about these ideas, but the game’s rules don’t allow for them to have an impact on our play; but in a TTRPG version of Betrayal, these ideas can turn into reality.
From this perspective, we should think of interactivity as the players’ ability to alter or affect their environment within the game. Most RPGs have very high interactivity, limited only by the players’ creativity and the GM’s ability to respond to such. Some RPGs might have lower interactivity, such as when the GM is running an adventure and hasn’t prepared (and isn’t willing to entertain) material outside that framework; this often happens during public or club games. But overall, the GM’s role combined with the lack of hard-and-fast rules makes it fairly easy for RPGs to support a higher level of interactivity.
Politics
Imagine a game, which we'll call the "chip-taking game," where each player starts with a pile of ten chips. Players take turns around the table. On her turn, a player may take one chip from any player and discard it. The winner is the last person with any chips left.
… many multiplayer games reduce to the chip-taking game, in the sense that most of their game features are irrelevant for determining the winner, who is instead chosen ultimately in chip-taking fashion. All that's necessary is that the game be highly interactive, in the sense that players can affect the positions of other players, and also that players can target whoever they affect. Players can simply choose to hurt ("take chips from") the leader using whatever means the game offers. Even if the leader is highly skilled, he is unlikely to be able to withstand the onslaught of all the other players. Once the leader is eliminated, or at least knocked back from his leading position, the players can attack some new player. (p.48)
It’s important that consider this section carefully. The term carries a great deal of weight, particularly given recent world events, but also within the context of internet discourse. “Politics” is a dirty word, one that is usually tossed out by people who are unwilling to give serious consideration to their personal beliefs for fear that they will be forced to admit themselves as a bad person or change their beliefs. (And while I realize my own bias is showing through those statements, I feel it’s fair to say: whenever someone mentions “politics” on the internet, it’s usually followed by a lot of negativity and anger.) Thus, we need to ensure we have a good grasp of the concept, as it applies to games.
Unfortunately, COG doesn’t give us a straightforward definition, instead relying on the paragraph above and a few examples. My take is this: politics, in game terms, refers to the ability of the players to manipulate the outcome of the game through purely non-written social standards. I can think of no better example of this than what is perhaps the quintessential game of politics: Diplomacy.
Diplomacy’s rules are specifically written to encourage and take advantage of the political nature of human beings. It’s ostensibly a wargame, in that the players control armies and fleets, and position them on the map to control nations (or regions). Unlike other wargames, however, there are no stats or random mechanics. When an army moves into a region, if there is not an army already there, it occupies and controls that region. Dislodging an army requires a larger force; and since each player is limited in terms of how many armies (or fleets) they can own, they must rely on support from allies.
This support is obtained through two key phases in the game: negotiation and movement. During negotiation, players share information (publicly or privately), establish alliances, secure deals, make promises or threats, etc. Nothing said during negotiation is binding, however, so players must take note of what is promised and what is fulfilled. During movement, players write out their orders for their armies (in secret) and reveal them at the same time. In this way, the game is about making promises and keeping (or breaking) them at the most strategic moments, in order to achieve one’s goals. (The overall objective is to control supply centers, which support the presence of armies and fleets. Loss of supply centers means a loss of armies; total loss of all supply centers will eliminate a player from the game; and the first player to control more than half the supply centers on the board, is declared the winner.)
The lack of hard numbers, of a measurable mechanic, in Diplomacy lends itself to supporting the idea of politics at play. There are a handful of game rules that the players must follow, of course; but all other advances or retreats, wins or losses, are supported by social conventions. If a player promises to support you during the next movement phase but supports your opponent instead, all that happens mechanically is your movement fails; yet in terms of standards and conventions, the player has demonstrated that they’re untrustworthy (possibly, unreasonably so, since their betrayal came so quickly).
