Hey again! This week's fundamental fantasy is being based
upon a concept I'm blatantly stealing from Caraes_Naur on the RPGdesign subreddit,
which I'm probably actually mispronouncing...
But it's something which is very fundamental to understanding
about how you put together a game. He just had a really good way of describing it so
let's take a look at such! Basically, you have two main categories to
work with here. A showroom is basically filled with all sorts of stuff on display. You can
pick whatever you want from it, within the context of the rules of the game, but anything
you want exists in the showroom as an object to inspect and purchase. A good example of
this is D&D, where every single spell you can cast is listed individually, including
many variants on the same idea - Summon I, summon II, summon III... you get where this
is going. Each one of these is listed individually, and put on display. If it's not in the showroom,
you can't use it because it's not in stock. The workshop concept is different in that,
instead of having every end result listed, you instead have the various pieces described,
and rules given for how to put them together in different ways. It's the difference between
purchasing a model which is already completed and a box of lego, essentially. An example
of a spell system which is a workshop, would be the HERO system.
Now, every game is going to have at least some aspect of both of these in play, but
which you focus upon more heavily will significantly alter how your game plays in general. It's
the difference between making your own stuff, or using stuff pre-built for you. If it's
pre-built, it tends to be better balanced and the other parts of the game are better
adapted to take such into consideration. Similar to a linear storyline versus an open-world
concept. The more you know about the story, the more foreshadowing and specific details
to that story that you can drop in elsewhere, but the less choice players have.
Except the story here is the story of mechanics. Saorsa itself, uses a bit of a hybridized
version of sorts, using different aspects of both depending on the situation. This's
kind of true to some extent for all games, though usually not in such a dramatically
notable manner as this. See, certain things are handled mostly as a showroom; the player
species in Saorsa are essentially handled as a showroom with various options presented
and you pick the ones you like, though this does still mean that the species itself is
a workshop where you build your desired character from such. Skills are similar in nature, and
again skills are used as smaller pieces in a workshop for things like spells for example.
You build a spell from basic pieces and follow a set of guidelines and rules to do so in
a coherent manner. But despite using both, it doesn't get away from the fact that it
really does have to involve either listing out the end results possible to pick from,
or pieces and rules on how to put those pieces together to form an end result.
Such is the very nature of providing information in a coherent manner from you, the designer,
to the player. You need to communicate this information between the two of you, and unfortunately,
it's a one-way street most of the time. Players can't ask the designer for questions about
how to interpret things most of the time, because the words, once written to the page,
are fairly static in nature. As such, all of the information required to use a sytem
must be presented clearly to the players in totality.
This means there isn't a lot of choice to work with here: you absolutely must, at some
point, describe what tools the players have to work with. There's no getting around this
fact. As such, you will always have a list of what's available. The difference between
these two mindsets comes down solely to whether you're listing the finalized forms or not,
as in are you describing the spells they can choose from, or are you listing the parts
of a spell you have available to build a spell out of.
No matter how many rules and open-ended concepts you offer, sooner or later you're going to
be forced to create a list of specifics to be fed into those rules. It may not be presented
as a list in terms of written format, but the effective usage will be a list of what's
available. For example, let's say we state a simple rule
for creating weapons for a game, where a piercing weapon deals 10 damage by default and a slashing
weapon deals 20 by default, and you can modify those using different properties. Ah ah ah,
that's already a list. We just listed clearly two items on the list: the damage for piercing
and slashing weapons. No matter what you do, your game really does
have to involve either listing out the end results possible to pick from, or pieces and
rules on how to put those pieces together to form an end result, or some combination
of both methods. There's really no other way to get the information across. It's either
pre-built or you build it yourself from scratch, or it comes IKEA style. As such, you have
to be able to accept that it's alright to list information off.
I know, if you've ever done creative writing they stress over and over and over that you
should "show me don't tell me" and that a list is essentially a method of telling people
something, but that's okay! Honest, it really is! Lists and "telling" people something is
done to provide specific information in a concise manner. Sometimes "showing" people
an idea is just flat out too clunky and unweildy, having to beat around the bush and do anything
other than flat out state what's obvious. So when you make a list, realize that it's
essentially creating a showroom of what's available for use. Also realize that it's
alright to do so. Even if you want to implement a workshop where players can piece things
together on their own, they still need an inventory of base parts to work with, meaning
you'll still have need of the showroom, even if you're only placing basic materials on
display for use within the workshop. Yes, this's sort of reiterating the points
that were already covered, but it's an important concept to understand when you're creating
any game of any kind, but especially role playing games in that they tend to favour
a workshop approach more than most other game types and it's easy to lose sight of the fact
that you require both used in tandem with one another.
Anyway, this's been a fairly short episode because the concept's pretty simple, but it's important
to understand how you're building your game and which sections of it are static in nature,
and which are more flexible. When you use a workshop setting, it's going to be harder
to build because you have to also include the rules which dictate how to use the pieces
offered in its showroom. Sometimes it's best to give the players all the choice in the
world to be able to customize their ideal character, other times it's actually better
to present them with firmly rooted choices to pick from. In both cases, you'll note that
there's a choice to be made. As has been stated in previous videos, choice is the point of
contact between the player and the game. It's what makes a game, well, a game, more than
anything else. Without choice, it's just a TV program with no true interaction.
I trust we're clear on this matter now, so with that - I'm out.
I'll see you next time!
Interesting fun fact: Grasers are a thing.
This has nothing to do with the video, though.
I just learned it this week and it was randomly interesting.
Like LASERs are Light Amplification through Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
Grasers are just like lasers. But instead of coherent photon beams, they're coherent gamma ray beams. Neat stuff!
For more infomation >> Mercedes-Benz E-Klasse Estate 200 CDI Avantgarde *NAVI+XENON+CLIMA+PDC* - Duration: 0:44. 
For more infomation >> Equipo legal exige a EEUU el reembolso de aportes que hicieron inmigrantes deportados a México al se - Duration: 1:59. 
For more infomation >> Tres semanas en el poder y 60 demandas legales enfrenta Donald Trump - Duration: 2:08. 
For more infomation >> Để nàng phải xao xuyến mỗi lần CHĂN RAU SẠCH SƯỚNG MIÊN MAN - Duration: 3:40. 
For more infomation >> Abe Hicks & You • Must find your Alignment • Momentum Vibration Receptive Abraham-Hicks no ads break - Duration: 13:59. 
For more infomation >> GRAMMY®s Believe in Music
For more infomation >> Alfa Romeo 156 1.8 T.SPARK EDIZIONE LIMITATA - Duration: 1:13. 
For more infomation >> Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd - [PV] "Marginal" (DLC) (English Subs/Sub. Español) - Duration: 3:04. 
No comments:
Post a Comment