The tickets for VGL @ Singapore were on sales at SISTIC since March, but there weren’t really marketing and promotion till May, which I found strange. The event was organised in conjunction with the CG Overdrive, and when the tickets are out (during the early bird period), there was no announcements, no updates on both the official VGL and CG Overdrive website. It was frustrating until a friend, who often go to such concerts, helped me to locate the page at SISTIC where I could book the tickets. Only later then there is a site called VGL-SEA (VGL for Southeast Asia?) launched. Even for the official site for this concert, there are no previews, just a site hastily put together. Posters for VGL only sprang up around the IT hub of the city, only in May. Isn’t that a bit too short a period for marketing effort?

Also considering that in May there was a Final Fantasy concert at the Esplanade and the tickets were completely wiped cleaned by late March. Considering that VGL coming to Singapore is such a rare opportunity, shouldn’t the marketing efforts be ramped up a bit? Marketing +0 (Medicore).

Sound Test

Marketing, of course, is just something that happens before the event. The real meat is during the show itself. So how does it stands? Let’s talk about the entire performance first. The symphony is the NUS Symphony. Sadly, some people I knew were put off by that as it is not a “full-fledge symphony”, and the price tag (SGD 55 just for the lowest tier ticket) just put them off. So did the NUS Symphony performed well?

I don’t know.

You see, there was a bit of problem with the mixing at the indoor stadium. The first piece, Metal Gear Solid 2 Opening Theme feels a bit underwhelming. There is no sense of listening to a live performance. It was like, listening to a recording of the performance itself. Of course, it is performed live, but something seems to be lacking in recreating the “live atmosphere”. My friend pointed out that the brass was too weak.

Later, they compensate (or attempt to try to? Or I guess they did try) by boosting the volume. That backfires, I guess. To me, the volins, strings and trumpet, when they reach high pitch, are especially jarring on the ear. When I listen to a piece of music, I like to follow the subtle things beside the main instrument playing on the foreground – things like the strings, the brass and motif. However, they were all clashing with each other. It’s hard to pick out the strings when something else is overpowering it. This I feel, is not the Symphony’s fault, but rather a mixing problem. I would really suggest VGL looks into acoustics next time for their next performance at Singapore.

While the NUS Symphony definitely is a notch lower when compared to the Singapore Symphonic Orchestra or the Eminence Ensemble, one thing for sure is that they tried their darn best. The pieces when the acoustic problem cleared up for a while (due to the virtue of the composition, I guess) are the Snake Eater theme and Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross piece. Those are quieter pieces and they do literally suck you in. It also helps that for the second part of the show, there were strong players, such as the composers themselves. Kudos to the lead violinist for playing the Chrono Cross piece.

The vocals, from the NUS Choir, are well done though. They do sound exactly like what I would imagine them to be, but they seems to be lacking in numbers for a really bombistatic performance. The music seems to be crowding them out.

Performance +1 (Average), +2 (Fair) for the second part
Mixing -1 (Terrible)

Comparison

The only other concert I have been to is Passion, by Eminence Ensemble and I afraid that VGL @ Singapore, in terms of performance, lags behind Eminence. Then again, all the strong players from the Ensemble were presented and they were a professional one. However, one sore sticking point is that the ticket for the event is a lot more cheaper (yes, Singaporeans are picky about pricing). Maybe it’s wrong of me to compare the two, since Passion was a quartet event, more close-up and intimate whereas VGL is a large scale one.

I won’t comment on the light shows and the multimedia display. Perhaps I am just not used to large scale concert. For me, I prefer a quieter one where one could focus entirely on the music. The lights sometime just hit full into my eyes and I have to close it. Perhaps the other concert-goers are more used to such events, so I’ll let this pass.

But though – showing photos of cosplay during the rendition of One Winged Angel doesn’t struck me as a good idea. Perhaps I am too rigid or some such. I rather they ask for permission to put on more fantastic fan art. (Maybe it’s just because I am not a fan of cosplay?)

Research, Research, Research

Singapore is between the East and the West, though largely put, people tend to prefer the East (Japan) when it comes to music. There was someone who I would dub “Final Fantasy 7 Fan of the Year” when he kept shouting out for One Winged Angel. That the reception for Chrono Cross, Castlevania and other FF7 pieces way outweight any other pieces.

For example, it was mentioned that Metroid is one of the most requested piece ever. The thing is, I doubt Metroid is that big in Singapore. Picking Halo, World of Warcraft and Diablo are the pieces (and checking out the audience’s response) that resonated more with the audience.

