anyway: The Fruitful Void

lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/119

anyway.

2005-10-20 : The Fruitful Void

This is a stab at something important.

I think I may do better with it if you all ask me questions, than if I try to explain it from the
top.

Here's a cartoon of Dogs in the Vineyard in play:

The arrows are all procedural elements of the game, as you can see.

What's inside the whirlwind? Inside the whirlwind is what really matters.

1. On 2005-10-20, Vincent said:

Here's Ron Edwards:

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 I made this point recently in [Musha Shugyo] Honor mechanics, in which I talked
about how My Life with Master has no "Defiance" score. It doesn't have to. The
interactions of all the existing scores, puts "defiance of the Master" into a premium
focus during play, as a kind of unnamed score.

Without such "fruitful voids," perhaps envisioned as what you get when you show a
person seven of the eight corners of a cube, a rules-set is no fun. It's just a full
cube; you can look at it, pick it up, mess with it, and nothing happens except it stays
a cube.

My point is absolutely independent of what the rules in question are about. We

could be talking about social interactions among characters, physical combat,
interactions of the characters with the physical environment around them, rules for
the players interacting as people, or whatever.

My point is also independent of the scale and scope of the rules. We could be
talking about tactical details of combat options, or we could be talking about some
universal mechanic for morality.

from Designing a relationship, not a rule?

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2. On 2005-10-20, Steve Hickey said:

Exciting! Are you saying you've recently discovered a fruitful void in DitV, yourself?

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3. On 2005-10-20, John Harper said:

Yes, DitV has a Fruitful Void all right. More than one. There is no "Faith" score, for
example. Also, no "Judgment points" nor "Sin meter."

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4. On 2005-10-20, Troy_Costisick said:

Heya,

No Destiny mechanic either. Hmmm...

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5. On 2005-10-21, Steve Hickey said:

Hmm. With those specific arrows leading in, that whirlpool feels like a Premise - a very
similar Premise to "How far will you go to get what you want?"

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6. On 2005-10-21, Vincent said:

Somebody list Sorcerer's procedural elements.

John, Stranger Things'?

How about Primetime Adventures'?

Under the Bed's?

Breaking the Ice's?

The Mountain Witch's?

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7. On 2005-10-21, DevP said:

I keep getting reminded of the FEMA icon.

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/what_does_fema_do.php

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8. On 2005-10-21, Mark W said:

Neat. All the actual procedures of play just push each other around and around, building
up tension and trouble. No real resolution until an actual person decides there's been
one.

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9. On 2005-10-21, Vincent said:
"Building up tension and trouble" - yes.

Dogs is just an example.

There's a trick to designing games, which I'm trying to tell. Ron says it's to leave the
eighth corner of the cube unmade. I say it's to make a whirlwind. What the HELL are we
talking about?

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This makes...
jrs go "ah - a crucible"

10. On 2005-10-21, Andrew Norris said:

Here's Sorcerer's procedural elements:

http://www.sorcerer-rpg.com/sorcerer_sheet.pdf

When a Sorcerer GM comes to The Forge and says, "Hey, the game's not crackling like
it's supposed to," Ron says, "You didn't make the players fill out the back of the sheet
yet," and the GM says, "Yeah, you caught me." Every time.

Lore, Price, Kicker and Cover make up the four corners of the back of the character
sheet, and hell, as you fill things in they tend to spiral towards the middle (if something
touches on all four, it has to go in the middle.)

The fruitful void, the little "X" in the middle, is basically, "Here's the stuff you really want,
and here's the tools you could use to make that happen. Whatcha gonna do?"

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11. On 2005-10-21, Ben Lehman said:

Polaris has no Duty mechanic.

Or, rather, it's *all* duty mechanics.

yrs—
—Ben

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12. On 2005-10-21, Ben Lehman said:
Oh, and, procedural elements:

Cosmos
Themes
Values: Zeal and Weariness
Values: Ice and Light
Experience -> Dice, Refreshment, Advance
Guidance
But Only If...
And Furthermore...
It Shall Not Come to Pass + Dice
You Ask Far Too Much
Ritual

And, for one other game:

Toy Traits
Free Traits
Favorite -> Draw + Difficulty
Dice
Conflict Traits
Narration
What's at Stake? (small)
What's at Stake? (large)
Endgame

yrs—
—Ben

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13. On 2005-10-21, Ron Edwards said:

The Mountain Witch has no Honor score. Nor any Honor blank on the sheet.

Ready for this?

Nor is it mentioned *anywhere* in the rules text.

That's on purpose.

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14. On 2005-10-21, Chris said:
You can't have players "paint a picture" if you already filled the page...

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15. On 2005-10-21, Kaare Berg said:

You are saying that to get play about A, you specifically do not design Rules for A, but
you design rules for B, C, and D that are neccesary for A to occur in the game?

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This makes...
KM go "As I understand it..."*

*click in for more

16. On 2005-10-21, Kirk said:

Ooh??? Shiny. Its like all of a sudden this little light in my head has gone ???bing!??? and
I understand???or at least I think I do. Ok. Now I have a question: How exactly do you
design one of these? Or you can???t and they just ???show up??? and you then go ???
Hey! So that???s why this game works!???

My feeling is that you have to have a really, really good understanding of how all the little
bits fit together to create such a Fruitful Void.

Are these like the Emergent Properties over in HampsterProphesy?

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This makes...
KM go "I hate MSWord..."*
sdm go "re: word"*
NDP go "Yes!"*

*click in for more

17. On 2005-10-21, Aaron said:

This void sounds kind of like the difference between Humanity in Sorcerer and Sanity in
CoC. While Humanity is quantified, it isn't qualified. The player can still have their
character do whatever they want.

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Like John said earlier, there's no Faith score in Dogs. There's nothing to look at, so the
player actually has to THINK about it, so you get "Man, I am SOOOO gonna call down
Ceremony on this guy" instead of "Huh, I only have 3 Faith, so i guess I can't call on the
King for aid, healing, or Ceremony. Guess I'll just shoot the guy then."

Are these voids a sign of a good design in general, or are they best suited to a particular
priority in play?

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18. On 2005-10-21, Vaxalon said:

Okay, I'm not understanding one bit here...

