Elegance in game design is said to be achieving the most amount of depth and impact with the least amount of rules. It is an echo of the idea that design is about simplicity, and that art is not about simply adding paint or lines, but adding, as Charles Schulz said, only what is necessary, and no more. As an artist, this guides my hand but as a game designer even more so, because game design is a user interface. As such it must be blindingly, unambiguously clear. It can leave nothing questioned, nothing opague, nothing difficult. But it also must be as light as possible, because explanations clutter, and control, and contrive. Indeed, if a mechanic or rule cannot be well explained, then the mechanic itself is worthless.
Into this steps the lyric RPG, the one page RPG, and indeed the nano-game, of which I have posted nearly a hundred on Twitter. There is even a one-word RPG, and I think it is a decent effort, given that restraint. I think also having a title might be cheating but I also think that’s not the point, maybe. But generally, what’s been missing is actual discussion of these works. The TTRPG industry has always, always been ridiculously low on critical voices (as opposed to angry assholes), and the indie scene much more so. The world has too many RPGs, far too many indie RPGs and probably infinitely too many nano-rpgs, and in each case infinitesimally few critiques of any of them. For a moment Dennis Detwiller came out swinging on twitter, and the dragging was – because twitter – undeserved in its perversity, although he took no care in differentiating his opinion from empty assholery. In the end, the discourse on twitter and such like is always hollow, always useless and leaves us worse off than no discourse. So I did love getting a review of my one-pager Dog Bites The Man that put critique right into play not just of my one-pager, but ALL OF THEM.
I’m a little torn on this issue. On the one hand, I love that games in general and TTRPGs in particular are having this moment exploring games as art and art as games, and that TTRPGs are going full dadaist and refusing to make sense. On the other hand, I think for a game to be a game, it needs to be playable if only in your head. Otherwise, it’s just an art piece with writing about a game. So when I publish a game I always intend for it to be playable, and to be played, except in very rare situations. I don’t know what other GMs do with one page games but I play mine and I expect them to be played.
In fact, Dog Bites The Man was designed to put the one page medium to the test: the game is designed to be played by printing the game at A2 size and hung on a wall, because I was curious what happens when a game is actually a poster, complete with art, that draws the eye away from the table. Obviously I can’t make everyone engage with the game like that! It’s on my wall, in a frame, which is enough. When I tested it, it wasn’t framed, which didn’t really work. It is an experimental game; I am still experimenting with it. But as I say, that doesn’t free me from having the game examined as per its rules of play.
And with that understanding, the one page RPG presents a unique challenge in terms of economy. Much of the reviewer’s complaints are simply due to not having enough space; to not using the right word at the right time. I meant to say you only get one super power, because…well, I assumed that’s how superpowers worked. The reviewer missed that. I meant to say that of course you are a dog, and you act like a dog, but that wasn’t clear. I also thought it was obvious that killing fascists was a great way to defeat fascism, but again, it’s super tough to actually lay out your intentions in a poster. I chose dogs because dogs are seen as inherently innocent and good, and I want to cast revolutionary violence as innocent and good. Not to undermine the importance of the struggle but to actually get people involved in it. I’ve run lots of revolutionary games as a GM and the players always want to stop the revolution and get off fast. I thought maybe, if they were dogs, it would discharge that instinct because being a dog ties into our sense of absolute goodness. We know that dogs are good. So of course it is okay for them to bite cops and smash windows and set fire to buildings. Good dog!
The nice thing about treating games as art is I get to do the most indulgent thing of all: I get to make an artist’s statement, explaining myself. But if a game is to be played, it doesn’t get an artist’s statement. It doesn’t have that luxury. It is of course the artist’s curse to be minsunderstood; art, like all communication, always fails on some level, and there is no wrong way to play a game. More than once I’ve had players say “we don’t use those rules, we think they are dumb” and it HURTS MY BRAIN but the only correct response is to say “well done! Good choice!”. As Humpty Dumpty observed in Alice Through the Looking-Glass, of who is master….
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
-Lewis Carroll
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. ‘They’ve a temper, some of them — particularly verbs: they’re the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!’
‘Would you tell me please,’ said Alice, ‘what that means?’
‘Now you talk like a reasonable child,’ said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. ‘I meant by “impenetrability” that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.’
‘That’s a great deal to make one word mean,’ Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
‘When I make a word do a lot of work like that,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘I always pay it extra.’
Humpty Dumpty is right: the audience is the master, and doubly so for the player. Words and rules go to audiences, and they get it all wrong by reading them and interpreting them, which is a horrible trick, really. (I also have a bad habit of not explaining myself as much as I should, even when I explain more than I should like. My mind moves barely slow enough for me to put it into words; let alone deal with others having to understand it.)
Of course we have ready solutions for misunderstanding in games: the errata and the FAQ, the second edition and the downloadable patch. We might pity then Monet, who cannot add an asterisk to indicate the lily was not QUITE the right colour after all. More than one painter has also suffered from their work being hung upside down in the gallery, or other failure of instructions. But perhaps this is, if we wanted one, why games are not art. There are no instructions on a Monet. One can eat it or set fire to it. The players on the stage command the audience with their voice to pay attention; being savvy of media tropes is a luxury most art forms just cannot afford. But instructions are by their very nature open to questions, and even answer. The saying goes that the designer doesn’t come in the box, but even so the question and answer happens with the players. Every regular game player knows that every game, no matter how simple or how well known, has areas of disagreement, and every game player of any social skill has a plan to deal with the problem. Even a solo gamer interrogates himself if this time he will cheat or not.
The Monet offers no dialogue. It commands you, body and soul, or dares you to ignore it if it moves you not. If games aren’t art, then this is why: because they are interactive to their core. If art is what is created inside us when we interact with something, the game is simply the list of instructions to create the something. If games aren’t art, they are art-producing recipes. If one page is not enough to make the recipes clear and purposeful and playable, then they have definitely failed. We can only hope to do better next time – or provide an errata.
Of course, all of this becomes far more difficult when it comes to political messaging. It is one thing to have mechanics misunderstood on how to move a piece; quite another when the goal is to communicate via that mechanic a political agenda. In my game The Day They Came that simulates having to leave your country with nothing but the things you can carry, the first player is determined by the person most likely to get on a refugee boat: the strongest male over twelve. I’ve been accused of being sexist for writing this rule. Political work is always going to be more criticized, certainly: Dog Bites The Man was criticized by this reviewer for not providing comprehensive solutions to racial oppression because it focusses on violence and civil disobedience but I made it more directly violent because early comments suggested it wasn’t violent enough and didn’t sufficiently reflect the protests that it referenced as a result. Politics, indeed, is always to be never enough. But that’s not the same thing as being totally misunderstood. Both Dog Bites The Man and The Day They Came are one page RPGs dealing with big topics and both have failed to attest to players the fact that they are taking their subject seriously. Ditto Princess Die, now I think about it. The argument has been made that one page RPGs probably always fail; it may be more strongly that political one page RPGs definitely always fail.
And that’s where I turn to you, dear reader. I think some of my one page RPGs work just fine, but I also note that for say, After Action Report I had to go to two pages, and Two Faces, despite winning an ENnie nomination, is much better with the additional second page. But despite being made in just an hour, I think some of our one page one hour RPGs work really well. What one pages have you actually played, or player more than once? How well did they actually work? Were any of them political, or all silly? Were the only ones you used ones that were roll-to-see-what-happened ones where you bounced across tables, or actually allowed more avatar-style play? Or should we just realise this was all for comedy and give up pretending the form is actually playable? Send your answers in.
D-Constructions 