Where's the line between game design and session prep?
For example, right now I am coming up with names, cravings, look, and weakness for 18 NPCs. Plan is to have these as crew members of a spaceship.
Have I moved from design to prep? Or, are these words meaninglessly similar at the level I am speaking of them?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Jason Corley will tell you it's all design. Or it's all play. Or something like that. Categories don't matter! All things are everything! ;)
ReplyDeleteEverything virtuous is play. Everything wicked is design. (puts on second pair of sunglasses over first pair of sunglasses, rides away on a skateboard on a segway)
ReplyDeleteIf you feel that there's a degree of judgement relative to some abstract principle involved in the decisions that will meaningfully impact whether or not the session is fun then you're probably doing game design (e.g. if you're creating these characters in a particular way so that they're "balanced" or so the situation is sufficiently full of "dramatic potential", and it would be possible to do it wrong if you had poor judgment). By contrast, if you can tell your decisions are "good enough" based on comparing to some procedure and your own subjective tastes then it's probably not game design ("OK, I've rolled up all the planets for this Traveller sector", "OK, this Mouse Guard mission involves the weather and an animal threat, and it riffs on Lachlan's Belief and Hazel's Instict"). A nontrivial number of games tell the GM they have to do some game design as prep (e.g. creating a dungeon).
ReplyDeleteGame design is the war, session prep is a battle.
ReplyDeleteI'd say there's a continuum rather than a line.
ReplyDeleteIt's all design, it's the audience that changes it. Design for a small group of specific people playing specific character - "prep". Design for a larger more general group - "game design".
ReplyDeleteAaron Griffin How about design that'll probably only see a small group, with bits for them in mind, but designed with the hopeful intention of wider appeal?
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols prep that thinks highly of itself? :) I know what you mean, though. I'd probably just suggest that it's dynamic value and it changes with the audience? My concept is getting away from me now...
ReplyDeleteIt's game design if you plan to give it to other people to use. It's prep if you only plan to use it yourself.
ReplyDeleteI noticed how similar prep and game design is. I would say that prep is designing for a session, where you play, just as game design is.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, they are the same thing.
Which makes RPGs complicated, because a roleplaying game creator designs a game where the game master typically designs the session.
If you eat soup, aren't you actually drinking it? It's all semantics. Designing cast and storylines is part of prep and prepping examples and preconstructed resources is part of design. You can't do one without the other.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think it's important to have a definition of game design that doesn't capture things that clearly aren't game design. Things like coming up with a strategy in chess, placing a bet in poker, or playing a PC in an RPG are game play not game design. There are things that a traditional RPG GM does during the game that are clearly play and not design. Not all prep is design.
ReplyDeleteDan Maruschak Why do you believe it's important to have such a definition? Does that change what you consider game design or what attitude you have to the task described? I'm pretty happy with Game Design have fuzzy boundaries. Lots of people insist on calling design activities that result in games "not game design" because they involve hacking another game, using third party mechanics or even dealing with story games. I think having a clear cut definition, while in principle an admirable goal, is unattainable without also encourage community gatekeeping, pointless arguments and "No True Scotsman" debates. My definition: does whatever you're doing result in a new game, different game or changed game? If yes, then you're designing.
ReplyDeleteSławomir Wójcik I didn't say it was important to have a clear definition, I said it was important to have a definition that isn't clearly wrong. Sure, have fuzzy boundaries, but make sure your core is in the right place, and don't let your boundaries stretch to the edge of the universe because we already have a word that means "everything" and we'd all be poorer if we morphed a useful concept like game design into a redundant term. Hypervigilance against power-move definitions can throw some babies out with the bathwater (who can say there's a difference between babies and bathwater anyway? Isn't it just semantics?).
ReplyDeletedanmaruschak.com - www.danmaruschak.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/CantHackItComic.png
Dan Maruschak so why do you think it's important to have a definition that excludes things that clearly aren't game design? I.e. what's the baby in this bath?
ReplyDelete[ I'm listening. This is fantastic. I adore questions such as "why do you believe any of the things you believe?", when delivered with respect. ]
ReplyDeleteSławomir Wójcik 1) It can help you as a game designer to make sure you're not unintentionally saddling a player with a design task, 2) it can help you evaluate whether a game has been well designed, 3) if you're going to use a phrase it's inherently virtuous to make sure you're not talking nonsense and "game design" is a phrase I use reasonably often. I imagine there are other reasons, those are a few off the top of my head.
