The question of game contracts
Apr. 13th, 2003 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lathanyA recent entry by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
smiorgan got me thinking about game contracts. Recent LJ postings (and conversations) suggest that they are The New Big Thing (TM) and that no game should be run without them. However, smiorgan was sceptical and, frankly, so am I.
Of course, it is usually a good idea to let your players know what sort of game you plan to run. This saves an awful lot of disappointment on both sides. And most GMs (that I know) do it, either informally (whilst chatting to potential players) or otherwise.
For example,bateleur's Monde website includes a Game Style section with comments from "The two focal aspects of the game throughout will be plot and roleplaying in roughly equal measure" to "Perhaps the least accessible aspect of the game style is that I don't want to run a 'beer and pretzels' game" (although onebyone broke this rather literally last session with his choice of snacks ;-) ). My Fallen Star website included the fact that I wasn't going to reveal the choice of genre to the players (their 'murder mystery' cruise included a trip to hell).
However, to me, much of the information provided in this way is to inform the players about the game so that they can choose to play or not to play. It isn't a list of guarantees, it's a set of guidelines. Roleplaying can only be planned so far; there is a certain amount of improvisation, not to mention twists and surprises in any game. When it comes down to it, I regard roleplaying as a social activity; I'll try and run a good game / play a good character and hope that the players / GM enjoys it.
A contract adds a level of formality that I'm personally not terribly keen on. If a player of mine has a problem with my game or GMing style, I'd hope that they would come and chat to me privately about it. If I agree it's broke, I'll fix it; if I think it's a question of style I'll explain and if I think they're plain wrong, I'll tell them that (as tactfully as I can manage). I don't feel that having a contract adds anything here - because it makes the initial approach more confrontational (ie. "You're doing Y where the contract states X").
Of course, the whole issue of providing any sort of feedback is controversial. There is, perhaps, a case to be made for saying nothing, staying to the end of the game (assuming it isn't a long or open-ended campaign) and then quietly noting to oneself, that that particular game-type/GMing style doesn't suit and not playing again. It avoids any sort of confrontation with the GM. However, I'm less convinced that the person who goes this route would suddenly take the feedback option just because there was a 'game contract'.
Overall I regard guidelines, information on what the game will contain, as a Good Thing. Particularly for open-invite games where players know little about the GM(s) or their likely styles/genres/session format. But I don't like the idea of making such things a contract. It adds a sense of formality which a game doesn't need.
smiorgan got me thinking about game contracts. Recent LJ postings (and conversations) suggest that they are The New Big Thing (TM) and that no game should be run without them. However, smiorgan was sceptical and, frankly, so am I.Of course, it is usually a good idea to let your players know what sort of game you plan to run. This saves an awful lot of disappointment on both sides. And most GMs (that I know) do it, either informally (whilst chatting to potential players) or otherwise.
For example,
bateleur's Monde website includes a Game Style section with comments from "The two focal aspects of the game throughout will be plot and roleplaying in roughly equal measure" to "Perhaps the least accessible aspect of the game style is that I don't want to run a 'beer and pretzels' game" (although onebyone broke this rather literally last session with his choice of snacks ;-) ). My Fallen Star website included the fact that I wasn't going to reveal the choice of genre to the players (their 'murder mystery' cruise included a trip to hell).However, to me, much of the information provided in this way is to inform the players about the game so that they can choose to play or not to play. It isn't a list of guarantees, it's a set of guidelines. Roleplaying can only be planned so far; there is a certain amount of improvisation, not to mention twists and surprises in any game. When it comes down to it, I regard roleplaying as a social activity; I'll try and run a good game / play a good character and hope that the players / GM enjoys it.
A contract adds a level of formality that I'm personally not terribly keen on. If a player of mine has a problem with my game or GMing style, I'd hope that they would come and chat to me privately about it. If I agree it's broke, I'll fix it; if I think it's a question of style I'll explain and if I think they're plain wrong, I'll tell them that (as tactfully as I can manage). I don't feel that having a contract adds anything here - because it makes the initial approach more confrontational (ie. "You're doing Y where the contract states X").