Is the arrangement of the arrows around the circle important?

Because I can see how "What's Wrong" drives "Stakes", which drives Dice, which drives
Seeing and Raising, which drives Escalation, which drives Fallout...

But how does Fallout drive What's Wrong?

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This makes...
KSB go "I think the circle is"*

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19. On 2005-10-21, Alan Neill said:

The written story analogy?

Is it like leaving the fine detail to the reader???s imagination?

The caramel-centre is all about the players??? interaction with the game, how they use
the tools presented to create???. the whirlwind???..the fruitful void??????.. their game?

Am I reading this right?

Alan.

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20. On 2005-10-21, Ron Edwards said:

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I am horrified. You guys really don't see this as the primary principle of play, from the get-
go? It seems like something new to you?

Scared & leaving. All yours, Vincent.

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This makes...
BR go "It isn't that its new..."*
VAX go "Typical."
KM go "I think I understand Meg better"*
BN go "Isn't it "to have fun"?"*

*click in for more

21. On 2005-10-21, Meguey said:

Hm. Inside the whirlwind is the creative space, the chaos of actual play, the synapses of
the social shared-brain. The arrows are just pushes to get the whirlwind spinning.

'Nother take: inside the whirlwind is the Creative spark.

Vincent:
"There's a trick to designing games, which I'm trying to tell. Ron says it's to leave the
eighth corner of the cube unmade. I say it's to make a whirlwind. What the HELL are we
talking about?"

In my creative work, it's about having colors, textures, tones, etc, that bounce off each
other in energetic and interesting ways. If everything is tidy and matched and planned to
the nth degree, the work becomes flat and bland. As that applies to game design, it may
be similar.

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This makes...
BR go "It certainly applies to game writing"*

*click in for more

22. On 2005-10-21, timfire said:

I totally get what what you're saying. Ron beat me to explaining the Void in TMW (hmm,
that sounds very Musashi).

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But I have to ask, does PTA have a Void? I'm not sure. What seems great to me about
PTA is how it organizes/inspires player interaction. But since the players create a new
show for every game, the thing that the players are exploring (Honor, Judgement, Sin,
Duty, etc.) is going to change with every show.

Am I misinterpreting things? Or does PTA (and other "generic"/"universal" systems) do

something different?

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This makes...
BR go "Could PTA's void be just that -- Your Show?"*

*click in for more

23. On 2005-10-21, Ninja Monkey J said:

Ben, there's a really, really important thing that you obviously know but didn't write down:

Toy Traits
Free Traits
Favorite -> Draw + Difficulty
Dice
Conflict Traits
Narration
Since you can't confront Stakes twice in a row, you raise the bar for the next
players, who just raised stakes for you.
What's at Stake? (small)
What's at Stake? (large)
Endgame

———
Meg, Vincent, Ron, and anyone else who cares:

"There's a trick to designing games, which I'm trying to tell. Ron says it's to leave
the eighth corner of the cube unmade. I say it's to make a whirlwind. What the
HELL are we talking about?"

There's a principle in Japanese art called Wabi (or Sabi, depending on the physicality of
the object, apparently). As I understand it, it goes something like this: you create
something incomplete. Something in the process of moist birth or dry, raspy death.

a sculpture. Smooth, polished granite that is dinged at the bottom

and seeded with moss so the moss will slowly eat it.

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a tea bowl. The assumed perfection of a tea cup is given irregularity
the regularity is granted by the assumptions of the user,
inspired by the shape at the bottom.

In many Japanese gardens, the principle is applied by making it so the entire garden can't
be seen at once; the rest of the garden is imaginary.

In The Mountain Witch, notice that, even though the footnotes are clear, regular
rectangles, the main text is ragged-right, irregular on one side. Too much regularity would
have made the book dead (instead of dying I guess). Too little, of course, would have
made it unapproachable.

Wabi is a principle I think we should supply in games, and I think it's what you're talking
about. It's something deliberately missing, an empty space that demands interaction with
the player. Many games are all void. GURPS, D20, etc. assume that everything will stem
from the players, giving no guidance to creating the fiction, leaving all art out of their
creation. When a game gets too rigid, it's rightly accused of removing the players from
play (a recent Ronnies mention did this).

Right now, I think Shock: is too static, too regular. It was on purpose, but it's to much so. It
needs some chaos.

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This makes...
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24. On 2005-10-21, Vincent said:

First of all: please consider using WordPad instead of Word for composing your
comments. You know who you are.

Okay.

Kirk: "My feeling is that you have to have a really, really good understanding of how all the
little bits fit together to create such a Fruitful Void."

AHA! Okay, now check this out.

You don't.

Instead, you have to have a good understanding of how the human beings at the table
will treat each other, wrt the little bits.

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I didn't design Dogs, Tim didn't design The Mountain Witch, by arranging things around a
void. You arrange things around a group of people.

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This makes...
KM go "Metaphors again"*
Chris go "It's call a void cause..."*

*click in for more

25. On 2005-10-21, Blankshield said:

It wasn't on the list, but I'll throw it in anyway:

Death's Door:

Goals
Established Boundaries
Passion/Peace
Narration
Audience Dice
Eulogy

James

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26. On 2005-10-21, Vincent said:

So if you had to name what's in the whirlwind, James...?

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27. On 2005-10-21, Blankshield said:

Life.

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This makes...
JB go "grar. hit enter too soon."*
NinJ go "What about life?"*

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JB go "Nope. I mean life."*

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28. On 2005-10-21, Vincent said:

Maybe if we imagine each of the red arrows as a wind, and in the center, a windmill.

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29. On 2005-10-21, Piers said:

You'll note that we've been here before:

I'll talk a little bit about Dogs, since Piers asks. Those things in Dogs' design that you
listed - See/Raise, town creation, NPC creation, Fallout, character sheets, "say yes or roll
dice" - don't think of them as carving out territory and leaving a space in between. Think
of them as arrows of force, pointing at ... something. What?

"What do you do?" of course. The purpose of all of those arrows is to maintain pressure
on your character's actions.

http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=56

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30. On 2005-10-21, Vincent said:

Linkinated.

Yes indeed.

