@S'mon you have a point. I haven't thought by this angle.

Though reading that "Fruitful Void" article (thanks Ffilz), it seems that usually this "Void" emerges from, and is linked to, the ecology of rules around. The example of Dogs in the Vineyard is spot on here: the game doesn't have a Faith score, but it's all about Faith (or, how far do you go for your faith) as promoted by the other rules. Same with Monopoly, where you don't have a Business Acumen stat, but the game is all about quickly managing business-like situations (thus Business Acumen). And in regard specifically to RPGs, this is even more pronounced. I can't think of a tabletop RPG that doesn't have rules (procedural or directive) for what it's about: D&D always had rules for combat and survival in perilous places; Call of Cthulhu has very explicit rules for investigation with sanity at stake; Shadowrun has rules for criminal heists; Apocalypse World has rules for scarcity and harshness; etc.

So, S'mon, are you sure this Braunstein LARP you speak of doesn't have any rules for warfare/skirmishes, be it procedural (dice, stats, etc) or directive (verbal instructions, etc)? Because if my reading of this Fruitful Void concept is more or less correct (frankly, not even the authors seem to have a precise definition ), this "Void" is totally linked to these rules, and not completely dissociated from it as you seem to advocate. OBS: I'm not saying it should, though. Perhaps there may be games where this Void is really dissociated from everything else and it still works.

Quote from: FfilzI also wonder if some of the resistance to "Story Games" comes from games trying to put that which makes a game an RPG to a given person into mechanics in a way that moves that "thing" out of the Fruitful Void?

Seems pretty much the case, to me.



EDIT: that article is kinda confusing BTW. Vincent Baker seems to understand this Fuitful Void as something central to play, while Ron Edwards seems to understand it as something not really central to play, but relevant in some way.

My reaction after reading the thread about the "fruitful void" is "Why is this such a revelation?" When your campaign start off with a premise that is going to be about playing a character within a specific setting this is what follows irregardless of what rules you wrote or thought you needed.

A tabletop roleplaying campaign that didn't have any rules about a butcher shop but has a butcher shop as an important part of the setting is still going to deal with life within a butcher shop.  Despite the lack of rules it could be for a given campaign a butcher shop would be one of the more important setting elements because of the choices of the referee or players.

An example from OD&D, a character can jump across things even though there are no explicit rules for jumping either for or against.

Whether the rules cover it or not jumping or butcher shops are important (or not) by virtue of the referee or players making it important through how the setting develops or player's choices as their characters.

Quote from: ffilz;1053626One thing to set the record straight... Dogs in the Vinyard is by Vincent Baker not Ron Edwards...
 

Yup messed that one up should have known better.

Thanks for the Fruitful Void link Ffilz

Quote from: Itachi;1053648I can't think of a tabletop RPG that doesn't have rules (procedural or directive) for what it's about: D&D always had rules for combat and survival in perilous places

I want to take D&D as the example since it's what I know best.

I would say the original focus of D&D was exploration and discovery. A big part of it was interacting with the dungeon environment. And the more they add rules for Spot/Perception/Investigation type rolls, the *less* it is about that. Old School Play advocates like Matt Finch talk a lot about the need to twiddle with wall sconces and otherwise have your PC interact with detailed elements of the physical environment *without mechanical support* (or at best you might get a 1 in 6 freebie, 2 in 6 for elves) where a new school player would just roll vs Spot etc.

I definitely think there is a tendency for players to focus on what is mechanically detailed, eg combat, which in low level OD&D is basically a failure state. Future generations of designers may think this is what the game is supposed to be about, eg 4e D&D. But I'd argue that D&D was originally more about exploration than anything else - there are more rules for combat, but there is more description & advice on exploration.

Quote from: S'mon;1053657I want to take D&D as the example since it's what I know best.

I would say the original focus of D&D was exploration and discovery. A big part of it was interacting with the dungeon environment. And the more they add rules for Spot/Perception/Investigation type rolls, the *less* it is about that. Old School Play advocates like Matt Finch talk a lot about the need to twiddle with wall sconces and otherwise have your PC interact with detailed elements of the physical environment *without mechanical support* (or at best you might get a 1 in 6 freebie, 2 in 6 for elves) where a new school player would just roll vs Spot etc.

I definitely think there is a tendency for players to focus on what is mechanically detailed, eg combat, which in low level OD&D is basically a failure state. Future generations of designers may think this is what the game is supposed to be about, eg 4e D&D. But I'd argue that D&D was originally more about exploration than anything else - there are more rules for combat, but there is more description & advice on exploration.