I would humbly suggest that VGL, if they are to return to Singapore, to leave out the Tron segment.

I am sure going out on a limb for this, but I think VGL ought to pick music that are good instead of just famous. How many time have we heard One Winged Angel, anyway? Recently, there are many games with good music (Shadow Hearts, Ace Combat series, Okami) but are not famous. Heck, there are many classic with great music which are really underpresented (Lufia, Final Doom, Tyrian, Quest for Glory, Ultima). Secondly, I would also suggest re-arrangement to a certain extent. The front part of the show seems to be straight covers, and adding in that somehow the playing sounds recorded, I find myself drifting off to boredom-land.

All in all, I have a fun time, however I have to say it doesn’t measured up to Passion by Eminence Ensemble.

Meta Plots of Antiquity

It comes from a very old book which I read so I couldn’t really remember the title, but a lot of board games out there have meta-plots built into them. Chess has one – and a reading on the meanings of the pieces in both proto-chess, International Chess and Chinese Chess (and more besides) show that. There games where you are trying to get sheep together in one place, ascend to heaven and so on (here’s an interesting book on the subject).

Why a meta-plot for a board game? Maybe it gives a sense of purpose; it also gives some guidelines for design. Consider the rules for Chinese Chess:

• A cannon can only attack a piece if there is a piece between its target and itself
• The minister piece can not cross the river (as it has to take care of its country)
• The marshal (the ‘king’) cannot leave the palace

Where would one think of such rules if there isn’t a meta-plot? This has been discussed before for Don’t Rest your Head, Spirit of the Century, War of the Ring and Nobilis. So the firs purpose of the Meta Plot is to guide the game design.

How do play a game according to the Meta Plot

The Meta Plot does not just help the game designer; it also gives a frame of reference for the game player. Monopoly can be reduced to moving around a board where each location is marked from A to Z, and you have to give wooden cubes to the player owning the location. If he got triangles on that location, you have to give more cubes. If you run out of cubes, you lose.

But once you put in the Meta Plot of “you are a real estate developer who can owe plot of lands, buy buildings on them and you have to pay others if your piece land on their lands” – it does not only give the game some colour – it also set a context for them, giving them something to be fmailiar with. According to human-computer-interaction theory, when we come across something new, we usually try to understand it from our past references and experiences. If the game has a meta-plot that has some links to the player’s pre-conceptions, it would be easier for him to learn and enjoy it.

Back when the computer game designers are debating the issue of “plot and story” for games, many dismiss plots are just fluff, an excuse for violence, looting and blowing raspberries at the social norms of the days. Yet looking at what the meta-plot does for board games, I would say that we have a computer game industry because games have meta-plots inherently. And because of that meta-plot, we understand the game and put up with it.

What am I talking about? Let return to the day of the 1970s and 1980s, where computer graphics are mostly ASCII base and blockly sprites which doesn’t look like anything it is supposed to represent. Why do people put up with Space Invaders then? Because they know that they are shooting aliens. Who told them they are shooting aliens? The Meta Plot. In NetHack or Rogue, who on earth would be interested in find ! and $ scattered about what seems to be just nonsensical arrangement of | and _ and +? They are, because the Meta Plot tells them that they are an adventurer exploring a dungeon; the Meta Plot helps the player to stay put with all the unbearable madness of PC games back then (complicated keypresses, lack of GUI, using the keyboard for everything, graphics which does not look like anything it is supposed to be).

I do not know how accurate my opinions are for PC games, though. Feel free to discuss on this!

As for pen and paper roe-playing games, the meta-plot guides the player’s style of play and interaction. A game of Ars Magica and Dungeons and Dragons run differently and have different feel because of the Meta Plot. Both have powerful magic users. Both have the idea of a celestial, divine power. In Ars Magica, though, mages try to steer clear of the Divine because the angelic forces could crush any magus – in Dungeons and Dragons, that is not the case.

Ars Magica tells the magus players to steer clear of angering the Church. Dungeons and Dragons say mages and clerics are on the same playing field. Woe betide the player who thought he could march into a Church in Ars Magica because he can throw fireballs!

Hence the Meta Plot, as discussed before and in prior articles, gives the players what the setting expects of him, what can he do in the game and why he is someone noteworthy.

So the second purpose of the Meta Plot is to guide player’s decisions making.

