Noisms at Monsters and Manuals has written a comparison of gaming systems with political theories, dichotomized into “top-down” games (D&D 3rd Edition) and thinkers (Marx) and “bottom-up” games (OD&D) and thinkers (Hayek). Noisms makes it clear what side he falls on (he’s a “bottom-upper,” oo-er), which he characterizes as “the right” (vs. “the wrong”), but even if you swap sides or dispute the particular product placement (I don’t believe Orwell is a bottom-upper, and others dispute Marx in the top-down category), the idea is interesting and has some bearing on a few common topics in the role-playing world. Noisms isn’t clear in the post about what this top-down vs. bottom-up distinction means, but in comments he adds:
The phrase “bottom-up” as I use it here doesn’t refer to the position of the agents of change on the social scale. It refers to the nature of the social change (i.e. not planned, emergent, incremental, intuitive)
which seems like a reasonable way of simplifying the political theories and the games.
I think in his post though, Noisms is ignoring the importance of structure and planning for achieving emergent or bottom-up change. I think this applies equally well to game systems, and I think a bit of new left anarchist debate (genuine bottom-upping, not the crypto-statism of libertarians like Hayek) can help to inform what I mean.
In essence, “emergent” social change that occurs genuinely without structure or within a limited set of rules leads to a type of tyranny; an unstructured and intuitive game system, without a reasonable extent of rules and systems, leads to a type of tyranny as well.
The Tyranny of Structurelessness
Back in the 1970s the feminist Jo Freeman wrote a little pamphlet called The Tyranny of Structurelessness, in which she described the problems anarchist and left-wing feminist groups faced in trying to do organized political activism from a framework of having no organization or rules. The key phrase in that pamphlet that critiques both the political theory of unplanned emergent change, and (implicitly) the gamer’s ideal of unplanned and intuitive play, is this:
A ‘laissez-faire’ group is about as realistic as a ‘laissez-faire’ society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. This hegemony can easily be established because the idea of ‘structurelessness’ does not prevent the formation of informal structures, but only formal ones. Similarly, ‘laissez-faire’ philosophy did not prevent the economically powerful from establishing control over wages, prices and distribution of goods; it only prevented the government from doing so.
In political systems we temper these effects by putting strict rules on how much can be achieved through individual contracts. You can’t sell yourself into slavery, there are strict rules about inheriting debts, etc. We further, in the modern world, introduce laws about manufacturing and employment processes – such as clean air laws and equal opportunity laws – because it is very very obvious (from long and painful experience) that without these kinds of structures, the powerful ride roughshod over the weak. Without these systems in place, society goes to the rich, the socially connected and the nastiest people, rather than to those who strive. This is the essence of most rational critiques of laissez-faire capitalism and systems of dispute based entirely on property rights and contract law. Creating a blank space for “intuitive” change opens up the social space to being captured, not by the most intuitive in society, but by those with the most power to act on whatever intuitions they do have.
In game terms this difference is summarized by Barking Alien in comments at the original post:
you get games in which the designers/creators try to govern play as much as they possibly can by coming up with a system that can cover many eventualities, and games in which the designers do not do so in favour of devolving the power to arbitrate, as much as possible, to individual DMs/game groups
What this means in practice is that in-game, the power and benefits accrue to the PCs whose players have most sway over the GM. And, given the fractured and socially backward nature of nerd social interactions, this generally means the most socially manipulative, or those with the loudest voices. It does not mean the most creative people, though it may mean this in a well-run group with a judicious and skilled GM. Even then, though, it rewards a particular creative impulse – the desire to express your clear plans in a way that influences the world. But there’s another type of creative impulse common amongst gamers, which is to enjoy the unfolding of the world through your actions even though you are not yourself capable of expressing your aims well. This type of person is stymied by an unstructured system of arbitration.They may be very good at describing what happens to their PC after the event, but not good at suggesting what they do before the event.
In short, this type of gaming rewards the expressive, not the creative. And it is especially vulnerable to exploitation by manipulative and bullying players, who are actually very common.