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31. On 2005-10-21, John Harper said:

Since Stranger Things is a child of Trollbabe, as is Dogs, the procedures are very similar
(with different names):

Goals
Dice
Re-Rolls

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Relationships
Injury
Ghosts

What's in the whirlwind? Love. Freedom. Tolerance.

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32. On 2005-10-21, Ron Edwards said:

Returning.

Anyone remembered that diagram in Chapter 1 in Sex & Sorcery, yet? All there.

Best,
Ron

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This makes...
BR go "Sure, but now its explicit and coherent."*
KM go "Dude..."*
SF go "Darwin-Huxley instead?"*
SF go "Whoops"*

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33. On 2005-10-22, Vincent said:

Oh man, it was with dread and awe that I understood the diagram in Chapter 1 in Sex &
Sorcery. You know what it made me want to do, when I understood it? It made me want to
play.

J, remember at GenCon, how Under the Bed needed to be uneven on the shelf? Same
thing.

A game design must demand that its human audience reach into it to put it right. A game
design must be already tumbling down a hill. How can I make these metaphors into
practical design advice?

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34. On 2005-10-22, Ben Lehman said:

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That is practical design advice, dude.

I've started doing something terrible, now. I hope you're proud of yourself, 'cause it's all
your fault.

yrs—
—Ben

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35. On 2005-10-22, Ninja Monkey J said:

V., oh, yeah. I remember. This is a founding premise of all my design, in every way. I'm
just not a competent enough game designer to see how to apply it readily.

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36. On 2005-10-22, luke said:

Bang—conflict/challenge with/to a Belief
Decide—decide how to confront said challenge; which ability?
Test/Dice/System—violence or conspicuous avoidance thereof utilizing chosen ability and
chosen system
Reward—artha and advancement
Consequences—escalation to violence or wilful cessation of violence or hard right turn
away from conflict

Bang
Decide
Test
Reward
Consequences

Bang
Decide
Test
Reward
Consequences

the five spokes of the Burning Wheel. Inside the Wheel is all the fire and mayhem
surrounding those procedures: What we say to each other, the flushed faces, the angry
shouts, the nervous laughs, the unease, the waiting, the praying, who we think our
character is and the electric decision to engage the Wheel—to play the game.

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Burning Wheel cannot play itself. One player must move to step up and drop the bang.
He must choose it so it cuts across that Belief. He tosses the live grenade into the lap of
another player. He causes consternation. He forces a choice to be made and sets the
wheel a-spinning.

this took some hard thinking across many an hour.

whaddya think, V. Ron? To me the vortex, the missing corner, it's that fire that we players
bring to the table. It's the place where there is no immediate procedure. The place from
which we must reach out and touch the system so that it comes alive.

-L

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37. On 2005-10-22, John Kim said:

I agree strongly with the sentiment. Too often, I've seen people suggest that a game's
meaning is about whatever is most obvious on the surface—and advise the same. i.e.
Want a game about faith? Give PCs a "Faith" stat. And so forth. I think this sort of
literalism is damaging to creation of new games as well as to understanding of old
games.

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38. On 2005-10-22, Ben Lehman said:

But I have to ask, does PTA have a Void? I'm not sure. What seems great to me about
PTA is how it organizes/inspires player interaction. But since the players create a new
show for every game, the thing that the players are exploring (Honor, Judgement, Sin,
Duty, etc.) is going to change with every show.

This is an important issue, because so far we've talked about these "fruitful voids"
focusing play on some topic in particular, but of course games like PTA don't do that at
all.

What PTA does is creates a focus—it makes the whirlpool—but what it does not do is
direct that focus anywhere. Your play will be focused, but it leaves it to you (via the pitch
session) to determine what it will be focused on.

This is good and bad. On the one hand it can do anything. On the other hand, it is
sometimes hard work for the players.

yrs—
—Ben

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39. On 2005-10-22, Kirk said:

All of this makes double-plus much sense, but I think I'm on the same level as Joshua. I
understand but am not competent enough to encorporate it into readily into the game.

If I dare ask, what are your thoughts on that?

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40. On 2005-10-22, Jon Hastings said:

Hi,

This is my first post here, but I wanted to step in and write something about PTA. In PTA,
we know each individual character's issue and we know in which episode this issue will
peak. What we don't know, before actually playing any given episode, is how all the
characters' issues will bounce off each other. I think something similar robably happens
at the season level, too. For me, this is PTA's "fruitful void": no matter what the show is
"about" (the mob, space cowboys, etc.), PTA is going to explore how our problems and
goals (issues) effect the problems and goals of people around us.

—Jon

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41. On 2005-10-22, Emily Care said:

bti:

scene framing/attr dice

bonus dice
re-rolls
conflict
compatibilities
resolution

There are stats about love (attraction/compatibility) but nothing that says when the
characters "fall in love", except in retrospect. Thinking about mechanizing that moment is
tellingly comical. It would deaden the game. Of I could have written the game so that
you drive the characters toward a goal (5 attr, 5 comp etc) at which you trigger end, like
mlwm.

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I think the fruitful void is about love & vulnerability (and the interactions between the
players themselves) and the driving wind is the goal of bringing the characters together.

In every system, you need to have something open for the players to decide/have input
into and so on. When I'm thinking about writing a game, I look for the place in a setting or
situation that is in imbalance—where a character would be pushed to cross a line one
way or another. That's what makes it vital. Oh, and the choice has to matter to the player
or else it has no snap.

The whirlwind thingee shows how the actual procedures we choose take advantage of &
get the player to engage with that imbalance.

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This makes...
MH go "Great examples"*

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42. On 2005-10-22, ethan_greer said:

So, you're saying that a game should give you the tools to do something, but shouldn't
actually do the thing by itself?

If that's what you're saying, I respond with a big ol' "Yep."

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43. On 2005-10-22, timfire said:

I didn't design Dogs, Tim didn't design The Mountain Witch, by arranging things
around a void. You arrange things around a group of people.

Yeah, when I wrote TMW, I didn't think, "How do I make this game be about Honor
without actually using an Honor score?" Rather, I was very concerned with creating
tension between the characters/players.

The solution in TMW is pretty simple: I gave everyone a need to stick together (Trust
mechanics), while simultaneously giving everyone a reason to turn against each other
(Fate). Conflicting forces = tension! The GM then uses bangs to highlight this tension, and
the Background Questions are used to wind up this tension.