Meta Plot and the Artefacts of the Game

By artefacts,  I do not mean “Ring of Protection +1″ or “Gauntlets of Giant Strength”. I am borrowing this term from management studies where artefacts is used to represent the physical manifestation of a group’s culture and norms (like how Google has gyms, rec rooms and swimming pools for its employees. Those are the artefacts of the company). Meta Plots also manifest itself in the tangible stuff of the game -for board games, it is the board design. For RPGs, the fonts and artwork used in the rule-books. For computer games, the themes of the artwork, its box cover and the poster used for the advertising campaign.

Needless to say, the Meta Plot provides the theme, the motifs and other clues for designers to pick up and incorporate it into their final product. A science-fiction game using gothic fonts in its rulebook may be problematic (not if the game is Warhammer 40K though -again, it fits because of the Meta Plot)

So the third purpose of the Meta Plot is to set design guidelines for the ‘tangible’ parts of the game.

Meta Plots should inspire more Plots

This is particulary for role-playing games and computer games with sandbox style of play (or which like to have lots of expansion packs).  The Meta Plot, for it to be use to the GM, must provide ideas for his own adventures. There are some Meta Plots which are choked full of details that the GM cannot even place a fictional city somewhere. Meta Plots which define everything and anything leave no room for mystery and no way to keep the players on their toes instead of throwing more and more powerful and over-the-top challenges. Some people do like that; but for me as a GM, I always prefer something that is loosely defined than something that has the weight of a thousand novels, splat books and spin-offs.

Not all meta plot restricts. Some just rumbles on…and on….and on. They are histories, deeds of heroes 10,000 years ago which has no bearing on the world now. They are not as bad as restrictive meta plots, though.

Some games’ meta-plot provides no hooks at all, or it relies on the genre to do so. This is fine, but things could get really derivative after a while.  Games that meta-plots with lot of hooks include Unknown Armies. Its ‘plot-hook-in-a-sentence’ is wonderful and it gives some much inspiration. In just one sentence! Other worth looking at includes Dragon Warriors, Spirit of the Century and Call of Cthulhu. The D20 edition of Call of Cthulhu has a short timeline of modern history and how the Great Old Ones fit in.

If you are doing a game, and your Meta Plot rambles on about the founding of this dynasty, that dynasty and a latter dynasty, with wars in heavens and all that, but offers no suggestions on how the GM can create a plot hook from it, then maybe it is good to introduce some mysteries into it or to find ways in which those events, even if they take place a dozen centuries ago, relevant now. Nobilis has tried very hard and true to the author’s credit, she has done a good job at giving GMs how to come up with adventures for an abstract, mindblowing game.

So the fourth purpose of the meta plot is to provide adventure hooks.

In Conclusion

These are just my opinions of course, but that I take an hour to write it down means that I sense that I am right This comes not just as a want-to-be designer, but also as a consumer. Of course, there are always exceptions, and as a standard disclaimer, not all games without a meta-plot sucks. If but your game does have one, it’s good to have a helpful one. If you are writing one, see if the meta-plot meets any of the purposes listed and if not perhaps you want to revisit it a little.

I hesitate to list out games which I think has bad meta-plot, just because I don’t want to raise up my flame shield. At any rate, I think this series is at an end (till I think of something about the meta-plot).

Getting a Paladin to Lie

Quick question: how do you get a paladin to lie? To scheme and to plot destruction? Simple, play a game of Saboteur – a card game which has the meta-plot of you are dwarves mining for gold, and there are good dwarves and bad dwarves. Good dwarves want to get to the gold, bad dwarves don’t want the good guys to find the gold. Meanwhile, some players will get cards that allow them to check one of the three possible locations to see if the gold is there. Then that’s where the fun start.

I have friends whom I could entrust a million dollars with (and still would) yet they have lied their way smoothly through the game. Yet we all just burst out into laughter, lambaste each other with mock threats, and think that no harm is done, because the meta-plot encourages it. Heck, why you have a card that labels you “You are the bad guy, the BAD GUY!”, no one blame you for going along being a sneaky, underhanded, lying bastard…in a game.

Relying on the Kindness of Strangers

I think one of the commonly held consensus is that you find all types of people on a MMO – with varying levels of maturity, level-headedness, consideration and so on (psst…it just my politically correct shorthand for saying that there are jerks on most MMORPGs). While there are those who make the news on being rabid min-maxer, griever and whiners, I find this is not so much of the case for Lord of the Rings Online. On chat channels, you find people giving away free stuff. I run past a Captain and usually one out of five will give me a free buff. When I was playing the Loremaster I will too randomly debuff mobs and heal – not so much now because this reduces the XP gained by the other player, but there’s a spirit of helpfulness in the air.

