The Social Contract and Magic Circle.
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- čas přidán 23. 05. 2024
- In Episode 113 Glenn has been considering what we mean by the social contract in tabletop games. Quite a lot actually. When we play games we need to understand and agree to what degree we expect the game to offer us different social relationships and perspectives, but they very rarely actually tell us.
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I snorted my tea with Glenn stating: "this is how you can have fun with my fun stick"...
Its best to explain it to people before you start, to avoid disappointment.
9:00 I think the correlation, at least near the RPG end, comes from comfort and safety. Even for RPG's which aren't emotionally intensive you still need to interact with the other players as though you have some specific, fictional relationship which does require some mutual understanding.
I think that's part of the correlation certainly, I'm not currently certain that its part of the causation. I know of plenty of co-op euros and boardgames that require players to interact based on an in-game relationship, "...And then we held hands." is a good example, without the same issue. I think a lot of it is about how much you can spoilsport the game by just putting in the minimum required rules interaction and nothing more. Generally in boardgames so long as you play to the rules you can be a total robot and the other person can be having fun, while in RPGs you need to do something "extra" to make the game work, things that even when they're mentioned in the rules don't have their own rules, despite being half the game.
I have long erred on the narrative/aesthetic side of the schism, and recently I think I discovered why that might be the case. I convinced a friend to try minis games, and she got into frostgrave and Necromunda and she played those very narratively, or in a way that is transformative to her perspective. She then convinced me to play the Pokemon TCG. I’ve never cared much for the lore or look of Pokemon, but I decided to return the favour and give it a try. I enjoyed the game, so I built a deck or two and I play it now. But I pretty much play it exclusively for the mechanics. I don’t know who the characters are and I don’t like most of the monsters. So I just build a deck with rules I like, which is completely unlike how I approach minis gaming. Then I thought back on the games I enjoyed approaching more competitively, and they tend to be the ones that I am less invested in narratively or aesthetically. I am luke-warm to the lore and I approach infinity, I do so in a more clinical, socially transformative fashion.
That is utterly different to how I am with warhammer. I am very invested in the setting and aesthetics of 40K, so when I build armies I feel compelled to build them for narrative and aesthetic reasons, regardless of their efficacy on the tabletop.
I think that is why I am drawn to games like hobgoblin. It enables players nearly endless aesthetics and narrative expression, while allowing players to let those units act on the table in a way that resonates with the player’s imagination, while simultaneously being effective on the tabletop. Other games that fall into that camp are Song of Blades and Heroes, Fistful of Lead and Xenos Rampant.
I agree, I think its about leaving space in the right areas and then guiding players around that space. One thing I think Gaslands and Hobgoblin have is a clear sense of what sort of game they expect to be and where you're going to be given space to create your own fun VS where you're going to be expected to come together in a tightly written set of rules. I think its actually an area where GW do quite well.
I started writing a long comment but realised that it was just a long list of all the things i agreed with you about and didn't really add anything.
I will just say say that it's kinda interesting how frostgrave invoices a collaboration of the players in agreeing have their miniatures conflict and not collaborate, although it might lead to generally better outcomes by the success measures of the game to just work together.
I feel like I would consider this a design failure if it were my game. So i should probably shift my perspective there, i don't know. My current feeling is that the rules should probably reward people for engaging, rather than simply telling them that that is what they ought to do.
Another benefit of the conflict being encoded into the success conditions, is that you can then introduce variety by changing those conditions.
It is strange that on the face of it there's no reason for players to ever fight each other in Frostgrave, but its very much a game based on players buying into its intentions.