Realism Stinks, or What It's All About
November 6, 2009 I hate when games are realistic.
Rather, I don't enjoy games that make an attempt at simulating realism in place of the experience the game actually wants to provide. The question for a game isn't whether or not it adequately presents a feeling of realism. The question is whether an element of a game believably represents the type of gameplay the designer wants to impart.
"Is this what the game's about?" in short. It doesn't have to be the crux of the game, but the element has to serve the play.
If the game includes chupacabras in the bestiary, that means the designer wants you to fight a chupacabra when you play.For example, I have always been frustrated by the inclusion of the Computer skill in the various World of Darkness games. The fact that the rules support a specific sort of challenge involving the use of computers, in my opinion, sends the wrong message. That message is, "This is a setting in which people who use computers are a significant facet of the setting." All of the sudden you open the floodgates of things like vampire hackers, cyber-werewolves, and the sorts of loosely computerized tangents that occasionally rear their heads on things like CSI. Never mind all of the trappings of gothic literary fiction and the turgid emotional landscape of eternal living death -- it's time for a shadowrun.
(You know what else used to crack me up? Dodge as a skill. Especially when interpreting the skill through the rules for skill improvement. You could spend experience points on Dodge... which meant that you were actively practicing getting out of the way of some stuff. Is there a special place you go to hang out and dodge? A gun range, maybe?)
Anyway, back to the point. I'm not saying that there's no place for computers in a Vampire story. I'm saying that vampires doing things with computers doesn't need to happen so frequently or with such a broad range of outcomes that it needs rules to allow vampires to interact with computers. Maybe a story suggests that there's a computer with critical information on it. If the Storyteller needs the players to have that information, they get it. No dice rolling. No dice pools or modifiers or rolling and putting Willpower into it -- if the players need the information and one of them thinks to say, "I look it up on the computer," then, okay, they get the clue off the computer.
Too often, designers overlook this, especially in skill-based systems , or in modern games that, as a result of the design, assume that if it can be done in the modern world, rules need to exist so that players can do it via the system. In many cases, it's just not discriminating design. It's kitchen-sink design, and it ends up making extra work and diluting the experience of play. At best, the system is going to lie, created but unused, in some forgotten drawer of the game. At worst, it's going to derail play of the optimal game experience with minutiae or a tangent that undermines the game's true goal.
The second-edition Vampire Players Guide had tanks, lasers, and military aircraft. The developer wanted your vampires to have fights with tanks and helicopters.When you build a system into a game, that means you as the designer want the system to be used. If you want your vampires hacking away at their computers, you make a Computers system for vampire hacking. It's like Chekhov's gun: If you write a play and put a gun in it, you're stating implicitly (and eventually explicitly) that the gun is going to see use. If you don't want something to happen in a game, don't build it in there.
The other side of this principle is true as well. If a system exists, it exists because that's what the designers want you to do. Aion has skill-based crafting that results in occasional failure of the crafting character to produce the item. Logically, then, the designers of Aion want you to fail sometimes, and thus want you to lose items (thereby sending you back into the world to seek more items). EVE Online wants you to lose a ship every now and then, and eventually wants you in open conflict with other players, especially via corporate or alliance warfare. Age of Conan and Lord of the Rings Online want you to spend a lot of time playing their preconstructed content, and though you can do it with other players, they don't want to mandate that you have to or even encourage you to do so. It's easier to solo than it is to play through content as a group, so that's what they want most of their players to do.
Bear that in mind when you create house rules or write your own games. If it's not part of the game, don't include it. Make it "realistic" only if verisimilitude is key to the play of the game.
Reader Comments (21)
While I get your point, I think a Vampire game so attuned to gothic literary tropes that it assumes almost all computer use will be story-irrelevant and offscreen is significantly more narrow than a game I'd want to play. I enjoy the juxtaposition of gothic monsters in a modern setting, and part of that is acknowledging, for example, that Hollow Mekhet can use their cellphones to send text messages but not phone calls. (Seriously, that one line from the new Mekhet clanbook creeped me the fuck out.)
You're right about Dodge, though. It should be a function of Athletics.