Why so? I think it is because the game is Lord of the Rings, and the meta-plot is that “You are the free people of Middle Earth. The enemy is Sauron” and unlike World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online, the bad guys are not fully playable (oops my bad, I should have say “the other side”). Everyone other player-character you come across online is automatically your ally in the war against Sauron. (For those who find this terribly dull and boring, there’s also monster-play mode, where you can play as a monster PC and kill hero PCs that come challenging you on your turf). Sometimes, I think the lack of real PvP in LOTRO contributes to the atmosphere. After all, in Tolkien’s novels, the stuff that heroes are made of are the like of Aragorn and Faramir (who wouldn’t even claim the One Ring for his own if he finds it by the roadside, according to the novel, not the movies). The meta-plot enforces that, and I feel, somehow subconsciously cause people to act this way. Yeah, sure there still people who make life difficult for other people, and not to say you don’t find friendly behaviours on other MMOs or MMOs with PvP, but just that the meta-plot of the game contributes to behaviour.

Take a look at Age of Conan and its meta-plot – it is deliciously cartered for PvP gameplay, and Warhammer Online for its Realm vs. Realm mode. Why isn’t there a duelling arena in Lord of the Rings? Because it doesn’t fit the Meta-Plot, but an arena is not out of place in Age of Conan. Likewise, you can’t cramp Lord of the Rings’ “Spirit of Default Cooperation” into Warhammer Online because there exists natural enmity between the races, which again is encouraged by the Meta Plot.

(One thing what if one day Lord of the Rings incorporate a full-featured “other side of the fence” play, such as you can play as orcs or wargs? Even still, according to the Meta Plot, that conflict would only take place at high levels area, such as Mordor, because the novels didn’t let them in further than Gondor, to consider the northern border).

“Forget about saving the world! Let’s retire and start an inn!”

There’s one type of game in the Pen and Paper Roleplaying World and it is called the Railroad. The GM led the party by the nose through every bends and tunnels, with the players’ actions having little impact on the plot. I’m thinking of re-using this metaphor for the Meta Plot. It is not a railroad, but a railway, a system of railroads put together. It limits and directs.

For example, in Nobilis, despite characters being god-avatars, there are many storyline limits placed on them. They have to be loyal to their Imperator, for without him their powers would fade. They have to protect the innocent, or else bad-ass Lord Entropy and his human cronies would make your life miserable. You do not simply crush enemies with brute force or brainwash everyone directly. The author called this “inelegant” – an indignant player may say, “GM fiat!” or simply “Shrug, just because Miss R says so”.

There are games, which exist on the other side of the spectrum, does not have any meta-plot – or it is so “high level” that players are not affected by it unless they earn 10+ levels. In a normal game of Dungeons and Dragons, you could forsake a quest and start an inn, depending on your alignment (and if you are willing to take a shift, who cares?) In Dragon Warriors, you do not simply start an inn – you have to gain permission from the lord, etc. etc. etc. It’s not like Baldur Gates (the PC game) where two adventurers just decide to settle down in the middle of nowhere and start an inn. Who collect taxes from a fighter and a druid anyway? Who dares to, in Dragon Warriors, if the landlord of an inn is reputed to be a slayer of monster and his wife is someone who could cause trees to move?

I find when running tightly plotted game that the Meta Plot is useful because it weeds out “meaningless” options. As mentioned, I did run into the scenario where the PCs got rich enough in between missions that they are considering just fleeing to somewhere and retire – though they did say it in jest, I don’t doubt that there are players out there who did just that. The Meta Plot is useful in this regard – it gives direction even for the players.

However, for sandbox style of play, the Meta Plot can be like a Constricting Ring. Take Nobilis – with the war going on, other NPCs who are waiting to suck your estate dry so that they can stay in the war and Lord Entropy’s cronies snooping around to make sure you don’t break any of his laws, it’s hard not to step on anyone foot, much else say “Screw my Imperator! I going to explore the Ash Tree!”