Makes sense. Thanks.

Quote from: Itachi;1053648EDIT: that article is kinda confusing BTW. Vincent Baker seems to understand this Fuitful Void as something central to play, while Ron Edwards seems to understand it as something not really central to play, but relevant in some way.

I think the idea is that with the FV you have rules around The Thing, but not rules directly covering The Thing. Eg if the game is about combat & killing things you don't want to have a Killing Things stat. If the game is about seduction you don't want to have a Seduction stat. Same for Diplomacy, Assassination, Farming etc. You have attributes for the legs that support The Thing. A game about questions of honour in Samurai Japan should not have an Honour stat. A game about dungeon delving & killing monsters/looting stuff as a Samurai in Samurai Japan may well have an Honour stat.

Quote from: Itachi;1053658Makes sense. Thanks.

Cheers

Quote from: estar;1053656My reaction after reading the thread about the "fruitful void" is "Why is this such a revelation?"

Because most people coming up with rpg theory and writing games spend a lot of time thinking about games, and very little playing them. I mentioned it before: on Free RPG Day I had a player who'd not played anything for more than 20 years. One of the games given away was his, Sol (that's a review, his actual game site is defunct). A pleasant guy, an okay player, but... he'd written a game after 20+ years of not playing, and the game was of course completely unplaytested even by him. And it shows, badly.

Things which any experienced player or GM will take as self-evident will be great revelations to people who don't game.

Of course, if you're gaming all the time then you might be too busy to come up with a game theory or write an rpg.

Quote from: S'mon;1053657I want to take D&D as the example since it's what I know best.

I would say the original focus of D&D was exploration and discovery. A big part of it was interacting with the dungeon environment. And the more they add rules for Spot/Perception/Investigation type rolls, the *less* it is about that. Old School Play advocates like Matt Finch talk a lot about the need to twiddle with wall sconces and otherwise have your PC interact with detailed elements of the physical environment *without mechanical support* (or at best you might get a 1 in 6 freebie, 2 in 6 for elves) where a new school player would just roll vs Spot etc.

I definitely think there is a tendency for players to focus on what is mechanically detailed, eg combat, which in low level OD&D is basically a failure state. Future generations of designers may think this is what the game is supposed to be about, eg 4e D&D. But I'd argue that D&D was originally more about exploration than anything else - there are more rules for combat, but there is more description & advice on exploration.

Drawing sweeping universal conclusions about what original D&Ds focus was is something of a fool's errand. Perhaps for you it was exploration and discovery, but I knew plenty of players who thought it was all about fighting monsters (and didn't give a rat's rear end that some players thought this was a "fail state"... there definition of success was having fun, not maximizing XP gain).

I also think the lack of rules in early D&Ds case was more a matter of emergent game play than any sort of deliberate "fruitful void." D&D evolved out of a war game and its earliest iterations were essentially adding heroes, magic and monsters to the war game, then focusing it down onto the exploits of one or two characters.

Its original focus was thus combat. The absence of built-in mechanical support for interacting with wall sconces and such wasn't because they wanted the players to spend half an hour describing how they search a room; it was because they hadn't come up with any sort of unified approach as the game shifted from a war game to a delve environment and from essentially PVP to cooperative play. Later editions added rules to these niches so that more consistent games could be had.

In other words, I think the "fruitful void" is more in the eye of the beholder than something deliberately intended in the rules. I mean, I could add all sorts of elements into a game of Monopoly that might make sense (ex. hiring mafia types to burn down another player's hotels) and claim I'm exploiting the fruitful void of Monopoly, but most people would just say I'm adding a bunch of ad hoc rulings to a game that was never intended to cover that aspect.

Quote from: S'mon;1053657I would say the original focus of D&D was exploration and discovery.

I would ask players from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign why did the Blackmoor Dungeons proved so popular compared to what you were doing prior as your character?

Because unlike Gygax's Greyhawk campaign, Blackmoor started as a Braustein like medieval wargame campaign between the good guys and the bad guys. Then the Blackmoor Dungeons got introduced and like a blob engulfed the interests of the players participating in the campaign.

It got so dominant that in a moment of inflexibility, Dave banished the good guys to Lake Gloomy because they focusing so much on the Blackmoor Dungeon that they ignored threat of the bad guys who managed to take over Blackmoor. Of course once they got there the first thing they started doing is searching for more dungeons to explore.