There are a lot of things in the modern world that are run on or by computers, so a game in a modern setting should have some way of handling computer use. I can see the point of "The info the PCs need to continue is on that computer, give it to them", but what if there is security on the computer? I can buy into a certain amount of GM hand waving, but what if the computer belongs to one of the best computer security guys in the city? Or phrasing it another way, where does the GM draw the line about how much security the PC's can get through? And how do they handle that without a system for it? (Though now that you've pointed this out, maybe it would work better as some sort of a Merit in the latest WoD.)
As for Dodge, I had never thought of how that worked, and your analysis is quite funny. Now I'm wondering if you should have been abel to raise it if you actually got hit -- that would make me dodge better.
I agree with you.
Beware though, some futurologists foresee that in the next fifteen years, in 2000 and later, more and more inhabitants of modern cities will acquire computers; theoretically, it could by then become thematic for vampires to potentially interact with them daily, especially if they somehow gain new functionalities. (More command lines in MUSHes for example?)
Computers will remain irrelevant, of course. And that's good, because emphasizing their would-be importance might make vampires seem anachronistic. Self-respecting vampires should in fact make a point of staying clear from identity theft, nighttime online banking, Internet stalking, criminal networks and other science-fiction fantasies.
The next step is mobile phones. These things will never become the stuff of stories. Ludicrous in contemporary horror games! I just don't allow my players to run around using items which are not central to the existence of a modern vampire.
Joke aside, I really do agree with you. Which means I think that interacting with our technological environment and getting to know its backdoors can be central to a Vampire story set in 2009.
(Btw I had a great time with the F-16 in Vampire. The Storyteller managed to stop me before I could acquire the nuclear submarine and the Airforce One replica.)
The thing is, most vampires are not self-respecting or sensible. It's entirely reasonable for vampires to engage in cyberstalking or build a herd through OkCupid.
Good comments, guys, and all points I plan to address in a followup post. AJ's comment especially is something I've been working with conceptually.
I too have never thought of Dodge in those terms... it's always been a skill that you just get to raise after being in fights and getting a feel for how combat flows...
Re: Improving your Dodge skill - this brought images of Wanted in my head. Perhaps some kind of habitualised beatdown or playing duck on the top of trains may be cooler than hanging at the wrong end of the range?
On the computer front, it's a tool. Expecting the undead not to use them would be like expecting them not to use cars or guns. Not sure how that whole permission to enter thing would work with it - though this was used to some effect in a theatrical version of Dracula I saw. The corollary to your argument is that if you don't create a system for it, someone will homebrew or go wah on a forum somewhere until you do.
As Vampire is a mostly modern game and home computers have been widespread over 15 years now, not using them would be anachronistic. What significance each element has in game is down not only to you but also your players. GMs have every right to make it easy or difficult and can even veto options if they aren't fun or core to the character concept. If they are, do your homework.
I remember doing this when two players insisted on roleplaying job interviews for a chauffeur (thankfully it was a two-player session). The slowest hour of my life - even real job interviews were less painful! Eventually I handwaved it and took aspirin for the very real headache. Three dice rolls later, everyone was happy! :o)
Yeah, Dodge is wonky. The ol' slip and shuffle of hand to hand doesn't resemble jumping behind things to avoid being shot, and jumping behind things to avoid being shot is not really an interaction with a shooter because his skill can't make you jump behind something any worse, or make the barrier go away.
(Actually, in a game like Exalted it can work, and there probably is an esoteric training regimen where you avoid armed automata like Paul Atriedes in Lynch's Dune movie.)
With trait choices, I think this is one of those things where electronic and tabletop games differ. In a tabletop game, a tank or a trait like Computers is a medium for the GM and the player to develop character and story elements. As a designer you may not want someone hacking into a system from inside a stolen tank, but who knows what would work in an individual game? You create biases toward what you think is cool but leave the other channels open.
In an electronic game the player has little power to push for certain events -- he or she has to engage whatever is in a level/quest, so any trait needs to be relevant to what's in the world. You can't save this stuff for later because you force the player to waste character resources now in hope of a payoff, or if they don't go for it they get screwed when you finally do add tanks.
Mike Mearls talked about "mother may I," abilities ages ago: stuff that doesn't work outside of an infrequent scenario. Of course, a GM should include those scenarios if the player goes for that ability, but if there's no user-generated opportunity in an electronic game you can't really have that.