A Meta Plot does not have to be elaborate – Nobilis has a finely weaved one, so much so that some people can’t keep up with it and some people loathed it (it’s like having a Ferrai but being told that you can’t drive more than 40km per hour in it) . Spirit of the Century has a simple one – the Century Club, and it is free-form enough for many styles of play, but provides a certain direction for the GM and the PCs. Of course, anyone who feel that just being told “You just have to be the good guys” is bad would too dislike the Meta Plot for Spirit of the Century (hey, it’s the same for me when I read “You just have to be suffer for being a good guy” in Vampires!)

Transcending the Meta Plot

The GM is alive, the rules are dead. The Meta Plot is already published on paper, but you can still write on. It is possible to transcend the Meta Plot, but it requires the cooperation of the GM and the player. It is much easier for a new game or setting than one with an established canon, like Star Wars or Star Trek (which is why I always avoid GMing games based on licenses; I felt constrained by the fan-base!)

Take for example, Nobilis – there are places where Lord Entropy won’t snoop and many other unexplainable things in the fluff itself (such as the Lady of the Third Age). If the players are itching for some massive destruction I could always bring them to an alien world, or a empire erased out of time or even to just good old Mythic Earth. Alternate dimensions are good for canon-heavy games (Star Trek just rebooted itself with a “When-Canon-Sucks-Hit-This button), and for historical fantasy, they just have to take a ship and find a culture that suited them (there are evidence that ancient China might be a matriarchal society instead of a patriarchal one).

Sometimes, however, the game is the Meta Plot – like Dogs in the Vineyard or Don’t Rest your Head. However, I do think it is possible for an enterprising GM to modify the Meta Plot to meet his needs.

I will talk more about this next time, where I hope to give an example of how I use a custom Meta Plot in a sandbox-style fantasy world to provide more direction, how it influences the details of design for games and some commonly useful Meta Plots.

Then there is this other approach. “We have this inspiration, let see what is the best way to present it as a game”, or sometimes “With this genre, and with this inspiration, let see what is the best approach for this game”.

I come to see the “inspiration” as the Meta Plot. In “plain speech”, the Meta Plot is the Plot of the Plot for the game. It’s like the horror of the Warp for Warhammer 40K, the Melkor-Eru conflict in Lord of the Rings, or something as down to earth as World War II. Sometimes, a technique to skin your game and to come up with game mechanics is to use a Meta Plot as an inspiration.

Not all Games without Meta Plot are Badly Designed

Before going on, I have to emphasis one thing – games without a Meta Plot as inspiration driving their design are not automatically badly designed. For instance, Super Mario Brothers lack a Meta Plot in a grand sense of thing, nor is there one for Tetris, or I suspect for Final Fantasy I (the Final Fantasy games franchise is an interesting case study of “We have these cool mechanics; the plot and story is a seperate deal!”

The point is that a Meta Plot can be the inspiration for game mechanics and game design. Its influence can trinke all the way up to User Interface Design, quest designs, music, gameplay elements and even marketing/packaging. Could it? Let’s see.

Meta Plot and the Pen and Paper Continuum

Let begin with the pen and paper RPG world first. I have been gearing up to run Nobilis, in which each player represents an “avatar” of a concept on Earth, be it horses, communication, reading, katanas or even just blankets. The game is thick with Meta Plot – and the Plot is basically that Destroyers from Beyond Creation have come to erase out all Creation, and that includes the foundational concepts such as nature, animals, war and everything else. This Meta Plot supports the diceless game mechanics. Characters are assured of their success in any task unless opposed. This is a different take from most pen and paper RPGs which require you to make a roll to see if you succeed or fail at a challenging task.

The Meta Plot may inspire the game mechanic or the other way round, but I personally think that one thing is for sure – the Meta Plot and the game mechanics (and other design elements) must be in harmony. A big complaint of Exalted is that you never feel like the supernatural heroes which all the “fluff” (or backstory Meta Plot) makes you out to be. Or that Call of Cthlhu D20 is not as grim as its Basic Roleplaying incarnation because D20 (a generic “RPG engine” spined off from D&D 3.5) tend to gears toward heroic role-playing and characters created with the system starts out as better combatants.

Spirit of the Century, emulating pulp fiction, use the Fate 3.0 rules to allow players to create larger-than-life characters for their first adventure. We are talking stuff like Nobel prize winning scientist, ace pilot who has flew countless sorties or even a trained and skilled deadly martial artist who can floor a dozen. In fact, there is a complaint that characters in Spirit of the Century are virtually invincible, but hey, it fits the tone of the pulp fiction.

