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Weekender XLBS: Rules Or Fluff, What Should Come First In Game Design?
August 21, 2016 by dignity
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Happy Sunday
genre mixing has been done , if you look at the background for a RPG called TORG..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torg#Setting
One if the greatest RPG’s our group have played in 30 odd years
Lego trains are awesome and really easy to put together plus you can buy extra track, space wise they’re a bit bulky but pulling them apart and putting them back together is simple and something you really can’t do with a regular train set. I say go for it!
On a slightly more serious side model building (including Lego) as a way of therapy is a brilliant method. I’m 36yo and had been out of the wargames world for a long time until events led me to develop PTSD. A horrible condition but getting back into painting and gaming has been brilliant for my recovery and has probably been the biggest single element into getting back on my feet, not only from a building therapy side but also as feeling like part of a community again. Food for thought anyway. Great show guys.
You need to also pick up the 60098 Heavy Haul train set – get another engine and another loop (still no junction) – plus a JCB to help you lay the track 😉
Happy Sunday!
@martincraddy
Man I’m glad you are better and it’s great to hear the hobby has helped 😎
It is indeed a fabulous comfort blanket for me as well in particularly stressful times and the community is certainly an integral part of it.
In other words ALL OF YOU!
Happy Subday to everybody out there 🙂
Thank you.
You know, what seemed like such a straight forward topic this week, ‘game or background’ it completely stumped me lol
There is just no definitive answer to it, it really is @dignity‘s 50 shades of grey 🙂
When the man is right, he’s totally right lol
I honestly believe that the greatest games in one’s life must be both. I discovered a wonderful little game called Bushido on your site a few years back and was sold in seconds. The gameplay looked fun and the miniatures were great. But the reason I even bothered to look at the page at all was the theme. East Asian fantasy. I have been a long time fan of Kung Fu and Samurai movies. Mystical Ninjas and Oni demons. Throw in Big Trouble In Little China as one of my all time favorites and there you go. Because without the one, the other will never shine quite so bright. So both aspects must be shared like all great games should be.
I think i have see the rules isn’t it pronounced Kamasutra? @warzan
I think guys that is not 100% one way or the other, for people who have very much been keeping their ears to the ground they know that I am actually doing a campaign setting book, I was considering doing my own system for it, I have one in place… but that is another story.
So when I did the background for this I considered something. I considered D&D and the wizards right for your average 3 ed, 3.5 or Pathfinder player the Wizard is closer to something a kin to a god than a normal person. I thought about this, in the real world would be tolerate such a people? We love athletes, some people don’t but on the general whole and when we meet people we love them. This is built into us, we want to be with those who ensure our survival, and if there is someone extremely fit we want stick around them. However, it is almost the inverse for nerdy people, even the very successful ones. Take a look at the story of ‘The Social Network” the guy who made the whole thing is hated. Why? Because of his behaviour sure, but also his lack of “Charisma” his lack of grace, his inability to communicate. Does that sound like a wizard?
TL;DR Mark Zuckerberg is a wizard, people hate wizards.
So what would happen to these people? They would become separate from society those powerful enough would form organisations by necessity to protect themselves. Those not powerful enough would swear themselves to someone else in order to protect themselves. When you hear the word wizard you don’t know if they are the guys who make the lords hedge animals by waving their hands, the guy who make crops able to grown in the swamp, or the guy who can point and at his command people will die.
TL;DR Magic would be feared and respected in that order.
However, if I took that approach to how I developed cultures for my setting how would that work? All humans have one feat as a bonus for being human, so they are more stuff do-y…
:/
Sufficed to say I have given some thought to this issue before it came up on this video ha ha 😀
There is a vast gulf between the fiction of the warhammer 40,000 universe and the mechanics of the game. Would the game truly be better if the space marines were a force of 10 that could take on 10,000 or even more?
What is fun is what should be important. That is my thought anyway XD
In the world of computer game design there are basically two schools of thought.
One school is story-driven design, which starts with a cool character and a narrative and builds the game around this. All the adventure and RPG games live in this space. In the more open-ended spectrum it leads to Fable and the like.