Of course, the whole issue of providing any sort of feedback is controversial. There is, perhaps, a case to be made for saying nothing, staying to the end of the game (assuming it isn't a long or open-ended campaign) and then quietly noting to oneself, that that particular game-type/GMing style doesn't suit and not playing again. It avoids any sort of confrontation with the GM. However, I'm less convinced that the person who goes this route would suddenly take the feedback option just because there was a 'game contract'.
Overall I regard guidelines, information on what the game will contain, as a Good Thing. Particularly for open-invite games where players know little about the GM(s) or their likely styles/genres/session format. But I don't like the idea of making such things a contract. It adds a sense of formality which a game doesn't need.
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Re: As a big fan of such 'contracts'
Date: 2003-04-15 03:57 am (UTC)True enough. Although, historically at least, this is because the GM tends to say what sort of game it will be based on their skills, abilities and interests (for example, if someone asked me to change my current game from a Swordsmaster campaign to an off-the-cuff Paranoia game the answer would be much closer to "can't" than "won't", although the latter would also be true).
However, I think you are talking more about behaviour requirements than background/game type here ?
Well that's the thing, isn't it? I've got by in the past without making public demands on the behaviour of my players. So what is it in the air which has changed, and which means that private understandings are inferior to publically-stated rules of engagement?
A good point that.
I wonder if it is more because people are trying to find alternative ways of dealing with "difficult" players, particularly in the society game and other "open" games. In the past, the GMing teams just dealt with them (and were sometimes criticised) or avoided dealing with them (and, again, were sometimes criticised). Now, the whole process seems to have become the contract (mainly to avoid criticism !).
If I'm right, I'm not sure it works any better. But it may give the GM(s) more confidence that they are doing the "right" thing if they already have pre-stated rules. Of course, whether those rules make the "difficult" players feel any better (as your point above suggests) is a different issue.
Re: As a big fan of such 'contracts'
There's a large body of knowledge about what makes things 'difficult' for a society game--this makes it really quite easy to do a good and useful contract. Five years ago, the knowledge wasn't there, so writing such a policy document would have been 'flying blind.'
'Difficult' players usually have the advantage of also being enthusiastic--I don't think any would be scared off by my rather tepid contracts. I'm not asking for first-born sons or anything. But having had it calmly explained to me by one player (thankfully after the game) that the religion and metaphysic of Shalazar did not actually work in the way I think it did, I'm pro-anything that makes a GM's life easier. :)
Re: As a big fan of such 'contracts'
Date: 2003-04-16 02:20 am (UTC)But having had it calmly explained to me by one player (thankfully after the game) that the religion and metaphysic of Shalazar did not actually work in the way I think it did
s/Shalazar/Inc/;
s/religion and metaphysics/economics and finance/;
;-)
Re: As a big fan of such 'contracts'
Date: 2003-04-16 03:35 am (UTC)In my defense, the laws of economics are descriptive and rather fixed (for instance, PV=MT can't really be broken). Inc. to a great degree had an inconsistent monetary paradigm. (As explained to me, it went like this: You can buy stuff; you can make stuff; the total value of all stuff at the end of Day 1 is the same as at the end of Day 2.) No real problem, since as far as I know I'm the only person who it really bothered even slightly, and I found my ways around it.
On the other hand, this was someone telling me that magic and religion didn't work in the way I had defined them, and our religion was quite remarkably consistent. This isn't really surprising, because convincing and consistent fictional magic or religion is a lot easier than fictional physics and fictional economics. (In this case, it came down to a difference between how he *thought* his magic worked, and how it actually *did*.) Economics also has a much harder time justifying things 'because God works in mysterious ways.' :)
Re: As a big fan of such 'contracts'
Date: 2003-04-16 04:23 am (UTC)Surely, while technically true, this is rather empty. I am assuming that this refers to the fact that value in economics is relative. If not, or if value in economics is not relative, please do tell me as I'm arguing from a position of relative ignorance.
I am also assuming that your complaint was the rule "do not diminish the assets of the corporation". Again, correct if wrong.