Don’t Rest your Head seems to follow “Meta Plot influences Game Design” pattern. You play as an insomniac who has been “Awakend”, granting you special abilities. However, you are also sucked into the City Awaken, a dimenison removed from normal world and is something out from a nightmare. There are rules for being exhausted – when you get more and more exhausted, you perform better and kick more ass, but there’s also a chance that you can get even more exhausted. That sounds like a good deal, except that when you are exhausted beyond a limit, you sleep and become a normal human being again, and you attract the attention of monsters who can’t wait to feast upon your helpeless body.

If we instead try to shoehorn this idea into, say D20 and GURPs, it will still work, but the mechanics presented in Don’t Rest your Head has the elements of exhaustion built right into its mechanics – you roll a number of D6 equal to your Exhaustion each time, with a 5 or 6 counting as a success. But if the higher dice roll is an Exhaustion dice, you gain 1 more point of Exhaustion (basically, there are other type of dice rolled at the same time, such as Discipline and Madness). Using another system to emulate this would be contrived.

Right, I think this article is kind of getting lengthy, and there is still a real life Flu I have to fight off. So I will just end with a “To be Continued…” here. Next up, I will pen (type?) down my thoughts on the Meta Plot and its drwbacks and how it fits into computer and board games.

Having the power to vote your own party members, such as the virtual democracies in Eve Online, sounds very enticing. Allowing players to take the law into their hand in a free-form games sound fun. Instead of “you cannot be a bad guy”, it becomes “you can be a bad guy until other players stop you”.

Yet, including social mechanics like these introduce changes to the game’s challenge.

The Hour is Later than You Think

This problem exists before MMOs come along, in the form of social conflicts and rules for table-top RPGs. Usually, the general advice is to give a bonus to skill checks for the player who narrate his actions well. For a social conflict or social skill check, it would be how well he role-play. But what if the player has a poor Charisma stat but is a good speaker? Which one has a higher weightage, on the spot role-playing or mechanic?

Is this a big deal? Say a character with obvious social flaws, perhaps a Charisma of just 3, and is trying to persuade a rival guild leader to an alliance. He speaks eloquently and flawlessly; he has a sound win-win proposal. He has just done something to impress the guild leader. If the GM let him succeeds, then he effectively has a Charisma of 18 or more.

What about a player with Charisma 18, but isn’t so imaginative? Should such people be confined to brutes and warrior rules because of a real life aspect? Isn’t role-playing about being someone else in imagination?

Most modern pen and paper RPGs have come up with ways to deal with social conflicts, making it a legal part of the game – Weapons of the Gods have conditions, Spirit of the New Century has Aspects and Tagging and Exalted has formal rules for social conflicts. Perhaps this could serve as a model for MMO games too?

Typical RPG Challenges and Social Challenges

First, a typical RPG’s challenge involves analytical skill, resources management and situational awareness. You plan a build, equip your gear and learn skills, most of the time that is the bulk of the challenge (analytical and resources management). When you take to the battlefield, you see if your build is effective. Situational awareness comes in for a few classes, such as the crowd control and debuff groups, who have to stay on their toes.

Second, social mechanics include another set of skills all together – emotional intelligence, communication and like it or not, deceit. Who can forget about how the biggest alliance in Eve Online went down because someone basically was an insider? Now in eSingapore on eRepublick, there is this drama going on about how the joint chief of staff, a certain individual named William Shafter, moved to eRussia with the bulk of the country’s weapons and money. Now the president and the former chief of staff are bickering back and forth.

When you move the game’s emphasis (chance of success) to the former (the typical RPG skill-set), social mechanics may become a moot point. It’s like someone who is a grandmaster at Chess and taking on 20 beginners in a Chess marathon. It’s no sweat to him. He has the best build, a good situational awareness, a mastery of the game mechanics. Even if there is a bounty on him, most players can’t take him down. He is protected by the system. Sure, he may have trouble joining parties or guilds, but does he need to?

Expand that to a guild – imagine you have a guild of kick-ass people. They run afoul of the current norms (remember the Funeral Massacre of World of Warcraft?). Say people want to punish them. Blizzard can’t do it – their Terms of Service does not have anything for ruining a social event. So the players have to take it into their own hand. But let’s the players are so good, have the best equipment, do well at the auction house, or maybe they buy gold (not saying they are, but just saying they have a complete mastery of the game). Who can do anything to them?

Social mechanics is a moot point then.

Let’s examine the second point, where social mechanics has a larger weightage.

