It's s tough one to answer, really. I've played in games (Contenders, for example) where the scenes "jump around" and they were immensely satisfying, a few weeks of really great play. More satisfying in emotional and enjoyment terms, in fact, than a nine month campaign of another game that I played in. But that's an aside and not really answering the question.

I'm kind of answering with another question: why should I be interested in all that stuff between scenes. I remember it from days of yore: boring talk about travelling between places, bookkeeping, "what are you doing now? OH! A WANDERING MONSTER!" and all that. To me, that's just dull. I, as a participant in a game, want to get to the meat of the action: what's really going on, what's going to drive the story forward. Is this applicable to everyone? Certainly not. It's what I, and many of the people I choose to play games with, want from games. Therefore, I'm designing games that I would want to play.

Many small press games set out to meet a particular need: they set out to give enjoyable play for those who don't want to take part in lengthy games. It's an implicit and explicit design decision in many games

But really getting down to it, there are ways we can create games that have 'legs'. I'm hoping Hot War can do that, providing a platform for both short and long term play by providing the GM and the players with the tools they need. "Can players actually provide all we need – and if so – what guidance needs to be provided for them about how to play the game?" well, the GM is just another kind of player, so must come into the equation here. I'm designing Hot War so that the GM has scene framing authority, apart from in a few, defined cases (PCs reaching crisis points, resolution of hidden agendas, experience scenes), so that gets round the worry you have regarding 'scene hopping': the GM has the guiding hand, but MUST take into account the needs and wants of everyone round the table (and this includes her own).

Yes, we can design 'indie' games to cater to long-term play. It's been done successfully before and will happen again. They need to provide the tools, they need to know what they are setting out to do. But, these will be different in most cases, so there's no blanket solution that can be offered that will cover every instance.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

First off, you've got the fact that some of these games are just designed for shorter term play than others. That's a design feature. It might not be for you, but most of the games flag this up ahead of time so you can avoid it if you want. BE/BW isn't one of these, so that's not too much of an issue here, I'd think.

Then you've got the unspoken stuff, how you've been taught or decided to "play right" over years of play, which gives you a certain expectation. Lots of Indie games break these expectations, hard. That's a disconcerting experience for some folks. If you've been immersed in a particular gaming culture for years, it's actually quite hard to switch that bit of your brain off and let play happen naturally based on system process, rather than trying to swim against the current and use an ingrained process. It's just something to push through and adapt to, if you see this stuff as useful.

Then you've got the issue of pushing too hard. Some people read the "get to the conflict" advice in these games and overplay it too much. Not giving a scene enough time to breathe before hitting the conflicts. If you only play at Cons this is noticeable, as they tend to be time-pressured and give a slightly caricatured image of how some of this stuff can work. That can bleed over into real play if you're not careful.

Then there's a mental shift from thinking about a character existing in a world, moving instead to thinking that situational elements exist solely to push thematic buttons of a character. That's actually a big mental leap, something some people ensconced in geek culture have a really hard time doing. That might be the gap, as you're framing all these scenes, but not seeing it in that context. PTA does give you that shortcut, as you say, by likening it to a TV series, but I've still seen some folks have to make mental leaps from solving the plot to creating it. Without everybody's buy-in at that level, it will feel disjointed.

And finally, what do you folks want out of playing an RPG? It may be that these games don't facilitate what you, as a group, want out of gaming. It may be that you're coming to them wanting something they just can't help you with.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

I've got nothing substantial to add at this point, but I will just flag up the Long Game thread from last year, where we discuss what gives a game longevity.

