Heya friendos! As I’m chipping away at a choose-your-own rules framework for roleplaying, I’ve been thinking a lot about… well, rules. Coincenditentally, or serendipitously perhaps, a friend sent me an interesting podcast about humans’ need for guidelines but distaste of bureaucracy. Let’s take a look-see.
How Am I Doing?
I’m still riding high! These past few weeks I’ve been prioritizing leisure and social time, and it has been doing me good. I walked in the forest, chilled out next to the canal, caught some sun and some exercise. I’m better able to direct my daily life without having the restrictive schedule of a 9 to 5 job.
That’s interesting, because in a newsletter a couple of weeks back, I talk about how restrictions do stimulate my creativity. At the other end of the spectrum, I also talked about how I feel like the Dungeons & Dragons 5e rules are limiting the campaigns I run. So which is it? Do I prefer strict rules and limitations or freedom from any kind of restriction?
What Am I Doing?
Allow me a brief tangent. As I said before, I’ve been working on a roleplaying system, now tentatively called NoMaNoGe, which stands for No Math No Genre. Naturally, I did some research surrounding genre or setting agnostic systems that are already out there.
I was already familiar with GURPS, which is sort of the gold standard for setting agnostic systems, but it’s very dated. It lacks modern design sensibilities and is very heavy on the maths. I also checked out Savage Worlds which has a lot more overlap but does seem to be specifically designed for high-power adventuring, much like Dungeons & Dragons.
No, what I was looking for was something more basic but still adaptable. I found a peer in Fate Core, an elegant and freeform system that sports rules for allowing players to dream up whatever they want on the spot. Then I found out that it’s a bit of a black sheep in the TTRPG family.
You see, many consider Fate to be too freeform. A lot of experienced players have difficulty wrapping their heads around something that does not define rules for what people have come to expect from roleplaying games. It also relies heavily on each player being comfortable with improvised narration and creative solutions. There are no basic rules to fall back on in case of confusion either.
Why Am I Doing? (this)
In parallel to that, a friend sent me a podcast in which a philosopher and an anarchist discuss games. It’s not easy to follow as both the guest and the host follow their train of thought freely, which results in a frequent change of subjects. There are some real nuggets of wisdom in there, though! The part that struck me as relevant is when they discuss when people gravitate towards rules and when they dislike them.
Choice
I think by now, all of my readers know how much I detest bureaucracy. I’ve been burned too many times by not filling in the correct paperwork, in the correct way, at the correct time. It’s safe to assume that when the stakes are high and the rules are rigid, we get frustrated with the system and the institutions that impose it. There is also no choice involved. We’re part of that system and get penalized when we fail to adhere to it.
But when we casually do sports with friends, we self-impose goals and specific ways to play to reach those goals. There is no need for a referee or external sanctions or an audience that polices how we play. We impose the rules ourselves to meet the expectations of play we envision when going out to kick a ball around.
Over time however, you might add or change rules in your social group to sculpt the experience to your mutual benefit. Crazy Eights comes to mind, but I’m not sure how popular it is around the globe. It’s one of those card games that every region, friend group or household has its own wacky rules for. Drinking games are also like that. So for play, a system is only as rigid as you choose it to be.
Context
But if you want to play footie with a bunch of strangers in a park, standardized guidelines help you create a shared context. You don’t have to go out of your way to explain why you have to kick the ball into the goal. That frame of reference skips the tedium and allows us to get straight into play. It’s only from that context that a change in rules takes place. In essence, that’s how games are born.
I think that’s also what the Fate Core system misses: a context for people who are used to playing a more rigid system. It’s difficult to come up with rules in a space devoid of context, because the possibilities are endless. In a way, it gives you too much choice.
Conclusion
So there we are! No choice creates frustration and stifles creativity. No context or too much choice is hard to understand and build upon.
In creative endeavors and play, I tend to enjoy rigid rules that create a context for me to wiggle around in. But if something is too codified for my liking, I tend to get frustrated again. NoMaNoGe will be build upon this principle: it provides context for new players and experienced ones, but allows them to alter the rules as they see fit.
In life, I prefer spending my day without a schedule, taking walks and naps when I feel like it. The only self-imposed structure is writing this here newsletter every week. Until the next one!