It was only as an afterthought that I realized that this tension revolves around the
question of "how do I do right in the face of conflicting duties, responsibilities, & loyalties."

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This discussion highlights a design principle of mine. I like to argue that if you want
something to be important to the player, you have to give them choice and freedom over
it. The idea is if you automate something (mechanically regulate it, leave it GM fiat, etc.),
the players don't have to think about it, and thus won't care. Whenever you create a
decision point in the design, players are forced to think about it, thus making it important.

I don't think designers need to worry about creating "a Void", but they do need to be
conscious of all the decision points the players need to make.

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44. On 2005-10-22, Mark W said:

A little more than give the tools, I'd say. If you use the game, you HAVE to do the thing or
nothing gets resolved.

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45. On 2005-10-22, Ron Edwards said:

Three things.

1. Luke, I think what Jon Hastings wrote is spot-on for Burning Wheel; if the characters'
BITs do not inter-engage among the real people's own interests, then play falls down with
a thud. You'll have all these colorful badasses kind of sitting around looking at each other,
even if they're fightin' and killin' and healin'. Lots of action but no "there" there.

2. John, we agree on this point. However, I think you have historically been rather a pain
in the ass about it, by not recognizing that a game may have "emotions" mechanics and
*still* provide a fruitful void, perhaps one that you (John) may not be familiar with. Yes,
this is a personal criticism, and I'd appreciate you actually reflecting on, rather than
defending, your behavior.

3. The classic illusionist GM understands Vincent's whirlwind already. However, the

center, in his or her case, is *already full.* It's full of what the GM has put there. The
payoff, the eighth corner, of such play is to discover what a brilliant, fascinating, cool, and
uber-fan the GM is. "Boy, Bob is so awesome. He should publish that as a novel, he's
almost as good as Robert Jordan."

The "pre-play" version of illusionism play therefore depends on everyone being nudged
into existing tracks 'round and 'round until they "see" the allegedly brilliant jewel crafted
for them to find.

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The more improvisational version, which uses intuitive continuity (i.e. player-interest
cues), is no less illusionist, because the GM essentially decides what the allegedly
brilliant jewel is about during play, but otherwise the process is very similar.

I abominate both of these. It doesn't help that practitioners of each consider one another
as different as night and day. But compared with play (and design) that utilizes *real*
whirlwinds, with empty centers until they start happening, both of them are the same
damn dull mud.

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This makes...
JK go "My friends and I used to call illus. Museum Gaming. As in Look but don't touch."
NinJ go "Good term, John."
JK go "Its Judd."
VB go "Ron, you're going a bit far afield just to make a personal criticism."*
RE go "your field, but my stuff"*
NinJ go "Oh, Hi, Judd-not-John Kim"

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46. On 2005-10-24, Michael S. Miller said:

Okay, I'll bite. Here's the procedural elements for With Great Power...:

??? The Struggle

??? Aspects
??? Strife Aspects & Villains' Plans
??? Player Stakes & GM Stakes
??? Cardplay & Suffering
??? Devastation & the Story Arc
?????Redemption & Transformation

With all those ampersands, I found that I wanted my diagram to split with two tracks of
procedures running parallel—one for player empowerment and one for GM-led adversity.

It seems to me that what keeps these arrows angled inward is player investment. One of
the assumptions I took from MLwM and placed at the heart of WGP is "if you make it up,
you will care about it." Without that caring and commitment, the arrows drift outward, the
whirlwind doesn't form, and the energy dissipates.

So what's in WGP's Fruitful Void? The price of doing the right thing. Each player gets to
choose what the right thing is, and what they're willing to pay to do it.

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47. On 2005-10-24, Vincent said:
It's not just leaving room for player creativity. I mean, frickin' Shadowrun does that.
Shadowrun is a mass of arrows all pointing different directions, with big ugly holes left for
player creativity.

I'm talking about game design that demands player creativity, of a particular emotional
sort.

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This makes...
VB go "oh hey, Mark W. said this first."*

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48. On 2005-10-24, Michael S. Miller said:

I think we're saying the same thing, V. I was using "you" very specifically. Let me expand.

Shadowrun (and many other games produced on the "supplement treadmill" model) are
built on the axiom: "if we (i.e., the game designer/publisher/freelancer) make it up, you
(i.e., the players and GM) will care about it." Illusionist GMs do the same thing: "If I (i.e.
the GM) make it up, you (i.e., the players) will care about it." The room that those games
and those GMs leave for player creativity is the unimportant space that they're not have
not, and have no intention of using.

The way I see it, my "if you (i.e. the player) make it up, you (i.e., the player) will care
about it." is the same thing as your "player creativity, of a particular emotional sort." Does
that make sense?

When I said "Without that caring and commitment, the arrows drift outward, the whirlwind
doesn't form, and the energy dissipates." I was referring to players I've met who refuse to
engage. Who make stuff up and then refuse to care about it. No game design can force a
player's emotional creativity. Even when the game demands it, the player can always
refuse to meet the demand.

Clearer?

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49. On 2005-10-24, Vincent said:

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Michael - actually I was responding to the "why do we need a metaphor for 'leaving room
for the players'?" and the "give tools, don't do the thing" people.

It's also not just providing tools. It's providing the tools and the work order.

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50. On 2005-10-24, Matt Wilson said:

"The work order." I like that, mister V.

I'm thinking to make the 'work order' in your game really good, it has to be a little selfish.
You have to want the players to create something in particular, something you'd want to
read about over in Actual Play. You have to figure out how to get players to make stuff up
that's within your acceptable boundaries.

Don't do "whatever you want" with my game. Screw that. Do these things listed here. Do
that, and it'll guarantee* an Actual Play report that I will totally dig.

* I dunno if any games really have that guarantee yet, but I know I strive for it.

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This makes...
MB go "Yep."*
JB go "Yes yes yes!"*

*click in for more

51. On 2005-10-24, Chris said:

I've always described the "work order" as play being like a flow of water- the better you
focus that flow, the stronger the current, or the momentum of play.

No momentum, you get that play where people wander around, looking for clues, talking
to npcs, or deciding to wacky stuff, just so that something happens... until the 1 or 2
"events" of the session happen.