Conversely, some of the scenes I've enjoyed the most in my hobby gaming life have been the little asides, the shopping expeditions, the fireside chats, even the inn brawls. They kept the games from feeling like I was walking from one fight scene to another. They gave the characters time to discover who they were, who the other players were, introduce their own sub-plots for the GM to take advantage of and so on. Once the scene got boring and people were no longer enjoying it, it could safely be ended. I think these sub-scenes provide for much better long-campaign-building than not having any, since they give the players time to relax. It never feels utterly relentless. Of course you do need players who are willing and capable of sitting around socialising while remaining in character, but every group is different. That's more about choosing the right kind of game to play than writing a "good" game. Some people don't need a mechanical imperative to chat IC is all. Whether to include that kind of scene is as much a GM call as a systemic one.

Ash

We're not really talking about walking from one fight to another, but moving from one scene of import in the story to another. Do you see that distinction? Cos it's not clear from your post you do (fine if so).

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Roger that. Some games do need to skip to the end. However, I think a more “down time” scene (or partial scene really or other transition) can help provide the calm before the storm, a welcome break from full on action or emotionally draining sequences. Switching the pace about a bit make the meaty bits have extra bisto in their gravy. If that makes any sense?

From my experience it can go one of two ways with the scene framing, each with its own qualities. In one instance I was hanging around waiting for my go again, as several other players all had their scenes, which I wasn’t invloved in and found hard to get “involved” as a player. With no in-character chat or story to communicate with others round the table in the mean time, it relied on my being interested in everyone else’s story an an observer, which (for me personally) was not really what I wanted. In this instance, I was allowed a big break, so I was happy with each scene I played to be big and meaty, as I was ready for action. The trouble as I say though, was too much de facto down time in between scenes.

The other situation, is everyone (or most folk) are involved in every scene and each scene is full-on. But here the scenes seem to be mostly constructed by committee and lose punch because various options are touted and eventually you agree on a situation, but it feels (to me) manufactured and there is no surprise or main reveal. Possibly I’ve not played enough (varied) games to get a feel for how this can work.

I’d be interested to hear what it is you’re putting in to Hot War that will give it the long term appeal. Do the characters develop? Or is it just the story? I found PTA odd in that you could change your character between episodes, but not add to it (something has to be replaced, for something new to be included). I found this particularly odd because Detective Mackey’s character has a lot more to it at the end of series one, than the beginning. But then PTA is more about the consensual story telling than the gaming bit.

What have you got in Hot War that’s going to make people come back for more, week on week?

I’ve got an idea floating round for A Day In The Life Of type scenario. It would probably require set pieces (scenes). I’d like to think you could then do Another Day In The Life Of, but I’m struggling to conceptualise how to make the short version punchy, but not cram it so full that there’s nothing left to figure out the next session. I’m thinking I may have to go adversarial with participants vying against one another, but worried about not having an End Game to decide who Won, while still maintaining people’s interest if its just going to be a constant ebb and flow of one-upmanship. The other way to do it is have a GM/facilitator and have everyone play against the banker, so to speak. (Or have a player-to-your-left plays your Nemesis type thing). I’ll try to get some more thoughts down on paper and get a draft up at some point.

I think you're right too Matt, there's definitely a thought process shift I need to get my head round, which I'm trying to do through AP and asking questions here. It may be that a lot of things are simply not for me. But I want to have a good hard look all the same.

Gaz

For many years I used to view the success of a campaign by the length of a campaign. The longer the campaign was, the better the campaign was. If a long campaign came to a definite conclusion, then it was an excellent campaign. Thats how I viewed things for many years.

Strangely the game that changed my view on this was Buffy. Because we had decided that the game would run for 10 sessions as a season, the game was not particularly long but it had a massive momentum and structure to it. I knew that in Weeks 1 and 2 I had to introduce the characters and the core concepts, in weeks 5 and 6 I would be running a double-headed 'sweeps weeks' episode and by Week 9 I had better be building to a cliffhanger crescendo!

