Levers, Knobs, Buttons
by Stephen Jarjoura
I’ve sat in a casino and watched the old ladies work their quarter-a-pull slot machines. What’s interesting, is that the machines try to simulate more complex games, such as Poker, Blackjack, or something else, through graphics, displays, colors and sounds. In fact, if you didn’t know better – you’d swear some of them were pinball machines or even video games. The problem, of course, is that no matter how they dress up the machine or what metaphor they choose to use – you’re just pulling a lever and/or pushing a button, and the game is 100% chance. That’s why, those little old ladies I mentioned, looked bored. If there was no promise of monetary reward (however slim) then they wouldn’t even be playing.
I’ve also sat and watched, many years ago, an aged aunt play one of those electric organs that used to be so popular. It was quite a performance! There were three rows of piano-style keys, plus switches, plus floor pedals … besides the music she was producing, she was also displaying an amazing amount of dexterity and skill to operate this machine with all four of her limbs at once. Though I never learned how to play an organ, they always fascinated me because, in part, of their complexities and the skill they required.
Role playing games have levers, knobs, and buttons, too. The rules specify how a player may interact with the world. An action that is ‘hand waved’ as opposed to being specified in the rule book feels a lot like those fancy stickers on a slot machine; fluff. In D&D, if you want to describe your sword attack as “leaping, swinging; graceful death, falling like an autumn leaf” or you decide to describe it as “I hit the orc with my sword” – the rules don’t differentiate. You can give any sort of ‘fluff’ description you want, there are no bonuses or penalties for it, your odds are the same. That rule right there, the “melee attack with weapon at base attack plus bonuses,” is a button that the game gives the player for the player to be able to reach in and manipulate the world. The player can push that button as often as he wants with the same odds of success each time, until some other rule intercedes or interferes. RPG’s also have levers and knobs. Some systems have rules for how many dice to risk or what trait can be sacrificed to boost a role; these and similar rules allow the player to “adjust the settings” before pushing the button (“I attack with my sword”) and give the player greater control over how his character interacts with the game world.
If you’ve followed me so far, then you probably see where I’m going with this. Some games are more like slot machines, some are more like electric organs. Some have lots of fluff, but give the players few if any real options. Others give the players nearly unlimited options for customizing the available controls. Slot-machine-like RPG’s can be fun for convention play, or are designed as “indie” RPG’s to explore a single concept or mechanic. I’ve played several and read dozens; what they usually have in common is a single, over riding, easy to use mechanic. They can be picked up and learned in under an hour (often much less) and a new character can be made in fifteen minutes or less. The problem, is that, what the player is given in the way of ‘controls’ is pretty weak. Sometimes just a single button with maybe a single knob attached. The player is free to specify how many dice to risk in a dice pool and then roll that set of dice. There are no traits or other controls, just an “adjust this knob, push that button” style mechanic. In part, this means a great deal has to be hand-waved, and nearly everything else is narrated ‘fluff’. While the game may be “all about the story” (and the rules certainly don’t pull the players out of it) they also don’t support many nuanced or complex actions.
The other kind of game has hundreds of pages of rules, and nearly everything the characters are likely to encounter is covered in there somewhere. The players get many knobs to adjust, levers to pull, and buttons to push. They have feats and powers to activate, pools and scores to adjust, and multiple potential actions they can try. Playing a character in this kind of system is a lot like operating an electric organ. There’s book keeping, there’s rules to look up, there’s multiple rule interactions to keep in mind – it’s a feat of memory and skill just to keep everything straight and play well. The problem with these games is that you need to read hundreds of pages of rules, it may take an hour or longer to make a character, and the rule system is complex enough to lead to misunderstandings or ambiguities which lead to arguments.
While playing a ‘slot machine game’ can be fun for a while, it doesn’t really give the players the ability to stretch their skills or manipulate the game world in any but the most simplistic way. All the fluff in the world can’t really hide it, when all the player is really doing is rolling one die based on one number and comparing the results. Everything else is up to GM’s fiat; and even having a benevolent GM is not the same as really getting in there and using the rules to interact with the world. Players want to be skilled, use the rules, and tell amazing stories. If only it didn’t take so much time and effort!
So, here’s my suggestion for any would be game designers or those trying to introduce a particular RPG to someone new – break it down, and teach it in steps. Teach them like you would teach someone to play that electric organ; fundamentals first, then increasingly more complex and advanced techniques. If system designers were half as clever as they’d like to think of themselves, they’d already be doing this. They’d have a specific learning track that allowed players to jump in quickly and begin playing in something like the slot machine style. Then, each game session, more optional rules could be introduced that gave the players ever more nuanced control. By the time the players have reached the last tutorial session, they have fully fleshed out characters, a solid grasp of the rules, and an experiential understanding of how the parts work together during the game. This is much easier then trying to read a three hundred page rule book and then being hit with eighty character build options, all on the first night of play.