High momentum, 3 or 4 hours of play, crazy things have happened, everyone's on the
edge of their seats with excitement.

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52. On 2005-10-24, John Kim said:
Ron Edwards wrote:
John, we agree on this point. However, I think you have historically been rather a pain in
the ass about it, by not recognizing that a game may have "emotions" mechanics and
*still* provide a fruitful void, perhaps one that you (John) may not be familiar with. Yes,
this is a personal criticism, and I'd appreciate you actually reflecting on, rather than
defending, your behavior.

Well, I've reflected on it. On the one hand, it's true that my best experiences have never
been in games with strong personality mechanics. So that contributes to bias on my
part. However, I've also generally defended them as a potentially fruitful choice. For
example, one of my small contributions to Steffan O'Sullivan's Fudge was to convince him
to add a "Personality Traits" section to it. cf. FUDGE Faults (from rec.games.design June
1993). I think a fair expression of my thoughts on emotional mechanics are in my old
essay entitled simply "Personality Mechanics".

More specifically to this thread, I think that emotions mechanics can have a fruitful void—
but that void will be different from the subject of the emotion mechanics.

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53. On 2005-10-25, timfire said:

Michael, I think the issue of player investment is a very important one for the designer, but
I think its a slightly different one. I would love to discuss that issue some time.

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54. On 2005-10-25, Ron Edwards said:

John, thanks. I buy it.

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55. On 2005-10-25, Eric J. Boyd said:

Wow, I am sooo glad that I followed a link to this discussion. I designed Today, an
October Ronnies entry that deservedly got criticized for being parlor narration and leaving
no room for the players. Now I understand the problem—I've completely filled in the
middle of the whirlwind.

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I was so concerned with getting players to focus on the issue of personal pain and
fighting through it to a better life that I took all their power to make the key decisions away
with my mechanics. I need mechanics to facilitate, not dictate, the premise of the game.

Again, wow. Thank you all for the insights. I have a much better idea of how to proceed
with retooling my game now.

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This makes...
NinJ go "Rock on, Eric!"

56. On 2005-10-25, Kirk said:

I would like a definition of "facilitate the premise of the game" if its not too obtuse of me to
ask.

Does this mean that the premise is actively touched upon in play or what? And what
defines actively touching upon a premise in play? Is it the players think about it, the
players make it a core theme in the game and have incidents directly relating to it, the
player characters come across it and deal directly with the premise? All three? More?
None?

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57. On 2005-10-25, Troy_Costisick said:

Might be a silly question, but does this Fruitful Void only apply to Narrativist games? If
not, could someone show me a couple examples? :)

Peace,

-Troy

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This makes...
Chris go "I don't know about Sim, but"*

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58. On 2005-10-25, Vincent said:

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Troy: "Might be a silly question, but does this Fruitful Void only apply to Narrativist
games? If not, could someone show me a couple examples?"

I have no idea. I pretty much only think about narrativism.

Kirk, start here: Creating Theme.

John: awesome.

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59. On 2005-10-25, Troy_Costisick said:

Heya,

I have no idea. I pretty much only think about narrativism.

Yeah, that's the problem I've been running into lately. While I respect and would love to
get into narrativist style games more, my (real life) situation limits my chances of finding
anyone willing to give it a go. In addition, I believe my gaming tendancies lead me toward
more Gamist style of play and design. And that's where I'd like to see such ideas
explored also.

Most of the blogs I have spent time on are more geared toward Sim or Nar. Any help
from anyone in these regards would be most appreciated. :)

Peace,

-Troy

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This reminds...
Chris of I just blogged a whole series about Gamism

This makes...
MH go "Check out "This Is My Blog""*
VB go "I second both."*
TC go "Woot! Thanks :)"*

*click in for more

60. On 2005-10-25, Jon Hastings said:

Troy,

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There's been a lot of great stuff on Gamism recently on Chris Chinn's "Deep in the Game"
blog.

The "fruitful void" in a gamist game is going to come down to a question of tactical
choices: it's a space where the players can show off their mastery of the game and/or
creativity in overcoming challenges. If there's no real choice in the game—i.e. if there's
really only one way to win—then you don't have a "fruitful void". The extent to which the
"fruitful void" has actually been achieved in existing Gamist games is a whole other issue.

—Jon

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This makes...
Chris go "Yep yep, say that then!"

61. On 2005-10-25, timfire said:

The "fruitful void" in a gamist game is going to come down to a question of tactical
choices...

I was just going to say this. If you look at DnD (3.x), you have all this stuff about character
creation, but it doesn't say how you should create your character, and it doesn't say "the
best" way to utilize said character in play (ie, combat).

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62. On 2005-10-25, Paul Czege said:

That whirlwind reminds me of this, from the FEMA website.

(Quick question: What exactly are we trying to achieve via disaster preparedness? Or
have I just found the fruitful void for a FEMA roleplaying game?)

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63. On 2005-10-25, Sydney Freedberg said:

Both Narrativism* and Gamism strike me as "dilemma" play: if there's an obvious best
answer (morally, for Narrativism; tactically, for Gamism), play dies; the enjoyment is in
making difficult choices among equally valid but imperfect options. A Gamist design or
scenario that had (explicit or implicit) a single optimal strategy would be the equivalent of

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a Narrativist game where the designer or GM had already answered the Premise: The
only role for the players is to discover the "lesson" and bow down before its
wondrousness—the model which Ron "abominates."** Lots of people have commented
before on the mirror-imaging of these two Creative Agendas, so it's not surprising both
would require a "fruitful void" that the players can fill.

Now, does Simulationism require a void, or does it require a filled center, or does this
whole discussion have no relevance for that CA at all?

*I know this can of worms is not worth opening, but sometimes I pine for a less awkward
word.
** This word is just cool, by contrast; can we use it more?

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This reminds...
SF of I said that better here...

This makes...
go "Address v. Exploration"*
SF go "Hmm - but"*

*click in for more

64. On 2005-10-26, Ben Lehman said:

Sydney is right about Gamism.

I know, this should be marginalia, but I really think it needs to be said big.

yrs—
—Ben

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This reminds...
SF of Ron said it long ago...
SLB of "I believe you can find that in Knuth."