A good summary might be that, under one system the player suggests an action and then bargains the cost with the GM and/or players. Under the other system, the player suggests an action and then bargains the cost with the GM through reference to a well-structured system of action resolution. The former system rewards[1] good negotiators, while the latter rewards good ideas – or even, just rewards participation, which is what we want from a game.
The main way that this structure is reflected in practice is through the skill system and the magic system. An extensive, well-designed and well-described skill system gives the GM an excellent framework within which to handle novel tasks, to set the difficulty and to distinguish PC roles. And in terms of game enjoyment, the main thing this system prevents is a situation in which a single player gets to do everything, because they’re good at arbitrating with the GM over every single task. In open, purely “bottom-up” systems, the socially confident player is able to seize many fields of action for themself, such as trap-finding, diplomacy, fighting, information gathering, etc. while the shyer or less expressive players stand by and wait for the only time when they can fit their actions to a structure – combat. But once you throw a skill structure onto the PCs, suddenly the player loses the power to do some of these things well, and other players pick it up. Those other players may not express their actions so well, but they get to be a part of the group.
This is particularly noticeable in OD&D, which is one of the few old school games not to have a skill system of any kind. It seems to me that the OSR is full of comments and posts by people who exalt this ability to express actions and negotiate them with the GM over the desire to be involved effectively in a group (in the sense that I mean it above), and I don’t think this is a coincidence.
Essentially in these kinds of games, social ability is like temporal power in the real world, and the lack of structure in the game rewards social ability just as it rewards temporal power in real life. But this social ability doesn’t make you a better person, just a louder one, and shy or ineloquent people should be able to enjoy these games too. I think it was in response to those peoples’ lack of enjoyment of the game that the later systems incorporated much more extensive structure.
The Tyranny of Tyranny
The classic response to Jo Freeman’s article was the pamphlet The Tyranny of Tyranny, by Cathy Levine, that reads like a bit of a gender-essentialist screed (oh, radical feminism, how you have failed women…) and argues, essentially, that structurelessness is a cultural alternative to existing ways of thinking, and that small groups coming together in voluntary association without a movement behind them can both protect themselves from exploitation and generate new (revolutionary) social change. The key quote relevant to gaming would be this:
What we definitely don’t need is more structures and rules, providing us with easy answers, pre-fab alternatives and no room in which to create our own way of life. What is threatening the female Left and the other branches even more, is the ‘tyranny of tyranny’, which has prevented us from relating to individuals, or from creating organisations in ways that do not obliterate individuality with prescribed roles, or from liberating us from capitalist structure
Dropping all the politically specific language here, we find a claim that less rules governing interaction will give more freedom to individuals to create new social organizations and new ideas.
In game terms we see this with the common complaints about D&D 3rd edition, with its extensive feats and skills and every situation covered by a rule, in which people stop thinking about what they want to do and start worrying about what they can do. There is also a strong risk of gaming the rules when they’re at this level, and also of a type of regulatory capture – that if you can get the ear of the GM you can bend the rules in ways that others haven’t, and this will leave you significantly more powerful or capable than everyone else. I think in fact every GM in a system like Rolemaster or D&D 3rd edition has seen this happen – it happened to me in 2nd edition AD&D, for sure. Also, gaming under these rules systems includes a lot of “red tape” in the form of rules checking, character development, etc. that can be seen as a hidden cost or regulatory burden stifling creativity. This regulatory capture and red tape is exactly a common complaint libertarians make against organized social structures, which brings us full circle to Noisms’ synthesis of Hayek and OD&D.
The Balanced Approach: Social Democracy of Gaming
Of course, the most effective model we have for social organization in the western world is social democracy, which protects people from the worst excesses of laissez-faire society while protecting peoples’ freedom of action. Such systems are commonly misconstrued by libertarians as “central planning” or “socialism” (see e.g. Glenn Beck on healthcare), but they’re so far from such a scheme that the comparison is silly. In game terms I think the analogy is with rules-light skill systems, flexible combat and magic systems, and an immediate reward system for creative self-expression (stunting) that isn’t essential for game satisfaction. This rewards all the different social types at the table and guards against excessive effects of bullying and social manipulation without falling victim to regulatory capture or high costs.