Those are my thoughts, but now I’m asking for some feedback. First, does my metaphor of “levers, knobs, and buttons” help you think about how a game offers players the controls they need to manipulate the game world? Is there a better metaphor? Does this metaphor imply something that I didn’t think of? Second, what are some of your ideas for finding balance between complex games that give the greatest amount of control and simple systems that let the players start playing as soon as possible? How would you teach someone a complex RPG with the least amount of pain and greatest chance of getting them to come back for more? Let me know what you think by adding comments to this post. Thanks!
Hm, this metaphor won’t work for me, because not every action in the game world requires the use of rules. People played older versions of D&D for years and never were bored. The keyboard they were playing one just didn’t require lots of rules. There were strongholds to build, henchmen to hire, rivals to compete with. Sure, actual combat was simplistic, but the game just grew in new directions. I think rules are”how a game offers players the controls they need to manipulate the game world” for tactical, combat-oriented players only. People interested in inner conflicts, strategic decisions (not how to fight but which fights to pick), dramatic story arcs, etc. are not taken into account by the metaphor.
I think it’s a very useful metaphor, myself. I personally get involved enough in the plot (and am fortunate for the quality of my gaming group) enough so that simple rules rarely cause us any problems, but I feel mystified by the appeal of MMORPGs and can definitely see the slot machine element there.
Great article, and you’ve got a great blog too!
I think the idea of a game that starts off bare bones and then becomes more complex as you become more familiar with the game is a great idea. I know Advanced D&D was a more complex version of Basic, but as a kid, I had trouble evem with starting out there. And you shouldn’t need to buy a second product. This might give us a working 0-level adventure finally. It’s the same way almost every video game adds complexity: gradually. You’re feeling comfortable fighting monsters with this melee weapon? Good because now I’m giving you a ranged weapon. And then after that you get a grappling hook and rope. This would work well for people who’s approach to RPGs is more game based and less fudging the rules based.
Thanks for the feedback! While I was thinking of the “indie” games that treat social conflict exactly as they treat martial conflict, I was also thinking of games like Reign and Spirit of the Century in which conflict can be resolved at multiple scales within the same rules. By scales, I mean “kingdom vs kingdom,” “corporation vs corporation,” or even “galactic star system vs galactic star system.” Further, the conflict does NOT have to be martial. It is possible to resolve a conflict such as “how well does my corp. marketing dept. beat my competitor for ‘front of mind’ space, during the current campaign?”
Instead of the GM just saying, “well, let’s see … I think you’ve been doing pretty good … and I have some plot ideas tied up in this … so I’m going to say you’ve gained a 5% lead with that last marketing campaign!” (i.e. ‘hand waiving’ == ‘GM fiat’). Instead we get, “let’s roll! That would be your org’s marketing trait plus your leadership trait with this situational modifier based on the current economic conditions … so you here’s your target number.”
All of a sudden there are levers to pull, knobs to turn, and buttons to push – and this is directly in response to a non-martial conflict instigated by the players. Some how, that just ‘feels’ more real then relying on the GM’s goodwill or largess. [YMMV]
@Skullossus: The progressive game tutorial / intro sessions came to me when I was thinking about how I learned programming languages (like Perl). They never hit you with EVERYTHING all at once and demand you have to know all of these moving parts just to begin. In fact, the best languages allow you to begin as a beginner and add complexity as you need it.
Further, I’ve had a mystery I was trying to solve. I’ve played Hero System 5th Ed, and thought the rules were cumbersome and combat slowed to a crawl. Then I found groups online that had been playing Hero System for years and SWORE that it was a fast, intuitive system that just hummed right along and allowed them to tell just the sort of stories that they wanted to. That’s when it occurred to me, that what they had been doing was internalizing the rules – through shear rote memorization and repetition – so that, for them, it was fast and easy.
Imagine how much they must enjoy a system, so complex and complete, that is so internalized that they can just sit down and begin play with little or nor “looking it up in the book” slow-downs or bottle necks. If only that experience can be bottled and sold with each game! Ah, but it can … if only the learning curve wasn’t so steep. Then we’d be able to sell complex, ‘complete’ game systems that could still be learned by n00bs without intimidating them and without sacrificing the completeness for a ‘one knob / one button’ resolution system.
This is a very interesting metaphor.
