Reason to Play

Hi all,

  I've been mulling around this question for a while, and a recent post made me think to put it up here on the forums.

  AW is so awesomely hackable that it's no surprise that people want to use its strucutre for new and interesting settings. I myself have a half a dozen in my head on a given day, but this leads me to my question: There are so many rpgs out there, so many hacks, so many interesting settings, or spin offs of interesting settings, or slightly deviated versions of traditional settings, I find myself asking what is the reason to play X game?

  I guess the obvious answer is "because its fun" or "because you want to," but I think what I mean by this question is "what is the driving motivation of a player or GM to play XYZ game?"

But what makes it fun?

   In apocalypse world, its fairly simple - you pay to find out (in a cool setting with hot characters). In DitV, its moral choices and personal sacrifices. But when thinking of creating a new game, how does one figure out the answer to this question?

   For example, I have an idea for a steampunk-y, fight-the-system twist on the traditional high fantasy setting. In my head, the setting seems pretty cool, but when I try to think of the reason to play, I draw a blank. I think this question harkens back to Ron Edward's premise idea in the GNS theory - but even this left me wondering "how does a game designer come up with this premise?" Does he or she need one? I feel like as a game designer, one should have a reason to play other than "check out this cool game I made."

Thoughts?

Yes! I agree with you with my whole brain. That's exactly the question.

It's a hard question!

-Vincent

Sometimes you just start with the answer, and build a game from there -- but more often you are just excited about some part of the game, and start to think and work on it long before you consider the question.

A good starting point is just to try and figure out why you are designing this game. There's something about it that is motivating you to do this work -- what is it? If it's not something totally idiosyncratic ('my obscure fetish for late-period byzantine architecture!') and it's not something totally general ('it's just, like, cool?'), then it might just be the premise of the game, or something that will point the way towards answering the question of why someone might want to play it.

I don't really feel like 'play to find out' is a good summation of AW's 'deal', though -- play to find out describes an extremely broad goal that could be applied to all sorts of games, as a prefix to their actual themes. i.e. 'In Dogs in the Vineyard, you play to find out what sort of moral choices get made in the context of pioneer theocracy' or 'In Apocalypse World, you play to find out what happens to hot, crazy characters in a world without stable civilization' or whatever.

Yes! I agree with you with my whole brain. That's exactly the question.

It's a hard question!

Haha, glad to hear you agree Vincent! I'd love to hear how you have addressed or answered this question in designing your own games. I know you've described writing a game as "exorcising a demon" (or maybe that was Luke Crane's description), but I wonder where that seed for a game comes from, and how you make sure that seed turns into something compelling to play.

more often you are just excited about some part of the game, and start to think and work on it long before you consider the question

Daniel, this is usually how I come at games. I grew up on legos and starcraft, so building "cool things" is kind of the foundational in my motives.

But that idea seems to conflict with this one

If... it's not something totally general ('it's just, like, cool?'), then it might just be the premise of the game, or something that will point the way towards answering the question of why someone might want to play it.

I don't mean to call you out, I just want to understand what you mean. A lot of the ideas that come into my head start as "how cool would that be!" Naturally, a lot of them die there, probably rightfully so. I feel that the major obstacle I've been hitting with the ideas I don't just throw away come back to my original question. It may just be that "how cool would that be!" is a poor foundation for a game (this would make me a little sad). If this is true, then what is a good foundation for a game? What makes Hell for Leather something people want to play? Why is the Mountain Witch so popular? What is that appeal that keeps bringing people back to Lady Blackbird?

Also...

'In Apocalypse World, you play to find out what happens to hot, crazy characters in a world without stable civilization' or whatever.

Thats a damn good quote : )

It may just be that "how cool would that be!" is a poor foundation for a game (this would make me a little sad). If this is true, then what is a good foundation for a game? What makes Hell for Leather something people want to play? Why is the Mountain Witch so popular? What is that appeal that keeps bringing people back to Lady Blackbird?

Mostly what I was trying to get at it is that "how cool would that be!" is a general statement that conceals something specific -- there's a reason you think it's cool. In some cases that reason might turn out not to be all that exciting (like sometimes, playing with Lego, you just notice a new way to connect some blocks, and that's really the whole reason right there.) But in other cases, that reason is something more interesting -- something that could be developed into the "reason to play" that you're looking for.

I think most people, especially people who play roleplaying games, come at things from the lego/starcraft, build-it-just-because sort of angle. But there are always reasons they like to build some things, and not others, even if that reason is just 'because it follows out of all the other things I've built and thought about, before.'

I mean, a big part of why people like to play Lady Blackbird is because the setting is so cool (and instantly familiar, genre-wise) -- the illustration of the ship and the sky-squid sparks their imagination, and that's reason enough to play. (It's especially reason enough because the game is presented in such an innovative way, reducing the barriers to play -- the game does a great job of removing reasons 'not to play'.)

But stuff like The Mountain Witch or Dogs in the Vineyard obviously have other things going on, along with the basic 'cool' of imagining weird things. And probably, in both those cases, the designers had some idea of what that was going to be, even as they started figuring out their games -- but that doesn't mean they had the question completely answered. Probably they refined and modified and even discovered new parts to their answer as they went through the design process.

So that was mostly all I meant to say -- that it's fine not to worry about the answer right away, and that probably the answer has something to do with why you stuck with that particular 'cool' thing longer than the others. Answering the question for yourself is a good start to answering it for other players.

I think most people, especially people who play roleplaying games, come at things from the lego/starcraft, build-it-just-because sort of angle.

Wow, pegged me dead on there...

So that was mostly all I meant to say -- that it's fine not to worry about the answer right away, and that probably the answer has something to do with why you stuck with that particular 'cool' thing longer than the others. Answering the question for yourself is a good start to answering it for other players.

Very cool - I think I get where you're coming from now. I'm still not grocking the issue of appeal to players though. If you have a "cool" idea that is sticking with you, how to you turn it into something that gives the players something to work with? In D&D, the play factor is "kill stuff, level up, get sweet loot, repeat." In AW its "play to find out what happens to hot, crazy characters in a world without stable civilization" (as you so aptly put it Daniel). In Lady Blackbird its "find out how this dynamic situation resolves, in the backdrop of this crazy cool sci-fi/fantasy setting," and in Dread its "get excited in the tension of watching the inevitable get closer and closer to consuming you."

I think I might be trying to divorce "player appeal" from the rest of the game, which probably isn't productive. But still, I feel like there is a part of the puzzle between "cool over arching concept" and "final game that gives the people playing it something interesting and compelling to do" that I'm missing...

Am I over thinking this?

If you have a "cool" idea that is sticking with you, how to you turn it into something that gives the players something to work with?

You design the game?

It's possible I am misunderstanding you, here. Converting what you describe as the "play factor" into something players can work with is pretty much the purpose of game design. I can know that my game's 'thing' is "kill stuff, level up, get sweet loot" but that doesn't mean I have a game that actually delivers that sort of fun to the players. Knowing the 'reason' someone might want to play your game helps you focus your design, but it doesn't make the game successful by itself.

If what you actually mean is, 'how do I figure out what that reason is, once I have this cool thing?' then we're starting to go in circles, since that's what I was originally talking about. My answer was, basically, introspection. If you're not sure how to figure out what you think is cool about something (beyond just knowing you think it's cool), that's a different thing.