This makes...
BL go "The universal law of RPG Theory"*

*click in for more

65. On 2005-10-26, Nathan P. said:

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I would say that Sim needs a void, but its not about allowing choices, its about allowing
the room to combine the elements of exploration in interesting and appropriate ways. In
Sim an answer can be obviously -correct- for the situation, but it may not be -right-.

But this is outside the bounds of anyway. I'll just say that I think that the fruitful void is a
role-playing thing, not a CA-dependent thing, and maybe I'll be able to find the time to say
something coherent about it on me blog soon. Though I'll probably say a lot of the same
things I say about Structured v. Emergent properties in roleplay.

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66. On 2005-10-26, John Laviolette said:

I'd say that in a Sim game, there has to be room for Exploration—which may just be a
rephrasing of what Nathan said, but let's expand on it a little more. there has to be
choices in how characters can interact with each other and the environment; these
choices must be *meaningful*, producing different effects for different choices; and these
choices must feel like they explore the "objective" SIS rather than the psyche of one of
the other players.

this is why extreme Gam or Nar designs don't appeal to extreme Sim players: in such
games, most of the rules deal with metagame concerns and interactions between the
players, which makes the Exploration seem arbitrary, the result of player whim; that door
wasn't locked because a dice roll said it was locked or the GM's notes said so, but
because someone made a decision it would be more dramatic or provide a tactical
advantage.

in other words, extreme Gam/Nar designs fill in the Fruitful Void for Sim play.

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This makes...
JB go "Hmm. Not sure I buy that"*
JCL go "OK...."*
JB go "my point was..."*

*click in for more

67. On 2005-10-27, xenopulse said:

In my own words: it seems to me that the Void for Sim play would be discovery/learning.
You have all the elements in place around the Void, and once you start the machine,
together as a group, each playing their part, you discover the outcome inside.

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68. On 2005-10-27, Simon M said:

Doesn't that make the perfect Sim Game a mechanic for not exploring a pre-existing
dream, but for creating the dream?

Cool, players and participants come together not to explore J.R.R. Tolkiens world of
Middle Earth, but to make Middle Earth themselves.

Because the 'fruitful void' sorta requires it to be, y'know - a void.

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This reminds...
SM of Setting and systems.

This makes...
MW go "Universalis?"
JCL go "that's my design goal, at least"*

*click in for more

69. On 2005-10-27, Vincent said:

Kirk: "All of this makes double-plus much sense, but I think I'm on the same level as
Joshua. I understand but am not competent enough to encorporate it into readily into the
game.

If I dare ask, what are your thoughts on that?"

Play games! Play Forge RPGs, of course, but even more importantly, play non-RPG
games. Play them with your eyes open. Notice how their rules make you feel and act.
Compare, like, Carcassonne with The Great Brain Robbery, the Sim City CCG with
Starbase Jeff, Backgammon with Mancala, Zero with RoboRally, Diplomacy with that
game about killing dragons and arguing over their hoards. How come one game is more
fun than another?

Playing RPGs, you get distracted by thinking about creativity and authorship and, like,
who the players are. Playing non-RPGs, it's easier to see just how the fun comes from
good design.

The two games I credit with my own personal epiphany are Universalis and Pit.

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Anyhow yeah, yours is the best problem in the world. Its solution is to play games with
your friends.

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This makes...
KM go "Yay!"*

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70. On 2005-10-28, Curly said:

Schrodinger's cat comes to mind.

Do you -care- whether the cat is alive or dead?

If not; the indeterminate, unanswered question isn't fruitful.

It's just a dull void.

Peekaboo is a thrilling game because -Mommy- disappears.

Not because the backs of her hands have some mystical power.

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71. On 2005-10-28, Troy_Costisick said:

Heya,

John Hastings Wrote:

The "fruitful void" in a gamist game is going to come down to a question of tactical
choices: it's a space where the players can show off their mastery of the game and/or
creativity in overcoming challenges. If there's no real choice in the game—i.e. if there's
really only one way to win—then you don't have a "fruitful void". The extent to which the
"fruitful void" has actually been achieved in existing Gamist games is a whole other issue.

The more and more I think about it, the more I come to believe that the Fruitful Void for
Gamism has to be filled with things like Social Prestige, a Sense of Accomplishment, or in
something like DnD, the sense of excitement a player gets as he builds the perfect Magic:
The Gathering Deck. I think strategy and tactics are the arrows that build the whirlpool of
Esteem. The trick is, to make the strategy and tactics different (or at least diverse) every
time.

Peace,

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-Troy_Costisick

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72. On 2005-10-28, timfire said:

Troy said:

The more and more I think about it, the more I come to believe that the Fruitful Void
for Gamism has to be filled with things like Social Prestige, a Sense of
Accomplishment, or in something like DnD, the sense of excitement a player gets
as he builds the perfect Magic: The Gathering Deck. I think strategy and tactics are
the arrows that build the whirlpool of Esteem.

I disagree. Social prestige in Gamism holds an equivalent place to "story" or theme in

Narativism. That is, "story"/social prestige is the end-goal, but the process is thru
answering moral dilemnas/using strategy & guts.

I do not think the Fruitful Void is not about the end result—-it is the arena for "what play is
about". It is related to the process... Am I making sense here?

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73. On 2005-10-28, Jon Hastings said:

Troy,

Ok, but hopefully any well-designed game is going to be satisfying, so the sense of
accomplishment and excitement that you're talking about aren't what you fill the "fruitful
void" with. (Btw, while I think "fruitful void" is a really useful idea, I have a hard time
talking about "filling it" with your "accomplishment" without snickering ).

In DitV, the void is where I, as a player, get to make a powerful thematic statement about
faith, say. And when I play, I get a sense of accomplishment, excitement, etc. "That was
a badass choice you made about Sr. Temperance!"

Now, in AD&D3e, the void is where I, as a player, get to make meaningful tactical
decisions. And when I play, I also get a sense of accomplishment, excitement, etc. "That
was a badass move you pulled off with that 2 Weapons Feat!"

