Do you ever feel like you spend a lot of time reading, writing, and engaging with the TTRPG community, but not enough time playing? I used to do the same thing when I first stopped playing. I would still buy the monthly magazine I liked, just to feel connected to the hobby. I did something similar when I quit Magic. I would buy at least one booster pack from every new collection, so I wouldn't miss out on anything new. How do you balance your hobby time?
🎲From the Table - No game, ideas to quickstart a table
📺My Media - Lord of the Rings audiobook (they sing the songs!)
🛜Current Issues - What is a mechanic?
📝Design Talk - MDA Criticism
🎲From the Table - Quickstarting a table
As I’ve said before, my main playing group is having a lot of issues meeting up, even though we’re online now. Solo gaming is growing a lot as we can see online with videos and new games catering to this style of play and I got some old Fighting Fantasy books lying around and other unplayed games begging for me to at least making a character and running a fight just to test them. I may do it, but I’ll try to things before:
First, recruit the weekdays online group for some playtest. I was not GM here, but they liked my one shots and playtesting would not feel like I was stealing the party from the GM. Maybe they’ll just realise we can resume the main campaign? I’d go old-school with them, using D&D Classic (90’s black box), the one that was released in Brazil and use my #dungeon23 adventure.
Second option is to recruit new players. I have some targets set: people from the Lord of the Rings online chat (successfully finished Mines of Phandelver with some of them online), a couple from the soccer online chat that said they played 5e and some guys from work that sometimes reminisce about their youth playing GURPS (middle aged nerdy guys from Brazil are like that). With the people I could go for a more “modern game”, fantasy with the first two (can’t escape 5e here) and something more sci-fi or western with the other. Maybe Savage Worlds would fit the GURPS fans?
Keep your ears listening for anyone mentioning TTRPGs. That’s a target.
Casually offer to run a game: “if you want to go back, I can arrange that”.
Be ready to run a game at the spot. I have character sheets ready on my phone for printing if needed for your preferred game.
The last one is a bit hard. Choose a small game: I prefer straight fighting fantasy for these situations. If you can print from your phone at the place, get familiar with Lady Blackbird by John Harper (itch.io) and his similar games, they have a strong start and well-defined premade characters.
📺My media - Lord of the Rings audiobook
I finally succumbed to Amazon's persistent attempts to get me to subscribe to Audible. I'm not sure if it's worth it, but I'm giving it a try. I haven't read the book in a long time and the movies have overshadowed it in my mind, so I chose to listen to Lord of the Rings, to refresh my memory of the differences and enjoy a longer immersive experience.
So far, I have enjoyed the beginning of the book. The narrator does a great job, and he even sings the songs beautifully. As a TTRPG enthusiast, I find the "adventure mode" in the book very intriguing. It is like a "pointcrawl", a long journey with some events happening at certain points along the way. Tolkien is very detailed in describing not only the places and situations, but also the travel itself. The characters constantly discuss the possible routes to take, where they lead, how far they are from their destination, and so on. There are many lessons to learn here about environmental hazards, chases and avoiding fights.
If you need the party to travel to a destination, give them different routes to choose from.
When choosing the route, give them hints about things and places that might be on their way.
Let them retrace their steps. The Fellowship gave up the mountains after a while and went to Moria.
Walk around. Tolkien must have hiked and trekked lot, he really knows this stuff.
🛜Current issues - What is a mechanic?
Brazilian TTRPG Xwitter has been aflame with a theory question that I explored here last month: what is a mechanic? The two camps are: “mechanics are the tools the designer uses to guide gameplay” and “mechanics are everything between the players and the experience”. At first it seems we are arguing semantics here, and we are, but it’s not just that.
The main example the contenders used is the concept of the mask in Vampire games. For the unfamiliar, the mask is a social construct in the fictional world of Vampire games that the most importante thing is always to keep the existence of vampires a secret from common people, no matter what. For the first group this is not a mechanic. It’s an information about the official lore that the narrator and players will have to negotiate around, in play. It will inform their decisions, but it is not a codified part of the game. For the second group this is a mechanic: it’s something in the game the is between the players and the experience. If you know about it as a player, you have a decision. It’s a button you can push to alter the state of play.
Which side are you on?
📝Design talk - MDA Criticism: Elemental Tetrad
In my previous article, I introduced the MDA (mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics) framework as a helpful way to analyze games and especially TTRPGs. The framework remains popular and influential, but it also has some drawbacks that are worth mentioning.
First, the frontier between mechanics and dynamics is not very clear. In the original article examples, dice are included on the dynamics box for example. Is it that important to distinguish between “roll the dice” in the written word and the act of rolling dice on the table? The types of fun listed as goals under aesthetics are also confusing and clearly not complete. Also, “fun” as a theory piece is very hard to deal with.
Another framework that games designers use to analyze and understand the different components that shape the overall experience of a game is the Elemental Tetrad. Jesse Schell popularized this framework in his book "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" (which I also mentioned in the newsletter). The Elemental Tetrad has four key elements:
Mechanics are the rules and systems that determine how a game works. They consist of the interactive elements and the gameplay systems that establish the player's actions and the game's reactions to them. Some examples of mechanics are movement controls, combat systems, scoring mechanisms, and resource management.
Story refers to the narrative elements of the game, such as the plot, characters, setting, and style of narration. It examines how the game conveys its narrative to the player and how players interact with and understand the story. Story can use different methods to deliver its message, for example, cutscenes, dialogue, in-game text, and environmental storytelling.
Aesthetics in the Elemental Tetrad are analogous to the Aesthetics component in the MDA framework. They refer to the sensory and emotional aspects of the player's interaction with the game. Aesthetics encompass the game's audiovisual elements, its look and feel, and the emotions it evokes in players. They are about the ambiance, tone, and the overall experience of playing the game.
Technology refers to the game's hardware and software components. It covers the platforms that support the game, the graphics and sound engines, and other technical aspects that enable the game to work. Technology evolves over time and affects the potential for game design, enabling more realistic graphics, intricate simulations, and creative gameplay elements.
In our little Xwitter flame wars for example, the Mask would be clearly labeled as Story. It also influences gameplay but in a different way that mechanics do. I’m still not sure how I would translate technology to TTRPGs though? Would it be the game ephemera? Like dice, papers, notes, online platform? That would solve the MDA criticism about where dice belongs.
Next month I’ll talk about MTDA+N, another framework that tries to unite MDA and the Tetrad theory.
References:
Engineering emergence: applied theory for game design (uva.nl)
Design, Dynamics, Experience (DDE): An Advancement of the MDA Framework for Game Design
A Working Theory of Game Design - First Person Scholar
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