The other school puts game mechanics first, sometimes to the point of avoiding as much story as possible. The prime example of this would be Tetris I think. There are more of these ‘ludologist’ games. They are often abstract and involve a lot of puzzle elements.
Between that is a whole host of games (most of them in fact) that develop their story and gameplay simultaneously. Sometimes a game mechanic can spark an interesting character trait. And next the backstory requires the protagonist to have a certain skill or move through a certain type of event.
And marketing is always a factor.
The story of a game is often used to help us understand what the game is about and to help teach us the game mechanics. Humans are relatively bad at remembering abstract data, but very good at remembering stories. So the abstractness is told to us in the form of narrative and environment.
For example, instead of trying to tell us “red square is bad for you” a game can present you with a fire. People know fire will hurt and will be cautious around it. Dark Souls turns this idea around by making the fire into a campfire. It’s still fire, but because of the way it is presented it now means security. -> Here is your sa(f/v)e point.
In tabletop games I can understand you would lean to think that story comes first, because the games we know are all based around character, in the form of individuals, bodies of men or factions/nations. It would be interesting to think of a ludologist’s tabletop game. Could we create a fun tabletop game without the characters and graphic visions of war?
… Or would we then end up with another version of Chess or Go?
Interesting point, in video game design they generally start with the mechanics and build from there. However, in tabletop gaming, especially RPGs, you’ll sometimes start with a background concept that then informs the mechanics.
I started out in model trains. North American N gauge then 0-16 Welsh narrow gauge. Many of the skills transfer to wargaming and it’s probably why I have a passion for scenery.
Here’s the most honest review you’ll ever see on Legos High Speed Passenger set:
https://youtu.be/ceaa4jhvEcA
@warzan
@johnlyons Great to see you doing more on the weekenders John. Totally miss your painting tutorials, would love to see more of them as they’re what got me into the hobby.
I’m actually working on my first professionally published game at the moment (a lifelong ambition come true!), so needless to say the ‘game or background’ topic was very interesting to me! I agree that there is no definitive answer, but I also think it can depend on the KIND of game you are designing- personally, I love campaign/progression games like Mordheim, Necromunda et al, and for those games I feel that having a strong (though not necessarily in-depth) setting and background is vital for that immersion in the world that lets you invest (sometimes emotionally) in those wee plastic and metal figures we push around the table! Whereas a competitive card game for example does not NECESSARILY need a fully-fleshed background, as the joy is in learning the rules in order to beat your opponents… Having said that, look at Magic: the Gathering and the novels etc it has spawned! I guess what I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t really matter whether game or background comes first- one will naturally follow the other as I guess it’s just human nature to want to tell stories that resonate with us and make us feel a part of them, and gaming is just another way of doing that…
Thus us the second week in a row and the only times since I have joined that the video isn’t working. The Saturday weekender works fine. Have you changed something?
@warzan yes you can buy extra track, it’s lego and it’s pricey, I had a look at amazon just now and here is the best result
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-City-7499-Flexible-Tracks/dp/B0042HOU1W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471766197&sr=8-1&keywords=lego+track
so you don’t get a lot for your money really.
I’d say the best option is to buy the set from the shop (which seemed a decent discount), and buy the track from eBay.
Here are your junctions… https://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-City-7895-Train-Tracks/dp/B000EXN8DY
Two things on infinity rules in fantasy:
1) You could put more emphasis on coordinated orders, effectively grouping 4 guys and making them move together. Then, some guys might have “reach” (Warmachine) allowing them to block charge lanes etc. whilst others might have shields etc. to absorb charges etc. That could allow for some interesting mini-formations to do the CC.
2) Longbows or weapons like that would hardly be used in ARO. Yes, small crossbows etc. but not all ranged weapons.
I work in a real medieval dungeon in Nottingham and every saturday night we run terror tours around it in the dark. No mammoths but who can tell in the dark. If you ever visit Notts you need to send Justin round.
Shame about the Mercs rulebook only being hardback. Wonder if that will hurt them in the long run. With so many companies putting out their rule sets for free download to let you get a feel for the game, why would somebody pay $60 dollars for something they could hate. Thought those type of gambling days were gone in modern gaming.