You have shifted the emphasis on challenge to something softer, less deterministic and that is going to piss off some people. Take for example, Facebook’s RPGs where in PvP, one of the decisive factor is whether you have 501 clan members. In games where you elect people by voting, social capital comes into play, and that is a different skill set from most RPGs.

Some people like to win due to their skills. Careful planning of their resources, analysis of the mechanics and min-maxing to win. They may dislike social mechanics for it feels like “boot-licking” and “whoring for attention”. Some people find all this stressful and play games to precisely to avoid these. Some people, however, wants those feelings and social interaction throughout. It’s not a case of “this is better than that” but “apples and oranges”.

Consequences of Social Mechanics: Be careful for what you ask for

However, social mechanics does add an unpredictable dimension to the game, yet for most people, who are working and face office politics and social pressures in the real life, do they need more in their entertainment?

Second, in a social environment, the majority sets the rule. If people can get away with crime, which often pays if not for the law, you get lots of griefing. If you could rob a character of his item instead of farming of it, without any consquences, while most of the people are doing it, will you? The ToS says you could; the game mechanics encourage you to do it and society agrees that “hey, it’s just a game!”. Chris Crawford actually wrote in this book, The Art of Game Design, that computer games could also be “blowing raspberries” at social norms and the law, for they allow you to partake in acts frown upon in the real life. The success of GTA, IMHO, proves the point. Why would you want to be honourable, law-abiding and etc.?

Third, you have to put in the incentive to build trust, and that may be the only reason why people don’t steal from their friends (but it’s still okay to steal from others, right?) Darkfall now has this problem where crafters are afraid of trading outside their own guild in fear of being PKed the moment they talk to a stranger, and has try to fix it with a patch. Do you have this sort of game environment (some would say yes, some would say no, so keep this in mind when designing your game).

Defintely, a middle-ground could exist. Don’t make the social mechanics the end all and be all. It could be a perk for those who communicates well and likes social interaction. It shouldn’t infringe on players who wants no part of it. And the social mechanics should extend beyond killing or defeating the player to punish him.

For example, Dynamic Drive, a technical forum where people helps out each other with programming questions, has a Thanks feature where posters can thank other for helping. GameDev.net has a rating system. LOTRO has a hidden social mechanic too – if you are hugged (through the emote) by 100 different players, you get the title “The Beloved”. If you are saluted 100 times, you get to access the emote “sword salute” (the typical kissing the sword gesture before a battle or duel, like what Aragorn did in the Fellowship of the Ring Movie).

Indeed, if you want to include social mechanics into your games, I think that the reward should be social and off another nature all together, not loot, XP or money, but recognition, respect and significance, which is what drives people who are interested in social interaction.

To Socialise or Not To?

There’s no real right answer here; the answer is whether the mechanics are suited to the theme and design of your game. You will draw different types of players, encourage different behaviours, norms and culture through the mechanics you include in your game.

The best stuff about it is that there is no magic, no immortals, no Zhuge Liangs throwing laser beams or nonsense like that. Nor is it a stiff and boring re-accounting from the novels. The characters from the original novels are portrayed as larger than life, but not ridiculously over the top. The characters are memorable, the stratagems are superb, the atmosphere is authentic and the fight scenes exciting without being like Dragon Balls.

Where to start? You can begin by heading over to a fan scanlation of the series (and seeing that it is a Hong Kong comic series, not Japanese, I doubt it would ever be translated to English proper). Here are some reasons why I follow the series and is such a big fan. Hopefully more people would get to know this work and perhaps even role-play in it!

Memorable Characters: Most Three Kingdoms fans know about Liu Bei, Cao Cao and Sun Quan, but the way they are portrayed in the series is familiar, but different. Most important of all, all them of got brains, have their merits and approach. Not just that, certain characters rendered as mere extras by Koei’s games and comics are given a fresh make-over which is actually more historical (Gao Shaun is just an average military office in Koei’s games, but in history, he managed to beat off both Xiahou Yuan and Cao Cao, and is given his proper due in the series). Every character is given his distinctive style, abilities and chance to shine.