In my view the games that best fit this model of a social democracy of gaming are probably the three versions of Warhammer (but especially the third), Exalted, the Japanese game Double Cross 3, my version of the d20 system (or in fact any version that isn’t loaded down with D&D’s heritage), and maybe (? I can’t recall clearly ?) Shadowrun. Original D&D is too unstructured to fit this description, and D&D 3rd edition has piled a huge edifice onto an otherwise quite functional system, so that it carries a high cost in-game and is vulnerable to rules manipulation. I think Rolemaster can meet my conditions for “social democratic gaming” if it’s run by a good GM with a lot of experience, but usually it’s the ultimate communist game – a good idea in theory but it doesn’t work in practice[2].
I think a lot of people who laud earlier versions of D&D are ignoring the often quite toxic social dynamics that sprang up in early gaming groups, and don’t care about the game being available to the shy or the socially inexpressive. I think that just as good GMing has to take into account the social dynamics at the table, good game design has to take into account the many ways the game design can reward or discourage certain types of personality type from playing. Being a good social democrat, I’m all in favour of equality, and I think the game should be available to as many different types of personality as possible, so I think we should eschew strong ideological brands like Marxism or libertarianism, and instead focus on practical, simple systems for enabling everyone to get along…
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fn1: by “rewards” here we mean, “provides a chance to act and have your actions resolved in a way that you can have faith in,” not “gets to succeed at the action”
fn: I don’t actually believe this about communism, but I think it’s an excellent phrase.
January 14, 2011 at 12:10 pm
I cannot tell you how much I love the fact that you are a big enough nerd to combine 70s radical pamphlet politics (I’ve been talking about the Tyranny of Structurelessness to people for over 10 years now) and RPGs.
I have a friend who is a player in games I’ve run and he’s a rules lawyer. In fact it’s his main enjoyment of the game I think. So he likes playing DnD3e. As a GM it used to drive me up the way but he’s also a) my best friend and b) a great player in lots of other ways. So to a degree, a gaming of the system is ok if that’s a part of the groups enjoyment.
In terms of the Social Democratic model of RPGs, do games like Savage Worlds fit? Or Unisystem? Or FATE? What about WoD?
January 14, 2011 at 1:30 pm
I don’t think it shows my nerdishness so much as my age, Nick, and it’s not something we should harp on about too much now… it is a good little pamphlet though, and much superior to the response, whose best part is the piss-taking title (I do love that). Ah the joys of internecine squabbling…
Regarding rules lawyers, if there were less nerds in the gaming scene who were happy to nitpick at stupid and overdone rules systems, game systems would have advanced further and faster than they did, I think. Our little scene is stocked with people who think that opening a spreadsheet to make your PC is fun, and that really retards good design practice. But since everyone buying the games is happy either way, it all works out in the end.
I haven’t played any of the systems you mention (Yes it’s true, I’ve never touched World of Darkness) though I hear WoD is the same as Exalted (??) so maybe it is “social democratic.” The others I’ll leave to you to judge – any opinions?
January 14, 2011 at 6:38 pm
“The former system rewards[1] good negotiators, while the latter rewards good ideas – or even, just rewards participation, which is what we want from a game.”
You’re assuming your desire is universal. Why not have a game where better negotiation is rewarded? It’s basically how Diplomacy works. And to put it more bluntly, it’s not wrongbadfun.
“In open, purely “bottom-up” systems, the socially confident player is able to seize many fields of action for themself, such as trap-finding, diplomacy, fighting, information gathering, etc. while the shyer or less expressive players stand by and wait for the only time when they can fit their actions to a structure – combat.”
What are you talking about? Being trapped into just combat is classic fighter behaviour in every edition of D&D, especially ones with skill points and cross-class skills governing social interactions. Wizards have it even worse for social settings with the range of skills they need to cover for their basic role and the anaemic skill point allocation (though magic allows them to branch out to non-social skill based arenas). Basically this means that in a skill based system you should play a rogue and in a description/thought based system you should be one.
” and an immediate reward system for creative self-expression (stunting)”
Interestingly, despite your repeated comments that indicate you prefer systems where the better talker gets advantages through gaining the GMs ear, you like stunting, which is a formalised way of getting the GMs ear to gain bonus dice.