While I completely agree with you on the primary point, I think your example of Computer is a poor one, only because I think the modern gothic drama fan is reading books like The Dresden Files and similar crime dramas where computers and hacking will most definitely come up.
And I agree when it comes to Dodge. If I can put points in Dodge, then I want to put points in Chrysler or Toyota too. Makes about as much sense.
On the other hand, I've seen some of the blowback when this thinking it taken too far. If you look at D&D 4e, they took out the craft skills, because crafting items is not really a part of classic dungeon crawling and adventuring. I fully recognize the choice, but many players had brain spasms over the loss of these mechanics. I recognize that the gamemaster should just handwave this stuff, but that didn't sit well with the crunch loving minds that is your hardcore D&D fan.
Amen! Preach it, brother. Allelujah!
The main point is excellent.
Should one wish to draw inspiration about Dracula, having humans use computers and other fancy modern technology to corner vampires would be completely appropriate. Likewise, I could easily see old vampires stagnating into their ways and not keeping up with the modern technology, while new bloodsuckers would be more in tune with the newest developments.
I'd say a computer skill (or some other way to make the distinction) is a fine way of making points like those of Dracula and Rice, and hence completely in line with vampire literature, at the very least.
I disagree. Rather than saying "You must use this", having any type of ability (be it skills, traits, feats, or whatever) that may seem outside the theme opens the game to different styles of play than the single creator may have envisioned. It also allows the characters to differentiate themselves from the setting, and in the one odd case where it might matter, save the day. Games that are too focused bore me as a GM and as a player. I want to be able to do the ingenious thing, or the off-the-wall thing. And having a GM say, "you can't.", ever, makes me get up and never play with that person again.
Cheers, guys; good commentary happening here.
To clarify, my intent isn't to restrict the actions of the players.
What I want to avoid is the system derailing the game with things it can accomplish rather than the things it aims to accomplish. I think Skills as general systems are prime offenders in this category, as they build the sort of "entitlement play" that comes with attaching oneself to a character concept and then resulting in an inordinate amount of time spent dealing with that aspect of the concept because the rules exist for it. They hijack the play, so to speak.
I'm not saying a computer or a cell phone has no place in a modern story. far from it -- it's one of the pieces of set dressing and setting distinction that actually make the game modern. What I'm saying is that there's no reason to have a game focused on vampires share that focus with something like a technothriller. If the computer scenario comes up, sure, deal with it, and let the narrative handle as much of it as you want. But close that book and look at the title. It's Vampire, not Vampires and Computer, or Vampires and An Elaborate Gun List. Those sort of supporting details are great, but when the supportive systems overshadow the core of what the game seeks to create as an experience -- the Vampire part -- those systems needs to support rather than overtake.
Again, this isn't to say that computers have no place. I'm saying that computers are part of the detail rather than the focus, and detail doesn't need mechanical support.
I'm not familiar enough with Dresden Files as an example here, because I don't know where its focus lies.
I agree with your main point, but as others have said, the computer example might be a bad one. A better example, in my opinion, is the Drive skill. While I can definitely see a modern-day horror character specializing in computers and technology, having the Drive skill included seems anti-thematic. Either you can drive or you can't. But having varying levels of driving skill sort of implies Transporter-like car chases, which aren't really thematic. And if you want to play in a Vampire game where they are, then house rule it as a skill.
Yes, a game should focus design elements on the themes that are meant to be prevalent in the game, and not worry so much about providing everything needed for a complete simulation of a fantastic reality. But I also think that a game should be flexible enough to accommodate for varying play styles, and in the case of tabletop without having to be house-ruled to hell. That's not to say that someone should easily be able to play Vampire in a Dragonball Z sort of fashion (if you want that, why the hell are you playing Vampire in the first place?), but alterations and twists to the intended design should be easy.
I'd put Drive in there along with Computer. I love cars and driving, but I'll put my money where my mouth is. Vampire isn't about car chases or hacking.
Unless you play it that way. Weirdly, I don't care if a Vampire story turns more into Dragonball Z, because power and the acquisition of it is certainly thematically appropriate. Would I want to play in a Dragonball Z vampire game? No, I but I can understand where it's coming from.
I agree with Justin's post so much that I went back and time and re-wrote Vampire. Twice.
Both "Vampires" and "Monster Garage" kill the idea of vampires having skills.