The problem I have with it is that for it to work, players are supposed to think of their GM’s as machines. If a Game Master is only EXCLUSIVELY supposed to throw situations at the players that require die rolling then you may as well just MAKE it a machine (slot machine, pipe organ, Lone Wolf book, one-person computer game, MMORPG, etc.) and pull the GM out of the equation all together. Sure, you’ll have people there to maintain the machine by loading up new quests they’ve created and whatnot, but that’s not the same thing as actually being a GM.
If you’re in a human-to-human situation, though, it simply isn’t possible to create rules that will cover absolutely every single thing that a player will think of to try to do. Heck, you could say that one reason to have a GM at the table in the first place is to give players a way to try to do those things that the rules don’t specifically cover — which would have to happen through what you’re calling hand-waving (which would include, for example, pretty much any time an NPC speaks and the GM isn’t reading pre-written text). And honestly, unless you have players that have somehow been lobotomized into always doing the same things over and over, you can’t have a face-to-face game WITHOUT there being any hand-waving — otherwise you’re trying to COMPLETELY digitize an analog world and that way lies madness. Or possibly the Lawnmower Man. Same thing, really.
This also relates to the question of whether it’s more interesting to role-play through something or to just roll the dice. Some players prefer to role-play and others prefer to go to the dice, so whether players want more buttons, levers and knobs or fewer buttons, levers and knobs is going to vary from group to group.
Now, I am definitely with you on the idea of game designers needing to make sure they structure their books to complement the way people actually learn things — I agree with you wholeheartedly on that one. I get sick of RPG books that are supposed to be pretty and clever and whose authors expend so much effort and concentration on how the book looks or how much like a dark romance novel it is that they bury the rules for the game, making them difficult to learn and even more difficult to reference. In those cases, usually the only way to learn how to play the game is to just jump in and play it enough times that you’re able to figure everything out on your own. So I, too, would very much appreciate an RPG book that lets you learn the rules by actually READING it.
Which, one would think, would be the point of writing the freaking thing in the first place. ;)
It’s a good metaphor, but don’t forget the GM’s role in this. The game system is just the organ, and the adventures are the sheet music. The GM is the real instructor. When introducing new players to the game, a lot of GMs will create the characters themselves or at the very least assist the players in the character creation process. They might have their players read a few sections or a chapter at a time out of the rulebook, then run a straightforward (melody only) adventure where those concepts come up. As play continues, more advanced rules come up.
Some players are prodigies and pick up the rules quickly. Others need to stay with do-re-mi for a little while.
Interesitngly enough the electronic slots are made by videogame companies.
it’s fascanating to see how much effort has gone into rewarding throwing money away with such psychologicl reinforcmeents as the lights and buzzers and such.
This is actually a really interesting idea, I always felt like D&D especially needed a tiered system, where you could slowly learn more complex rules as you and your group got more into it.
The problem with this particular metaphor, for me at least, is that it assumes that the basic point of a role-playing game is “turning knobs” or “pushing buttons.” It assumes that rules are necessary for interaction with the game world.
I tend to view a role-playing game primarily as a means of story-telling. Dice-rolling or card drawing, or any other game mechanic doesn’t “allow” characters to interact with the game world, that’s the job of character and Game Master interaction. Dice rolling just randomizes the results of that interaction. The more rules there are, the more random a result is, and therefore the less control the GM has over those results. GM control isn’t always a bad thing, just like it’s not always a good thing. A balance has to be struck.
Perhaps, instead of thinking of the game mechanics as “buttons, knobs, and levers,” where the Game Master is simply a machine, forced to do exactly as the game rules command, we could think of a role-playing game more as an interaction between (for lack of a better idea) a teacher giving a test and a student taking that test. This isn’t to imply that the game-master is testing the players, but rather the characters the players are playing. These tests take the form of combat, of story elements, of interactions with NPCs, and a thousand other possible scenarios that could play out as part of the story. The teacher, hopefully being a good teacher, wants the character to succeed, but also feels that it’s important that the character earn his success. To judge this, she needs some sort of objective scale on which to measure how well a character does. This is the role playing mechanic. But she also needs to have the freedom to make flash judgments within that scale, to reward good ideas or punish poorly thought-out ones. Very complex game systems are like multiple choice tests, where there is little to no question over whether a character succeeds or fails, while very simple game systems are like essays, where the teacher has a great degree of judgment over how well the character performed.
Obviously, this isn’t a perfect metaphor, since most games involve some level of chance, so it’s not character skill that decides success or failure, but rather a die roll. The truth is that role playing games are a combination of this and the “knobs, buttons, and levers” metaphor, and even this isn’t entirely accurate. Too much depends on style of play and player personalities to accurately sum up even a general idea of how RPGs should work.