There is talk of them releasing it in PDF form; but at the moment they have this $60 barrier to the game. They do make some strange decisions as a company…
Playing Devil’s Advocate (and I haven’t bought or played MERCS), publishing a big hardback rulebook is a ‘declaration of war’. Or a statement that this is a serious, big league game up there with anything put out by GW, FFG, Privateer press, etc. It can make it less easy to ignore than a free or even cheap PDF.
I can’t say which works better in general or which might work better for them. These days I think it is probably more important than it used to be to make games cheaply and easily accessible, even if not with the full rulebook. Especially if, as it seems, the rules themselves are actually very short relative to many other miniature wargames.
hiho,
if you want to see great model trains and want to visit a great dungeon, then you have to come to hamburg/germany there you have both next to each other.
you have the miniature wunderland with awesome h0 szeneries, inklusive an airport and a harbor both full funktional.
http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/
and
next to it you have the hamburg dungeon
https://www.thedungeons.com/hamburg/en/
this two locations are realy awesome 😀
if you are going to vistit call me i will go with you in it 🙂
Speaking only for myself, I find this one to be a little like being asked to decide whether I prefer sculptors to be left-handed or right-handed. I don’t care as long as the sculpt is good. I’m not bothered whether the setting existed independently of the game or was created for the game. I thoroughly enjoy games derived from both. I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem if market constraints are placed on creativity, they can even help spark creativity. There is a line over which you can go, though, in which a purely market-driven design philosophy can be counter-productive. GW’s directive that every 40K army have Terminators being a good example. That said, I don’t think anyone is advocating that kind of design philosophy anyway.
I guess you’re right @redben aye – as long as the product at the end is enjoyable and it feels ‘good’ to play and explore from the ‘gaming in the gaps’ perspective maybe it doesn’t matter overly heh
Happy Sunday!
I’m really liking the inclusion of the forum posts, I wish I had more time to get involved.
I will start a project log at one point.
With regards to game design I’d say the idea must come first, I mean you must know what genre of game you want to create?
After that first step the fluff and rules would naturally evolve together.
got to be done if a bit cliché , Justin & Dragons going to the wrong type of dungeon ie the S&M type
Oh God yes lol
Or even being able to pronounce ‘dungeon’
I would pay good hard cash to see Justin at TG…..his beard would be the belle of the ball…
I think that with the development of some type of games background and game go hand in hand. Because when they start making a game they probably already have ideas of the world it will play in. Like halo, gears of war for electronic games. I also had that feeling with shattered earth and antares and probably a lot more other games have that to. But I think that that makes the game just that much better because it will feel right. And I think that you can still do things like that with worlds that are already out there. Like making new things in the worlds of star wars, star trek or even warmachine or wh40k.
Mercs rulebook is nice, unfortunately it is the only nice thing that came out from the debacle that was their MERCS recon kickstarter, for those interested in the models be advised they are bendy restic with excessive flash at particular models and factions and some suffer from massive loss of detail, sad really.
@warzan
Straight for the holly cows eh? Heroscape was a massive hit on the boardgame world especially in the US especially because of the mash up theme, were cowboys could fight goblins and mecha could go to punches with dragons, I am not sure how marketing was behind it, given as soon as hasbro took over they killed it because it was expensive with small margins (they redid it with the magic the gathering arena of the plainswakers this year and the drop in manufacturing costs is evident) or simply doing it for the rule of cool, something I am really surprised you didn’t mention, you been you of course, the one who always sides with the rule of cool over background, history, or game rules.
Segwaying from that lets go to the main course.
Background is massively important, take a look at a recent FFG release, The world of Android a book giving the background for mainly the android netrunner cardgame, imagine that, for a cardgame were fluff is minimal offered by a line or two in each card, if ever, they created a background big and extensive enouph to fill a book.
Why? because an extensive background helps with everything, it creates internal consistency, speeds up the concept art and sculpting/ artwork, defines the world and allows everybody involved to know what is what and what can and cannot be done, see how old games were inconsistent in armours weapons even artwork and now top tier companies create consistent and coherent work, look at the concept art and see the extension they go to make sure units have armour and weapons that are fit for their timeline.