The defining characteristic of politics at play ~ the litmus test by which you can tell if a game is more political than not ~ is how much players rely on non-mechanical techniques to get ahead in the game. For instance, I’ve play games of Risk (and Risk-like games, like the Civilization board game) where two or more players will form alliances on the basis on things like, “She’s my best friend,” or, “He’s my ride home.” These are examples of politics in the game. Neither Risk nor Civilization are written to explicitly manifest this sort of thing; and among certain gaming groups, such behavior is often strictly verboten; but they are examples of how politics can appear, even where they’re not wanted.
In the M-RPG, politics are likely to be very prominent. When players have the freedom to act against each other, as open or secretive opponents, or to form alliances for various purposes, then the game is naturally going to trend toward political engagement. Those politics might be inside or outside the game’s framework and we can spend a lot of time discussing the merits of either, but the fact remains that there is a great deal of emphasis on soft power in an M-RPG.
Conversely, in a T-RPG, politics only enters into play where it comes to interacting with the game world. The players at the table, for whom the focus is on their characters, are already committed to operating as a team. They are not acting in opposition to each other and thus, are not overly concerned with political techniques to acquire what they want from each other; instead, they turn that focus to the game’s NPCs.
Indeed, if I may make a personal argument for a moment, I think this is one of the reasons I’m disinclined to play in an M-RPG. Per COG:
If one considers games from the point of view of heuristics, the potential problems of political games are highlighted. Normal position heuristics become largely irrelevant: if at any point any player can be "picked on" and eliminated by group consensus, how can one know what one's position in the game is? And if positional heuristics are irrelevant (or, more precisely, if positional heuristics relating to the mechanics of that particular game are replaced by general social heuristics involving predictions of who is likely to do what to whom), then directional heuristics (again, of other than the social kind) are likewise irrelevant. (p.52)
In other words, the presence of politics in our games tends to have the effect of eliminating all other tactical and strategic considerations, turning the game from the game into the sort of political maneuvering and interaction that we’re accustomed to dealing with on a daily basis.
Granted, this is my personal preference, and I must recognize that there are players for whom highly political RPGs ~ true multiplayer role-playing games ~ are an appealing form of entertainment, worthy of their time and effort.
Kingmaking
Often in a multiplayer game, it happens that players A and B are in contention to win, and player C has no chance. If the game has any interaction, it may be that C is in a position to determine the winner by choosing which of the two players A and B to interact with. This is commonly referred to as "kingmaking." This choice is necessarily political, in that C is assumed to have no choice of winning, and thus kingmaking, like politics in general, is a property of games with three or more players (or, more precisely, three or more sides). (p.56)
I suspect that this characteristic is one of many that will simply not apply to RPGs.
In order for kingmaking to be a factor in a game, there must be a clear endstate or victory condition. Granted, in order to apply heuristics to RPGs, we’ve had to accept that victory conditions exist in the form of individual and group goals; but taking that to mean that it’s possible (or practical) for individual RPG players to act in a manner that 1) recognizes their position as “losing” and 2) advances the position of another player toward “winning,” is to argue that RPGs are more competitive than we’ve been giving them credit.
This might be the case in M-RPGs, where PvP is an acceptable standard of conduct. Where I struggle, in terms of imagining how this would play out in practice, is with the idea that players should want to subject themselves to a continuous, session after session, experience of struggling against their fellow players. Perhaps, if the players divorce themselves from their characters, such that they view the character as little more than a piece on a playing board . . . but why shouldn’t they simply choose to play Diplomacy instead? What is the advantage gained by playing such an RPG, where our natural tendencies to identify with and humanize our toys lends us to connect with our creations on a deeply personal level . . . if those creations are to be beset by threats from all directions? If we’re to play every session in a state of fear for our safety and survival?
. . . or perhaps I’m overthinking it, I don’t know, I need more whiskey . . .
Conclusion
There is one more characteristic to explore in this chapter ~ teamwork ~ but given my own personal biases, I think it’s necessary to close today’s post and take some time before we move forward. I really want to give each perspective its fair due, to consider different interpretations of RPGs on their own merits, and to make no rash decisions concerning what is and is not an appropriate application of these concepts.
Until next time.
Crossing the 'Verse 