Anyway: Even if value is relative, you can clearly increase the good-ness of the total value, and not just any individual bit of it. For example, life is considerably more pleasant now than it was in medieval times (for most of us). We also can do more stuff today than we could in medieval times (mostly). So, life in the corporation can be made more pleasant and the corporation can be allowed to do more stuff. "Do not diminish the assets" then means "do not make life more unpleasant, or reduce the amount of stuff we can do".
But, anyway, weren't there other nations to compete with in Inc?
Re: As a big fan of such 'contracts'
Date: 2003-04-16 05:41 am (UTC)Not with what I said above, no. That was a discussion I had with one Inc. GM who told me that 'the amount of money in the Inc. economy remains constant', and was quite insistent on that. The problem is that it ignores the concept of adding value, and is a recipe for persistent and unavoidable deflation. (Same amount of money chasing more goods.) I'm assuming that's the discussion Steve was referring to, and had I played my Inc I character seriously, it would have had serious consequences for me not knowing that at character generation.
And, incidentally, your explanation was pretty much my issue with what you did bring up: what you state above reduces the term 'asset' to meaninglessness. You might as well say, 'You shall not reduce the fluffiness of the Corporation' or 'You shall not reduce the Zort of the Corporation.' That's fine, but it's not what the word 'asset' means.
This is an area where a player contract might come in handy--openly stating something like, 'Don't assume that any technical/managerial/economic/financial terms you know mean the same thing in Inc--we're not running an accountancy simulation' as we did with physics. Again, though, in Shalazar we had an easier fudge--it's a lot simpler to say, 'Don't count on a consistent physics in a world with magic' than 'Don't count on consistent accounting principles in a game about a company.' Similarly, we changed the name of a God, but we didn't have to redefine the term 'monotheism.' Not a complaint about Inc, just pointing out that we as a GM team were lazy and caught the path of least resistance whenever possible in Shalazar. :)
Re: As a big fan of such 'contracts'
Date: 2003-04-16 09:21 am (UTC)It was also rather unfair of me to bring this up - telling the Shalazar GMs they were wrong about the metaphysics is closer to, say, telling the Inferno GMs they are wrong about the Illuminati than it is to telling the Inc. GMs they were wrong about economics.
As condign has said, the Inc. GMs actually were wrong about economics - the issue there was whether this could be overlooked, i.e. whether it was important to be right about that subject in that game.
In general, we're willing to overlook ludicrous inaccuracies in the combat systems of the games we play, but tend to be upset by inaccuracies concerning things we're personally familiar with in the real world.
If I were in a game about computer hacking in the modern world in which it transpired that it was impossible to design a cryptographic scheme which couldn't be broken by a talented hacker studying a piece of cyphertext, I'd be complaining on mathematical grounds in the same way condign did about Inc. That effect can't really apply to the metaphysics of an imaginary fantasy world...
Re: As a big fan of such 'contracts'
Date: 2003-04-16 04:03 pm (UTC)I'm hoping I didn't complain about it--as I said, I designed the character I did play so it wasn't relevant. (Indeed, my character could have been used to explain why it all *did* function, if you'd felt like it, but would have overpowered the character.) If I gave that impression, I am sorry--I try not to complain about games that aren't my own.
On the other hand, the whole hacker thing is a big headache for Midas Conspiracy...
Re: As a big fan of such 'contracts'
Date: 2003-04-16 04:27 am (UTC)I'm in favour of consistent magic systems, but I'm in two minds about explaining the mechanics to the players. Get the mechanics out in the open, you risk players trying to hack them. Keep the mechanics secret, and you risk appearing to allow things to happen or not happen on a whim. I like my magic to be magical, so by default I'd keep the mystery.
Inferno had a terrific magic system. To the players it was three distinct styles. To the GMs, I understand that the mathematics were "very beautiful" and also a mystery to anyone other than Tony Short (at least for quite a while). I think the answer is to have a magic-making monkey on the GM team. Then you get consistent magic system, hidden from the players, and if the players complain to the other GMs they just point at the monkey and say "I don't know, the monkey just said it worked that way". Then when the players ask the monkey, they're just faced with a load of technobabble and pseudoscience that is meaningless, but at the same time makes it appear that the monkey has given a reasonable answer. Alternatively the monkey can just scream and throw faeces, that works as well.