He's dead on. The character sheet is the player's way to tell the GM what he or she wants to do.
Mostly good. The recognition of your fault is awesome and I appreciate it. I hope, at least the next version of Vampire will reflect the current opinion of its current designer. Thank you.
When you mentioned improving Dodge was not realistic, and that's bad, I nearly started laughing. In the midst of a post about leaving reality alone while playing an rpg.
"Vampire isn't about car chases or hacking."
Though I understand what's meant by this thematically, I'd respectfully suggest that a perfectly valid (if distastefully brusque) response to this assertion might well be, "Sez YOU."
Or more courteously: Why can't Vampire be "about" car chases or hacking?
Remember that the classic structure of the game assumes characters who have just been Embraced. I'd argue that this is actually (or was originally intended to be) the strongest theme of the game, and the reason why the second part of the game title was "The Masquerade" -- the clash between the recognizeable, ordinary 20th/21st-century humans the characters used to be and are still trying to pass themselves off as where possible, and the undead bloodsucking monsters they're in the process of becoming. The entire point of that clash is to run hard up against the disjunction and disorientation caused by thinking about how mythic monsters like vampires adapt to the use of mundane things like cars, and computers, and modern society, and how people used to relying on these things will adapt their ability in them to their new circumstances.
This is, I think, what's meant by "realism" in this context -- not necessarily exact simulation of an objective reality, but an attempt to bring logical consequences to mythic manifestations.
Ehh, if one is going to have a skill system at all, it had better include some broad skills that can cover most everything. I'd rather lose Skills entirely than lose just Computers and Drive. A skill-less system, if done well, would be a much better design, I think, than one in which the designer excludes very broad skills because "these won't be necessary".
As for Dodge, yeah, I've trained in that skill, specifically to be used against opponents with firearms. The military teaches lots of things.
@ Stephen Tannhauser: Right on. Sez me, in the context of the vampire experience I'm trying to create. By all means, if you want vampire hackers and wheelmen in there, go for it. I'm not trying to build the "right" way to play Vampire, I'm just wanting the most concise Vampire experience that leaves individual troupes room to tell their own stories (which can therefore focus on whatever they think is important).
@ Einar: I'm all for losing skills, at least in the context you're suggesting it, precisely because, as you put it, it doesn't fit what I want to do, but it might fit what someone else wants to do. I'd rather have a game with a gap where the skill system is, because it's fun to play in those gaps and see what happens story-wise rather than reduce that element to a mundanity. The only benefit I see to Skills is, as Jared puts it, to tell the storyteller what the player wants to do.
@ Peter: I'm not making any claims about the realism of training Dodge, I'm saying that the images in conjures are fairly ridiculous. You can probably have some sort of "realistic" training of Dodge, but I'm not trying to emphasize realism, obviously. I'm wanting to emphasize the gothic literary tradition of vampire, so a kind of Remo WIlliams vampire Dodge training dojo {or whatever type of facility in which one might actively practice dodging) doesn't really fit the bill. Again, you can do whatever you want with it, but Dodge as its own discrete skill function always seemed incongruous to me.
Regards,
Justin
I have my own problems with the Computer skills.
As soon as someone has dots in it (and usually, that someone can put a lot of dots in it), this someone behaves in a Buffy-like fashion where computers is just a magical-like source of infinite information on every subject under the moon.
While all players will accept that having a high leverl Brawl skill is not enough to have your martial artist make 3 stories jumps, run on trees and walk on water, kill someone by pressing a nerve point on an opponent 10 meters away, the same thing is not so automatic with the Computers skill.
Explaining that not everything can be accessed from the Internet, or that not everything can be hacked from one's personal computer can be a real pain when the rule system does support the contrary. As far as the new WoD is concerned, the hacking rule, as described in WoD p57 makes it so a hacker will always eventually succeed having root access to a network because he won't ever be caught, and he can try, and try again.
And to add insult to the injury, who needs contacts, allies or even resources if some fanged version of Willow Rosenberg (Buffy) or Richie Adler (Whiz Kids) can hack its way around everything with a floppy disk ?
So, as far as I see it, it's not the "Computers" skill that is the problem, it's the fact badly balanced rules were written around it, where "no rules" would have been magnitudes better.