So, Vincent brought up boardgames, which are probably key to understanding the "fruitful
void" in relation to Gamist rpgs. In Sid Sackson's Acquire, for example, the arrows are
made up of the tile-laying mechanic, the stock buying system, and the rules governing
mergers (which is essentially the intersection of the tile-laying game and the stock buying
game). The "void" in the game exists because the random element of the tile-laying

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game and the group psychology aspect of the stock buying game make it impossible for
there to be just one correct strategy. This means on any given turn, I have the
opportunity to make a meaningful tactical choice. And when I make good choices, I get a
sense of accomplishment. And when I can see my overall strategy falling perfectly into
place, I get a sense of excitement. But the accomplishment and excitement are what I
get out of the void, not what I put into it.

—Jon

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74. On 2005-10-31, Sydney Freedberg said:

I'd agree with Jon about the sense of "wow, I did that well," reinforced (in functional
groups). by everyone else around the table saying "wow, you did that well."

(a) Satisfaction + peer reinforcement is not particularly Gamist, but important to any
Creative Agenda (Nar: "wow, that was a tough choice"; Sim: "wow, that was so real!"),
and I'd argue essential to any stable group activity, roleplaying or otherwise.

(b) Satisfaction emerges from the Void, but it is not in itself the "Thing in the Void"*—
which indeed does need to vary not just from Creative Agenda to Creative Agenda but
from group to group.

* Sounds like an H.P. Lovecraft title.

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75. On 2005-11-07, Ed Heil said:

MLWM has no Defiance stat. Mountain Witch has no Honor stat.

Tunnels & Trolls has no "surviving and conquering dungeons" skill or stat.

Parallel? Or too much of a stretch?

Ron?

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This makes...
BL go "Totally not Ron"*
SF go "Uh, levels?"*

*click in for more

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76. On 2005-11-08, Victor Gijsbers said:
What about this.

Good fiction almost always makes a point; but it does it in a very roundabout way. Why
does it do that? Why is the roundabout way sometimes better than the straight-to-the-
heart way? Why would we read all of "Crime and Punishment", instead of a 2-page essay
about how humans cannot simply decide to free themselves from guilt and crime?

Because the point of good fiction always defies description. It is deeper, more complex
and more subtle than could be expressed by simply stating it. Any attempt to extract the
message from a work of fiction will do it an injustice by making shallow what used to be
deep.

If you want the results of roleplaying to have depth, it is essential that the central
message, the "what the story is about", is not explicitly expressed. You must never allow
the rules to state the message, because that will transform it from something deep to
something shallow.

The essential inexpressibility of the message of fiction requires that the rules of an RPG
contain a fruitful void.

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77. On 2005-11-08, Sydney Freedberg said:

Victor: I agree with you, oh, 75%. You actually CAN explicitly express the central
message; it's just that it won't stick without all the pages/hours of other stuff.

I'm a reporter, so I'm explicitly stating my central message all the time, as succintly as
possible ("this program works"; "this idea has this problem"; etc.). Yet I'm researching for
weeks and writing 1,500-5,000-word articles in order to convey these 10-20 word
highlight sentences. Why on earth?

Because just asserting your point can't possibly convince anyone, if they weren't already
convinced. It probably can't even explain your point adequately, if they weren't already
well-versed in the subject. It probably won't even get anyone to remember what the hell
your point was. "To be or not to be?" is a powerful, bleak question—but you at least have
to explain the rest of Hamlet before people can understand it, and you have to get people
to see Hamlet performed (and performed well) before they really feel it. Same with a
roleplaying game like Dogs, where dozens of momentary choices about which die to
advance, each decision swiftly forgotten in itself, cumulatively lodge the game's worldview
in your brain the way simply asserting it never could. All the details, all the little moments
—all the things your audience probably forgets—are essential to carry across the
essential point.

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Forces converging on a fruitful void is one way of looking at it; I tend to think of it, in my
work, as a rocket: First one stage burns out and falls away, then another, then another,
until only a tiny bit of payload is left, soaring free—but without all those massive stages
that burned up, the tiny payload would never have lodged itself in orbit at all.

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This reminds...
SF of I work here...

This makes...
NinJ go "Right on, Sydney."*
SF go "Thanks -- and..."*

*click in for more

78. On 2005-11-08, Vincent said:

Consider this:

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This makes...
VB go "this is NOT in reply to anybody."
SF go "Darn. At first I thought they were rockets"*
Masses go "Rockets!"*
TC go "Interesting..."*
JBR go "Is it bad..."*

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79. On 2005-11-09, Sydney Freedberg said:

I love this.

I can't figure out how to use it, yet, but I love it.

Vincent, I presume it's entirely intentional that the dice and other mechanical cues are on
the outside pushing inwards, and that the "thing we imagine together" in all the various
arrows/instances is on the inside giving shape to the Void?

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80. On 2005-11-09, Paul said:

It's not right, is it? The puffs are the SIS, right? Then the whirlwind is a way of perceiving
the SIS. So there should be one puff inside the whirlwind, and all the
Fallout/Stakes/Escalation stuff should be the arrows passing back and forth to the players
from the dice and the SIS.

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81. On 2005-11-09, Roger said:

...the dice and other mechanical cues are on the outside pushing inwards...

No, they're not.

Look closely at the arrows. They are perfectly tangential to the Void.

Cheers,
Roger

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82. On 2005-11-09, timfire said:

It's not right, is it? The puffs are the SIS, right? Then the whirlwind is a way of
perceiving the SIS. So there should be one puff inside the whirlwind, and all the
Fallout/Stakes/Escalation stuff should be the arrows passing back and forth to the
players from the dice and the SIS.

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No, the Void != the SIS. The Void is entirely different thing than the act of role-playing. In
thematic play/narativism, the Void exists inside the SIS, because theme can only exist
inside a narrative. But in Gamism, where the Void deals with tactics and guts or whatever,
a certain amount of the Void exists outside the SIS.

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83. On 2005-11-09, Vincent said:

For relative newcomers, like TC:

The d6 represents all the real-world cues we use to play: maps, dice, words and numbers
on character sheets, life stones, whatever. The smiley faces represent the players
(including the GM) interacting. The cloud represents the stuff of the game's fiction: the girl
leading Thedric into the pond, Harald and his poor treatment of Culhain, the arm braces,
the dangerous drunkenness.