What went hand in hand with this structure was a realisation that I only had a certain amount of time to do things in and therefore something had to give - and the stuff that gave was the chaff, the legacy flotsam and jetsom of so many years gaming. The pointless shopping and travelling scenes. If the action at the table wasn't directly addressing a character's arc or the story arc as a whole it had no purpose in the game. Now, don't get me wrong - that didn't mean that we didn't have talking heads moments between two characters or a character and a NPC but they had a purpose, rather than being there to build abstract character. Character development and plot at the same time.

Since then I am more than happy to run and play in shorter games and consider them successful. Quality not quantity.

So here's the question that has come up in my mind because of this. It might sound a little spikey but it isn't meant to be:

How many 'long' games are only 'long' because they have a load of filler like wandering monsters, travelling with camps and watches each night (when you know you are going to get to the destination) and extensive shopping expeditions to buy up minutae of equipment? How much shorter would they have been if this stuff had been taken out? Look at it like a sort of 'Ball in Play' meter on Sky Footy? Its a 90 minute match but the ball might only be in play for 65 - the other 25 are shopping trips and wandering monsters!!

Neil

ps. Oh yes - and in my belief a good player will build a scene that might not include the other characters but its so vital to the story and so entertaining to watch that you will be glued to the table to find out what is happening. Thats the trick for me to all of this shared narrative business. Ben's pseudo-Victoriana horror PTA game does this really well. Blink and you will miss something vital!

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

Have you listened to some of the session recordings on Sons of Kryos and elsewhere? Those are really useful in seeing how some of these games should run.

Some things spring out from your descriptions though.

You mentioning that you were silent during other folks "goes" and not feeling involved. That often means the meta-chatter is absent, so everybody at the table isn't saying "hey, wouldn't it be cool if..." while you're playing and the people with authority are accepting or rejecting those suggestions as you go. Often this'll be because engagement in other character's positions isn't there. That is, you're only involved with what happens to "my guy" rather than all of the other "my guys" as well.

You also mentioned lack of surprise or reveal. That may point to framing scenes in a way not suited to the game. I've seen this in PTA with folks who aren't used non-indie games. They tried to frame scenes as a GM would, with a tactical challenge or a mystery to be solved. But for PTA what you want is a thematic choice that could shift the story in a totally different direction. It's those shifts that should be revealing, they're essentially what play is about for that game.

Do either of those ring true?

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Yes, absolutely. I was just using it as an example. Mind you, in that particular game series, it more or less boiled down to the same thing :( This was old-school stuff. It does highlight another point though: what people think is important will vary from group to group.

Ash

The reason I asked, is your post seemed disconnected from the games we're talking about and I wanted to make sure we're all on the same page.

We're not talking about ignoring the character pieces at all, but a set of game processes that make the entire game fiction an externalisation of internal character development.

In such games there's no need for those shopping trips or diversions to show us character depth, because every scene is about showing that character depth. In fact, that's the whole point of play.

That externalising the internal is a problematic leap for some folks.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

There is a problem that isn't necessarily related to the length of the game, but number of the types of scenes a character goes through. In longer games there's a tendancy to (for example) start feeling like you kinda want your character to have a character development scene soon, and then eventually take the opportunities afforded by the bland time-filler scenes to grab some serious character interaction, thus injecting granularity and character development simply by showing them in a different light. Shorter games just don't have the time for that type of mental wandering, so it has to be built in instead, and thus if someone has written a game where certain types of scenes don't come to the fore very easily, they often don't happen.

Again, this is just an example of sorts of scenes that can be lacking. You can equally have games which are so very very personality-talky that no-one ever gets to have a decent action scene, so when the game next wanders a bit the players yell "Bar Fight!" and start beating the snot out of the locals.

I can see, therefore, why Malcolm likes Contenders so much, with its very much built in contrasting scene types for the characters to work through. Its a shame I never got into the boxing film genre much. Now, who's up for a game of Top Gun, Contenders-style?

Shevaun

It is great, isn't it? It's like distilled win, lol.