I like stunting, but I can’t claim it doesn’t provide an unbalanced advantage to the loquacious. I just accept it as I like more vivid scenes with player participation.
World of Darkness uses a similar dice mechanic with a powers based rule exception (like feats in D&D or Charms in Exalted), but it suffers from a poorly defined rule set that leads to clever uses of minor powers being overpowering because there is no system in place to resist them. Basically it becomes fairly GM interpreted (bottom-uppish in Noism’s terminology)
January 14, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Paul, if I don’t assume my desire is universal, the internet will break. More seriously: I don’t think it’s bad that a game rewards better negotiation, I’m just pointing out that this is what happens and it doesn’t suit everyone (at least, this is what I’m supposed to be pointing out). My personal opinion is that games which do this are less inclusive than games that reward participation, especially since the negotiation here is often with a socially challenged, ego-stunted GM.
Your next point,
is very true and an example of why D&D is and always was slightly broken. D&D 3rd edition restricts fighter choice through those skill tests, but original D&D makes the range of choices available to the person best able to get the GM’s attention. The Fighter is a classic example – if you’re shy, not good at thinking on your feet, not able to press your point well in a large group, your Fighter will be a meatshield. But if you’re witty, quick-thinking, and persuasive, your fighter will also be a rogue. You get two classes for the price of one. And with the rewards come power. And I don’t think the game should be designed in such a way that the shy, or the non-domineering, can’t enjoy it. I think Noisms’ point is that D&D 3rd ed goes the opposite direction, and punishes the gregarious and socially pushy through a punitive skill system, and I think he’s got a point (as have you). There should be some middle ground, which is why I like stunting – essentially your ability to do the action is limited by the design decisions, but if you’ve got gaming flair you can partially escape those decisions. It adds risk and fun without enabling a gregarious player to push a shy player out of their niche.
This is the fundamental goodness of skill systems – they give players the ability to do stuff they’re pig ignorant of in real life, without having to bullshit the GM to do it. As a trained kickboxer I’m pretty confident that if most of my players actually had to describe their combat actions and have me assign a difficulty, they’d be shown up pretty quickly as useless fighters and bullshit artists. I think that is an across-the-board problem, and all the players out there who think that they can negotiate with the GM about trap-disabling, chasm-leaping, princess-charming, magic research and information-gathering and get a fair result are kidding themselves. This style of rules turns the game into an extended bullshit session[1], which at any one time is embarrassing for the one person in the room who actually knows something about the topic in question. And usually, the person who is best able to get the GM by the balls, and/or browbeat him/her, is the most likely to benefit in those bullshit sessions.
Of course, the fundamental badness of skill systems (as we saw in Feng Shui) is that when they’re shit they make the game really hard to enjoy. Feng Shui without the stunting would have been a big pile of Flung Shit.
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fn1: not that I’d know anything about that
January 15, 2011 at 1:28 pm
I think the combination of the two is nerdy, not knowing about the pamphlet. And I mean it as high praise!
Out of interest, what is your version of d20 like?
January 15, 2011 at 2:12 pm
My version of d20 is basically an attempt to convert the whole thing to a skill-based mechanic, including the saving throws and attack rolls and spell-casting, and even hit points. It kind of worked, but kind of didn’t. A second iteration would work. The basic justification is here, the skill system here and the combat here. You can find other details by searching in the category “Reconfiguring AD&D” in the sidebar.
I think d20 is good as a basic engine (it’s like Rolemaster with all the complexity stripped out) and just needs a little clearer relationship between saves, combat, spells and skills; and the hitpoint system needs revising. My system tried to do that and mostly worked, though it had quite a few problems of power imbalance (which always come into home-brews, i reckon).
January 16, 2011 at 5:02 pm
“My personal opinion is that games which do this are less inclusive than games that reward participation, especially since the negotiation here is often with a socially challenged, ego-stunted GM.”
I can understand your opinion here, but I think you’re creating a false dichotomy between the two options when the discussion should be laying out the spectrum that exists and explaining how to choose points along that range [1]. Logically the best position here is one that is negotiated and agreed by the group or one that Takes a Third Option ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption ).