ReplyDeleteDan Maruschak Those reasons are not bad at all - I actually agree with them. So would your recommendation be to introduce three categories then: things that are definitely gaem design (which you should do well and not push over to the players), things that are not game design (and better left to other creative venues) and things that might or might not be game design depending on viewpoint and circumstances? I personally have a feeling the third one might be quite voluminous.
ReplyDeleteSławomir Wójcik I'm not sure I understand the question. Any time you have a category there are things that are definitely inside it, things definitely outside it, and things where the answer is fuzzier. That's not anyone "introducing" something, that's the nature of categories. It's not clear to me at all that "viewpoint and circumstances" would be the most salient factors for categorizing something as game design or not.
ReplyDeleteThen the question seems to be: Is Game Design a subjective term, or an objective one?
ReplyDeleteThat is, are the edges of the categories neat and well defined, or are they jagged and open to interpretation?
I offer no official opinion, though I think the answer obvious.
William Nichols Are you sure that the crispness of the edge of a category is how you tell the difference between something being objective or subjective? That's not how I'd define that term -- I think objective things refer to the external "real world" reference frame.
ReplyDeleteSince "game design" is a concept we use in communicating with each other it can't be purely subjective (otherwise how can you tell that I'm not saying "purple monkey dishwasher"?), so it's at least intersubjective. en.wikipedia.org - Intersubjectivity - Wikipedia
Dan Maruschak William Nichols I think the underlying question, the one that I started with is: Should we as a community change acceptability criteria for things that are game design if the context of the terms usage changes? Or failing that, should we encourage fuzzy and inclusive definitions to appeal to people who are shy about their game design and counteract those who would like to serve as gatekeepers?
ReplyDeleteSławomir Wójcik You've got a lot of stuff bundled up there. First, have you demonstrated that fuzzy definitions appeal to shy people? Have you demonstrated that they work against the interests of gatekeepers? That's not obvious at all, in either the general or specific case. I can see a very plausible argument that they have the opposite effect: in the absence of externalizable standards social clout takes on an ever-greater impact, e.g. a "mean girls" clique works better if it has the appearance of having fashion rules so that they can arbitrarily and capriciously "enforce" them, but actual rules would reduce their power because then people could figure out how to dress to insulate themselves from the clique's wrath, so having a fuzzy concept of what's fashionable serves the interest of the clique.
ReplyDeleteSecond, what "acceptability criteria" are you talking about? Before you seemed to be pushing back against the idea that there was a definition at all, now you're asserting that you know it well enough to detect changes in it? It seems like you're skipping a few steps there.
Third, are you eliding the question of whether the definition is true and/or useful intentionally? The implicit assumption that there's some kind of overriding social/political function doesn't seem like it has been demonstrated. I wouldn't encourage engineers to adopt a definition of "structurally sound" that maximizes the number of people who call themselves engineers, I'd encourage them to have one that lets us tell which bridges are safe to use. (A nice consequence of an objective sense of that is that anyone who acquires the appropriate expertise can design a bridge that works, they don't need the blessing of the anointed).
Dan Maruschak I'm trying to ask a question here. If the answer is "No" or "That question is not a good one to ask", so be it. Same if another question needs to be answered. You seem to read my comments as an attempt to debate - it's hard to debate when my own opinion on the matter is not yet formed. I might have made some assumptions in the questions, consciously or uncannily, but I have no desire to "push back" or argue over things I don't think I'm knowledgeable.
ReplyDeleteSławomir Wójcik By "you've got a lot of stuff bundled up there" I was implying that I didn't think it was a well-formed question because it has a lot of assumptions built into it. I'll acknowledge that I have been reading many of your questions as faux-Socratic ones rather than genuine inquiries, but I'm not sure if that has had much substantive effect on my replies. Do you agree with me that there are some assumptions that need to be unpacked in your "underlying question"?
ReplyDeleteDan Maruschak Sure! I'd really like to hear what you (and generally, other people, especially more experienced designers) think about these. William Nichols with your permission, I think we might have taken over the comment-space a bit.
ReplyDeleteIts fine so far; sometimes, the most virtuous action is to create a safe discussion space for others. If I can do that, fantastic.
ReplyDeleteAnd that seems to be what we have here; two interlocutors, with occasional discussion from others. I'm perfectly happy to host that.
Sławomir Wójcik Why not try expressing what you think about them? If it's your question aren't they your assumptions?
ReplyDelete