Let down your chains

[jeregenest]

When people talk about mechanics in gaming what they are discussing is really process. Mechancis are just tools to get the process of gaming accomplished. I personally view mechanics as an enabler, as a means to a more important end. Which is fun. Mechanics are successful when they are a vehicle for expressing and releasing the knowledge, creativity and energy that lies within a group. Thus while mechanics can be valuable the main challenge is to compile and validate specific ways to inspire meaningful, creative play. And I’m not a firm believer that mechanics are necessarily the best way to do that, and even at times mechanics may (like any tool) be an impediment.

That’s right. Mechanics can be an impediment to gaming. shiffer has thrown down the gauntlet. There is a growing group of us who have long felt that way and perhaps its time to star being more organized about it. Goodness knows communities of gamers in non-English speaking countries have been doing so for years.

I think one of the problems is that the folks best capable of writing about process beyond mechanics are either too busy gaming to do be bothered with it, or have done the majority of their work in one specific sub-community (Amber) and it hasn’t leaked out that successfully. I’m as guilt of this as the next person.

Okay this post may be a little more twelve-step than I intended. I am going somewhere but for now that somewhere is to go home so I can game.

Comments

[zigguratbuilder.livejournal.com]

I think one of the problems is that the folks best capable of writing about process beyond mechanics are either too busy gaming to do be bothered with it

I absolutely agree with this. It kinda irks me that the mainstream game market completely blows past this save for the same wishywashy advice from the 80s, and the more progressive Indie folks put a lot in mechanics, but don't expouse more on process, or how to effectively make use of processes inherent in the game.

It's more of a blind spot for the indie guys than anything, I think. But if more folks playtested much, much longer outside their own circle of friends or really receptive "Everyone's on the ball and all cooperating together to make the game better" folks, they'd incorporate these things more.

-Andy

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

A wide range of playtesting can be essential to producing a quality product, but equally can show that there are so many different styles and interests in the gaming community that you will never please everyone involved in the process.

The best you can hope for is a lowest common denominator, or finding the 'niche' that you are truly aiming at and making things work for them.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

The wrong mechanics can be an impediment to play, but equally the lack of mechanic can be an impediment as well. I've banged heads often enough folks in the past who ran diceless/mechanicless games badly to know that I'd rather have a mechanic in place, even if it was inadequate for all playing styles, ideas and needs, then no mechanic at all.

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

This actually is on my plate, Jeremiah. The folks at PIG are letting me do some development work on Formless (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=3682&), and I'm hoping to produce a more polished treatment of what amounts to no-mechanics (no mechanics as anyone outside some theoretical communities would define them, at least) high-quality roleplaying. My long-term goal is a guidebook informed by RPGs but using no conventional RPG terminology, to reach folks roleplaying from other baselines.

[locke61dv.livejournal.com]

I just want to say that I love the idea of Formless, AND I have long-term love for PIGames.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Great news. Formless is one of those under-recognized things out there that I'm glad to see is getting more serious attention.