Gygax's Greyhawk campaign that led to D&D is not a good example to figure this kind of answer out. He started right off with a dungeon (Castle Greyhawk) based on talking with Dave Arneson and his experience with exploring the Blackmoor Dungeon himself when Dave came down and ran a session.

And while Gygax may have written much of D&D in the context of exploring the Greyhawk Dungeon. Tabletop roleplaying grew out of a more expansive environment in a hobbyist culture that also featured varieties of miniature wargames campaign. Which is why we got naval combat rules, wilderness rules, etc in OD&D.

From reading the literature and various anecdotes, my conclusion is that the Blackmoor campaign stated as a wargame campaign that had the innovation of players explicitly playing individual characters  rather than a nebulous general. The early sessions seems to have been groups of players competing for treasure and fighting it out among each other but otherwise playing a sophisticated wargame campaign.

That the transition to a full blown tabletop roleplaying campaign occurred during the introduction of the Blackmoor Dungeon. For the first time individual goals became paramount rather than strategic goals. Among them an intense desire to explore one more room, one more level to see what there.

Quote from: Chris24601;1053665Drawing sweeping universal conclusions about what original D&Ds focus was is something of a fool's errand. Perhaps for you it was exploration and discovery, but I knew plenty of players who thought it was all about fighting monsters...

My first D&D was 1e with Unearthed Arcana and I was 12, so yes the emphasis was definitely on fighting monsters!
But that's not really a valid play mode if you play OD&D as written. You have ca 1-6 hit points, and the first hit will probably kill you dead.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1053664Because most people coming up with rpg theory and writing games spend a lot of time thinking about games, and very little playing them. I mentioned it before: on Free RPG Day I had a player who'd not played anything for more than 20 years. One of the games given away was his, Sol (that's a review, his actual game site is defunct). A pleasant guy, an okay player, but... he'd written a game after 20+ years of not playing, and the game was of course completely unplaytested even by him. And it shows, badly.

Things which any experienced player or GM will take as self-evident will be great revelations to people who don't game.

Of course, if you're gaming all the time then you might be too busy to come up with a game theory or write an rpg.

I know Vincent Baker games a lot... The whole family games (and designs games, and plays the games they are designing). Sounds like a really cool family to be a part of.

Ron Edwards also stressed understanding RPG theory through actual play. One of the great struggles at the Forge was the arm chair gamers who wanted to talk theory but didn't actually play.

Frank

Quote from: ffilz;1053678I know Vincent Baker games a lot... The whole family games (and designs games, and plays the games they are designing). Sounds like a really cool family to be a part of.

Ron Edwards also stressed understanding RPG theory through actual play. One of the great struggles at the Forge was the arm chair gamers who wanted to talk theory but didn't actually play.

Frank

I watched a really cool interview with John Harper (Blades in the Dark) and the Index Card RPG guy. John mentioned that you need to play games, especially your own, if you're creating a game, constantly iterating. Why this would need to be said is beyond me.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1053679I watched a really cool interview with John Harper (Blades in the Dark) and the Index Card RPG guy. John mentioned that you need to play games, especially your own, if you're creating a game, constantly iterating. Why this would need to be said is beyond me.

Because there are folks who are desperate to be popular who can't manage to actually get together with folks who play. So they try an design a game in a vacuum thinking they will create the next great thing and become instantly popular... Ok, maybe not quite so pathetic as that, but I think armchair designers are extraordinarily motivated by what they see wrong in whatever game play they have done.

Frank

Quote from: ffilz;1053680Because there are folks who are desperate to be popular who can't manage to actually get together with folks who play. So they try an design a game in a vacuum thinking they will create the next great thing and become instantly popular... Ok, maybe not quite so pathetic as that, but I think armchair designers are extraordinarily motivated by what they see wrong in whatever game play they have done.

Frank

Probably very true and made much worse when your "game" becomes a vector for whatever activist disease you're infected with.

Quote from: ffilz;1053678I know Vincent Baker games a lot... The whole family games (and designs games, and plays the games they are designing). Sounds like a really cool family to be a part of.

Ron Edwards also stressed understanding RPG theory through actual play. One of the great struggles at the Forge was the arm chair gamers who wanted to talk theory but didn't actually play.

Frank

That goes all the way back to rec.games.frp.advocacy, with arguments there that have to be 25 years old by now.  I always got the feeling people most involved in the theory arguments played the least.