“all the players out there who think that they can negotiate with the GM about trap-disabling, chasm-leaping, princess-charming, magic research and information-gathering and get a fair result are kidding themselves”
This doesn’t even require a bad GM, it just takes a difference of opinion. Remember in Feng Shui the trouble we had understanding some parts of the plot just because our understanding of the described scene and the GMs was different? This problem is heightened further when its “But you didn’t check under the rocks for traps”. On the other hand old school D&D favoured a thorough approach to room description with an expectation that things that weren’t described weren’t there – so “The bad guy jumps from behind the curtain and kills you” was frequently met by “There wasn’t any curtains there!” from the group [2].
“had quite a few problems of power imbalance”
In fairness I don’t think that’s a homebrew problem, I think it’s a real life problem that games try to break away from and fail. “So you mean that studying law/commerce opens a lot more job options than smoking cannabis for 5 years? That’s unfair! They both take 5 years!” Similarly in games there tends to be optimal places to “be” in game. For my preference, games should just aspire to have a “rock, scissors, paper” approach that prevents a One True Build problem emerging. Every skill/power set should be able to slaughter at least one other skill/power set.
[1] Interestingly, in the debate between you and Noisms that actually moves you out from being a social democracy into being left wing politics and me being the social democrat. Take that political spectrum!
[2] Of course this moves the popularity/power to the group instead, which is just a different, not better mechanic, but as I said negotiation and group agreement is the key here.
January 16, 2011 at 7:35 pm
These are all good points. I was trying to lay out the social democratic analogy as the set of other points on the spectrum, btw, as I think social democracy is quite a broad church and allows a lot of diversity of approaches.
I agree about power balance being over-rated, and in my games tend to prefer wizards to be more powerful than fighters if given preparation time, etc. This is how Fritz Leiber would have it too, I think. I think power imbalance is much less serious a problem than participation imbalance, where some players can do anything they want and some can do nothing, and I think that’s a common problem in games where player negotiation/loquacity determines a significant portion of ability or outcome. For all the whining and carrying on about D&D 4 being just a computer game, dividing the character classes into clear roles makes it a lot easier for GMs to design adventures and encounters where everyone gets a go.
January 20, 2011 at 11:03 am
“These are all good points. I was trying to lay out the social democratic analogy as the set of other points on the spectrum, btw, as I think social democracy is quite a broad church and allows a lot of diversity of approaches.”
Hmm, I hear your point, but I think I’m going to have to endorse the “I’m a social democrat, you’re a facist/communist madman.”
Thanks Fox News!
“I think power imbalance is much less serious a problem than participation imbalance,”
I agree this is the core problem in socia games (not just RPGs). But I think that the participation imbalance is always linked to how the people in the group behave. I’m sure you’ve gamed with a drunk loud opinioned idiot who always had to have the last word on any plan. And playing the party healer doesn’t prevent the player from taking up significant amounts of the words said in the group.
Simulateously quiet members of a group can prefer to not have to do the planning. So the key ingredient has to be ensuring that everyone can participate in the intra-party discussions (which are likely to be a large part of the total play time) and that they get a chance to contribute to the level they want to.
January 20, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Managing intra-party discussions is a task no rules can fix – it requires the GM to have certain skills I think a lot of people lack. But it’s important that the people who don’t want to contribute to the planning (because of their shy personality type) be able to contribute something to the game itself, and I think a well-designed system enables that. Otherwise they sit out the planning (or get yelled over during the planning) and then miss the action too. Which inevitably drives them away from the game (and I’ve seen this a lot).
January 20, 2011 at 6:52 pm
I agree. Having a system that allows a range of actions and gives a structure to encourage shy people is very important. But in this case having a lot of combat (for shy fighters) or lots of traps (for shy rogues) is what’s important. And then the DM needs to have that activity happen, cause a system that’s great for combat, but has no fights is just as bad for shy people who play fighters.
So again, it’s the group and the DM. I agree it’s a skill I didn’t have why young, but I think it’s something games can help people develop.