The d6 represents everything we can point to in the real world, the cloud everything we
can't.

See here: How RPG Rules Work.

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84. On 2005-11-10, Paul said:

I didn't say the void was the SIS. I said the void was a way of perceiving the SIS. So, you
and I are playing a game together. You might look to the SIS and see the story of five
siblings struggling to overcome their childhood history of abuse, and I might look to it and
see the chance for my character to make VP of Marketing at 26 if I'm aggressive and
lucky. The void filters and gives context to the SIS, so the SIS must be within it.

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85. On 2005-11-10, Victor Gijsbers said:

Hi Sydney,

I agree with you, oh, 75%. You actually CAN explicitly express the central message;
it's just that it won't stick without all the pages/hours of other stuff.

35/41
I think that maybe the difference between a reporter and a fiction writer is that the former
doens't need a fruitful void. He certainly, absolutely needs a lot of story in order to make a
single point; arguments, facts and examples all together build the framework within which
the message cannot only be expressed, but also conveyed. But the message could be
expresses without them; it just wouldn't be believed or wouldn't stick.

In (good, literary) fiction, I think the message cannot succinctly be expressed. "To be or
not to be, that is the question" is in and of itself merely the shallow question of whether
not to commit suicide; it does not summarise the point of Hamlet. The message that is
somehow expressed by Hamlet is not one of the sentences of the piece; it is not even a
certain subset of its sentences. The message of Hamlet is Hamlet's fruitful void, and it
can never be explicitly expressed.

Would you agree with that?

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This makes...
SF go "75%, again"*

*click in for more

86. On 2005-11-10, Vincent said:

A bit of housekeeping:

SIS
Everybody who's talking about the SIS needs to say what you really mean instead,
please. I've hated the term "SIS" since its inception and I don't think you're all using it
consistently.

There will be no arguments here about the term or its definition. Just stop using it;
construct your posts without it.

Non-thematic, Non-roleplaying
I don't think it's turning out to be helpful to talk about what a fruitful void-analogue might
be in non-thematic roleplaying or non-roleplaying. Interesting for certain in some
circumstances somewhere - but not to the point here.

Thank you!

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This makes...
JCL go "good, I'm not the only one"*
VG go "Non-roleplaying"*

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VB go "VG: fine, but..."*
VG go "Perhaps, but..."*
SF go "Yeah, that analogy hit its limits"*
JBR go "No SIS: Hear Fucking Hear!"
S.u.V. go "Shared Unimagined Void"*
VB go "heh."*
VB go "also, SUV..."*
Curly go "nonhostile"*
MB go "Dude..."*

*click in for more

87. On 2005-11-10, Sydney Freedberg said:

Back to the Grand Unified Diagram (post 78) itself:

Out of Vincent's trinity of the real people, the mechanics, and the fiction—that which we
imagine together*—it make sense to me that the fiction should be the element closest to
The Thing in The Void. Or, to put it differently, the imaginary thing that the real people
create together using specific tools is more central (for our purposes) than either the tools
or, ironically, the people themselves who've created it: I, myself, as a real person, am
fairly diffuse and unintelligible until I (or something else) condenses, selects, and focuses
that diffuse self into a specific meaning. I am raw material; the techniques are tools;
meaning and message are the product.

That said, the fiction—that which we imagine together—is not identical to the thing that
matters, the thing that has meaning, The Thing in the Void. This is why it makes sense to
me that Vincent's little clouds are touching, but not filling, the Void. As per my back-and-
forth with Victor, the fiction may include within itself an explicit statement of the point, or it
may imply it; but that's simply a matter of presentation, really. In either case, the meaning
arises from the fiction but is not identical to it.

I'm struggling to express myself here, obviously, and may simply be wrong, but I hope this
thought is at least a useful stimulant to others.

* which is what I personally mean by "SIS," awful term that I agree it is.

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88. On 2005-11-12, Remko van der Pluijm said:

Hiya all,

When I'm understanding this right, The Fruitfull Void is all about the 'Real Problem',
instead of 'sympthoms of the Real Problem'.

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With this, my TBA background comes into play, I guess. It's like with a journey to the
doctor.

When we go to the doctor and say:"I'm not feeling too well", the doctor probably won't
prescribe some obscure medicine. He'll check out the disease what's causing this.

But with Nar games, the disease isn't quite defined and with another perception, doctors
(PC's) will react different.

Is this metaphor correct?

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This makes...
SF go "Not really..."*

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89. On 2005-11-13, Weeks said:

Vincent starts this whole thing asking us to ask questions. I'm not sure these are all
important, but here are mine:

I don't know if anyone has given this any thought, but how many arrows are required to
generate a whirlwind? Is it even that kind of relationship?

How discrete is a procedural element? In the DitV diagram at the top, why aren't Dice
through Escalation a single Resolution element? Do all procedural elements contribute to
the whirlwind? What role do things like character generation and between towns
reflection play on whirlwind generation?

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90. On 2005-11-14, Vincent said:

How many arrows indeed! You need at least five if you want them to be perfectly
tangential to the whirlwind and oblique to one another.

In other words, I chose six for Dogs arbitrarily, and stuck in the six things in Dogs that
seem to me to be at the same scale.

Curly et al: is "dynamic tension" a less misty-fisty word than "creative void"?

As few as two things can be in dynamic tension. Here's another metaphor for Kirk: the
game design is the forefinger and thumb, squeezing; the game in play is the watermelon
seed. Fwing!

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This makes...
CW go "busted link"
VB go "fixord."

91. On 2005-11-14, Troy_Costisick said:

Heya,

Vincent this strikes me as a very important discussion. Is there any way you could make
this a permanent part of your front page? Even if it's just a link?

Peace,

-Troy

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92. On 2005-11-14, Vincent said:

Oh and for the record, I consider this one to be correct but slightly suggestive:

And this one to be correct but slightly misleading:

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What would be better would be to imagine the d6-smilies-cloud in motion like a
spirograph, as the game's rules make fictional stuff in "stakes" into cues in "dice", and
etc.:

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93. On 2005-11-20, Roger said:

For the purposes of contrast, here are some fruitless voids:

I shall leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which games are described by
each.

Cheers,
Roger

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