In all seriousness, though. I think the reason many indie games have a short shelf life is that their concept doesn't sustain a campaign. Cold City is a good example, there's the basis there for a great ongoing campaign but playing the game as is, with the PC's playing off against each other, it has a definte endgame and there's only so long you can play that type of game.

I take some of the points about shared scene-building games. The potential is very much there for a game to lose focus. Even with a strong guiding hand to keep everything on track their reliance on player improv can lead games to become muddled or meander.

I enjoy collaberative world building that involves the PC's where it's organic. I'm less keen on structured world building. Where you have a list of cookie cutter questions from the GM you have to answer and that they use to build the world, ie -

Describe a town on the map
Descrbe an important historical event
Describe a member of the royal family
Describe your characters best friend
Descrive your characters biggest enemy

and so on.

I like to have to freedom to grow and build both my PC and the game world as and when I have good ideas and when I think I've got something relevent. I'm not so keen at being forced into world building.

To me the irony is that there are loads of indie games out there that support exactly the kind of play Gaz is talking about - Swansong, A|state and Questers for example. But they don't get the press or attention of the short form games.

Which leads to the myth all/most indie games are X. They're not but you're not playing the ones that are Y!

+++
JoE
+++

Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

There was a thread on Story games a little while ago (which i can't find now) about how you could have moments of quiet or reflection in a game driven by conflict and aggressive scene framing, and I think this is a similar issue.

I think Ash is asking for the pauses between the beats, the quiet asides, side quests, and silent scenes that you need to calm the headlong crescendo of ever increasing action driving towards a goal. A good story, or movie, knows when to back off from the action, ramp down the intensity for a bit before it builds back off again, rather like the white space around a picture (the mount in the frame) is an important part in setting off the picture itself.

Some games, or maybe play structures, seem almost allergic to such scenes. My (single) experience of BE was like that, it is all focussed towards a quick rush to the final conflict of an exchange, using the limited scene budget to make sure you are under pressure and constantly ramping up the excitement level (I didn't find that exciting, but that's a different matter). Most games are not so strict in enforcing that, but people can play that way anyway.

I contrast that with In a Wicked Age's advice to circle a conflict, or even avoid it totally, and to concentrate on the story instead, and that certainly helps to let you play the pauses, but it is still improvised and thrown together, without the loving world construction that I think gives the detail gaz wants.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

I think I'd be correct in saying though, that neither would a shopping trip or campfire chat be an invalid means of portraying that character depth. I think it's important, in certain genres and styles of play, to see how characters kick back and relax. Right?

*EDIT* Forgot to mention as a PS, David is right on the button there. You can't be engaged in furious conflict all the time, it would soon grow wearing. I also wonder sometimes if an overly-structured approach, in which each and every scene has careful rules attached to it, might also give a perception of more work for the players when it's meant to lend structure. This is something that would only be answered by careful testing and research though.

Ash

One of the problems is that there is no substitute for actual play. To see what you guys are talking about clearly, I think I need to see it done (the perennial problem), so how do we write that information down in a new game so that its clearly understood (without the need to sit down with the writer to understand what goes on)? Tough one.

I’ve got Contenders lined up to see how that does things. I think I am guilty of the “rushing into conflict” thing when I ran PTA, but then when I’d played a game, it seemed to be all about the conflict really (whether social, mental or physical). We’re also trying BW as opposed to BE, so that might provide some insight too.

Just to be clear, by longer games, I’m looking at say 8-12 weeks max really. I haven’t played nine months to a year of something for over a decade – with games like that I think you need supplemental materials to keep the momentum anyway, but that’s an aside.

Okay guys, thanks for your responses. I’ll do some more ground work and have a think.

Cool. Since Gaz started the thread, let's finish it here then.

If you want to continue discussing this, start a new thread around your own followon query. I really encourage people to do so, as there are issues wrapped up in this discussion that if they click, suddenly a lot of what we talk about here will make a lot more sense.

-Matt

Realms Publishing