Stratagems: A big feature of the series is strategies and tactics. Brutes do not rule the battlefield, wits does (and surprisingly, a couple of characters we took for being dumb, like Sun Ce, are actually effective strategiests). A big feature of the series are the Eight Engimas, each a genius advisor with their own strengths and weakness (needless to say, some of the more famous strategists are in the list). I was blown away by the strategies used for they sound plausible, they are unexpected and they are in accordance with Sun Tzu’s Art of War and numerous other treatises. More than half of a book could be just on describing tactics and strategies (one quarter are cool mass combat scenes, with the last quarter filled with exciting one on one combat). There’s no deus ex-machina – if someone suddenly turns the tide, it is because he has done something chapters ahead to prepare for it (It’s a bit like Tyrion in A Clash of Kings, preparing King’s Landing for the imminent invasion).

Familiar: Despite being a fresh take on Three Kingdoms, anyone who knows the background can enjoy it straight away. And because it is a fresh take on the Three Kingdoms, you don’t need to know anyone to be hooked.

Culture: The series mainly stick true to the culture and history of China, quoting many famous sages such as Lao-zi, and observing the customs of the ancient Chinese people (except for the way some characters are dressed). However, the author also challenges the perception of the reader – is history truely objective? Dong Zhuo was written as a brute; is he really one? Wen Zhou, Yan Liang were written as proud and haughty, but brainless generals, but who would entrust soldiers to people such as that?

Unexpected Twists: Here’s what I love best about the series. The series stick true to history. No nonsense such as Zhang Jiao coming back from the dead, or Lu Bu escaping death. If the historical account says someone is dead by that point, it will happen. The kick is even though you may know it, you don’t know how it will happen! Dong Zhou, for example, will definitely be killed by Lu Bu. But by the point in the series, Lu Bu was dealt a devastating blow and there seems to be no way he could overthrow Dong Zhuo. This pattern is the same throughout; the author always take an unexpected twist, but eventually follows history. Even a Three Kingdoms fan would be caught by surprise.

I hope this series would dispel people’s idea of Three Kingdoms as an over-the-top setting or a dry-as-history-book one (depending on which games from KOEI you have been exposed to). Hopefully one day I would be able to do something for the setting…

By running a terrific atmospheric game where players get to shine. To get players to shine, the opposition must put a good fight. I want to see what my players would do when hard-pressed and I am anticipating what sort of tricks they would pull. Sometimes what they do make me sigh, sometimes they make me laugh, but most of the times, they astound me. That is where my fun come from.

Just to name an example. When doing a homebrew game with Ars Magica spontaneous magic rules slapped on top of it, a mage decided to use the Control ability and the element of water to create ice shields that circle around him. That got a laugh out from me. But later on he astounded me. I have sent a couple of demonic creatures after them, and just because they are cloaked in fire, it didn’t mean that they are weak against the element of water. So I had one of them purposely step onto a pool of water to demonstrate this fact.

The same mage player said “I want to hover droplets of water, and have them completely surrounding  the demon”. I was thinking, “Hey, dude, I just give you a clue. Water don’t work on those guys!” However, the next round he took my breath away with “I want to transform those droplets into ice shards and have them all impale the demon.”

It is those moments, cinematic time-freeze scenes of players’ ingenuity, that I want to see while GMing. So to do that I throw all sort of challenges at them. Social challenges (how do you get invited to a dwarf’s mining mine? A player with alchemical skill begin to brew his own ale), combat challenges (how do you take down a boss who is immune to all damage on every turn which is a prime number?), infiltration challenge (you are disguised as servants of a great lord, and have to break into his vault during a big party – how?) and each time when the players come up with something unconventional, I smile inside.

Hence, achieving total party kill is not my idea of fun, and perhaps this is why I tend to prefer Fate than other rules-heavy games.  Even for encounters, I purposely design them such that the it not just another fight on the table-top. Thre would be terrain to take advantage of, critical enemy weakness, or the fight takes place in a strange situation.

Of course, the game rules must be able to support those ‘surprises’. I like to see the players’ actions supported by the rules, not restricted by them. So far, Fate seems to be the best fit, but I believe that it is a mindset one have to adopt. Some games, however, refinroce the mindset of “the rules didn’t touch on it so you can’t do that”. As such, I tend to shy away from crunch-heavy games that feel like table-top MMOs or anything that could be achieved more easily through other means. Dungeon crawls are light in my game – I don’t get much fun from them when compared to complex social challenges or obstacles. Games like Descent and Runescapes emulate the hack and slash elements of RPG and also have the social interaction between players, with less preparation time. Lord of the Rings Online feed my MMO addiction. So I want to keep my games focused on what gives me the most enjoyment – players entertaining me, while they are entertained by my challenges.

That’s why I am a GM. I love to present a challenge, and see how the players solve it.