The trinity of a system is models, rules background, models (looks really it could be a cardgame or a boardgame) are the thing that will grab the eye of the customer, rules are the thing that will hook the customer to the system and the background will retain them, if you can make the customer fantasise about the world you have created then you have a customer retained.
Now for a companies perspective, or an amateur who wants to do a professional work, the most important thing in your background is your manufacturing and distribution capabilities, can you deliver the background you create? if not make it work with your company, look at MERCs from megacon, their background speaks of massive state power corporation entities that rule the world, but their merc teams are a squad of highly trained “champion” status individuals, it makes no sense, the world would demand the “MERCs” to be nation sized armies and there is no mention that these individuals a re the elite doing undercover work.
On the other hand in Infinity it this is exactly the background, armies are mentioned, described and the player forces are indeed small elite teams doing undercover work.
On one hand CB addressed their manufacturing and distribution capacity by creating a background they can deliver, on the other hand megacon created a background they cannot deliver so they left the background details needed for the world to function outside of it.
I would love to see someone turn Ulysses 31 into a game
Happy Sunday!!
I’m not sure one should be developed too far without the other.
Definitely need to begin with a concept of basic setting and core rules. The nature of those core rule elements should drive the fluff details while the setting should drive the rules details. It’s an iterative cycle, with both feeding off each other.
Of course when the fluff already exists (license or historical) you still need to drive a solid concept to build the rules on.
Thanks for another great weekender guys. As always fun to watch and listen to you 🙂
And a lot of interesting discussions. And Justin can chalk this one up as a win for him i guess. A time when he gave Warren headaches and not the other way round ;P
Heroscape … man … i was looking at that game when it came out and all the stuff in it got me totally confused.
For the fantasy game from Corvus Belli i’m with Warren, at least a bit. It needs to keep some of the western stuff in it with some anime/manga-flair added to it if it wants to attract more players. I’m a huge fan of japanese and chinese mythology and history, so i like games that are just far eastern in theme … but even i have to admit that those games are just sitting in their niche and will have hard times to attract a larger group of wargamers. A bit like Legend of the Five Rings. I love that game to hell and back, be it the ccg (soon to be lcg) or the rpg. But it could never reach the huge customer base of Magic or D&D.
And man Romain really started a trend with his painting tutorials for galaxys. That was an inspiration for a lot of guys in the hobby forum. @caladors with the robes of one of his minis for silver tower and that awesome looking galaxy board (that is something i would hang up on my wall and be happy just looking at it). More of the guys painting that effect on robes and cloaks. @ogreblood with his fantastic looking Mirrorsaurus Rex (i believe that is his official name now). Or my humble attempts to get some bases with the galaxy effect on them … expect more of them once i get my copy of Operation: Red Veil. So thanks @elromanozo for beeing such a huge inspiration 🙂
I have to agree @elromanozo started an amazing trend, and your right there are quite a few people picked up the ball, yourself included.
I am really glad to see this quiet pattern continue which reminds us all how we are all connected.
I forgot to add for the app integrations, we disagreed the previous times and time unfortunately placed me to be correct, both in exillis and gholem arcana now FFG creates aps for their games and introduces DLC content with minimal cost for them and bypassing the retail distribution, this is not particularly bad and the market can adapt (funny though asmodei blows the horn of defending the LGS), what is important is that I do not see were the physical models and board is needed, seen a few reviews reviewers were ecstatic, but from a cynical perspective, anything outside the dice and the stat cards is not needed, so why these games are in physical form again?
Inevitably technology will be adapted in a form that will be useful for the physical part of the game, the Infinity army app makes the list for your force and tracks some effects of your force during game without been intrusive and there are other companies apps that do the same the question is what more a companion app can do without making the need of physical components unnecessary.
Don’t really get the whole using the so called correct models with a game. I don’t understand how companies can enforce this unless it’s a company organised tournament . I still think most players dont care if there using the models from the company or not
Also there are far more rulesets being produced than there are companies making miniatures
Long live friendly proxying!!