Bringing it All Together

This is the third and final of my Player Type articles.

Timmy, Johnny, Spike.

Diamond, Spade, Heart, Club.

Real Men, Role-players, Loonies, Munchkins.

All of these thing boil down to a few key motivations for why people play role-playing games. While these are, of course, not very detailed, to encompass the reasons we play as inclusively as possible, they can’t be. The way I figure it, role-playing has the following things to offer:

It’s a game: Gamers are playing to play the fucking game. They want to roll dice and make strategic choices. They like the intellectual challenge of the game, and want to beat it.

It’s a story: Storytellers are here to tell a story that is completely, ridiculously awesome. They want to advance the plot, engage with the non-player characters, involve themselves deeply with the game world and make choices based on what will produce the best story.

It’s a simulation: Simulators want our game worlds to adhere as closely to the real world (or what the real world would be with the speculative fiction elements included) as possible. They want to come up with solutions to their problems that are founded in common sense, and they want to engage in worlds as detailed and nuanced as our own.

It’s a way to socialize: Socializers want to get together with their friends and hang out. And role-playing games provide a context for doing just that. A lot of people, especially the wall-flowers and the table-talkers, are just there to chill out and eat snacks.

It’s an outlet for fantasies: Fantasists have things that they would love to be able to do in real life, but can’t. They want to swing swords and sling spells and fight crime and fly blimps. Role-playing games provide a framework that is safe, interactive and fun in which they can do just that.

This Ain’t no GNS, Kids

Some people may look at the top three tiers of this categorization and find similarities to Ron Edwards’ GNS Theory. Personally, I’ve always taken exception to the idea that GNS applies to players. I don’t think you can really be a “Gamist.” I think that a particular situation in a particular role-playing game session can be gamist, but that a person who plays the game for the sake of playing the game is a gamer. The difference is subtle, but the implications are pretty intense.

A gamer is no more likely to respond positively to a gamist situation than any other player. The particular situation may or may not appeal to the gamer’s specific motivations for play, and he or she may space out when certain gamist situations arise, or perk up and pay special attention for others.

See, none of these motivations occur without some overlap. If I play a game because I a) like to play games and b) have some pretty intense power fantasies in which I am a hulking brute of man-strength, then gamist situations involving diplomacy and stealth aren’t going to appeal to me as much as gamist situations involving combat.

I’ve been talking about gamism a lot, though. Let’s look at narrativism, for a moment, just for some variety. It’s possible for a player whose key motivation is storytelling to have no interest in the above-mentioned diplomacy/stealth situation, too. If that player is telling a Shonen-esque story of growing-in-power-to-defeat-great-evil, well then shit, she’s probably got some power fantasies in the mix. Or, if the situation in which the diplomacy is held doesn’t mesh with the internal consistency of the game world (“Why would the captain of a starship be engaged in negotiations with a hostile alien force? She should be on the ship, where she’s needed. This makes no sense…), we may have a simulator on our hands.

So each of these reasons for play happen in different amounts for each of us. I think we can build a relatively universal system of player archetyping if we assume that each of us resonates with two of the five motivations listed above more than the others. Myself, I would say I’m most inclined towards storytelling and gaming, with my focus being much more solidly on storytelling. I’m a 70% Storyteller, 30% Gamer. Everything else informs the way I play to some degree, and if I wanted to get deeply involved in it, I could.

Kris Hansen’s Stats:
Storyteller 50, Gamer 20, Socializer 15, Fantasist 10 Simulator 5.

What the above does (something I’ve never seen another player archetype system do) is provide us a way to talk about player tendencies, actions and motivations while addressing the individuality of the player. Not everyone is going to value Storytelling as much as I do, and not everyone is going to focus on Fantasies as little as I do.

Moreover, it gives us the opportunity to shift and change and grow without needing to shoehorn ourselves into a specific player archetype. We don’t need to worry about whether or not we’re a Real Man or a Munchkin; we can admit that we’re 60% Gamer and 40% Fantasist, and be done with it.

Another thing this system does is makes space for a group of players that are often seen as peripherals to the game. Socializers are there to have fun and hang out with their friends. Sometimes, they’ll do the crazy, just to get a rise out of people. Sometimes, they’ll annoy other players just for the reaction they get, but the real motivation behind these behaviors is the desire for socialization within the context of the game. This is where we get our “Loonies.” This is where the “Casual Gamers” come from. They’re not here to play the game, at least, they’re not here for that as much as for the social outing.

So How do the Other Systems Fit?

Rosewater’s Archetypes

What Rosewater’s built as far as player archetypes goes is amazing for Magic: The Gathering, and the driving goals behind his psychographic writings is part of what inspired me to do this in the first place.

Timmy is here to experience something. He wants to feel something. He’s probably going to identify most closely as a Fantasist and Storyteller.

Johnny is here as a form of self-expression. He wants to show you something you’ve never seen before. He’s mostly going to be a Gamer and Storyteller.

Spike wants to win. He doesn’t care how he does it, he just wants to win and make sure everyone knows he did. He’s most closely associatied with Gamers and Fantasists.

The Munchkin File

Sadly, it’s a little impossible to take the Munchkin File seriously in regards to modern gaming. I don’t remember gaming in the 90’s being that much different than today, so I can’t even be sure it was a valid discourse on gaming “back in the day.” Still, it’s interesting to see them as extreme examples of other archetypes.

Real Men are manly men, the sort that jump in front of buses to save babies. Fantasist and Gamer.

Role-players are here to tell a kick-ass story, and to step into the role of their character. Storyteller, maybe as high as 90%, with any subtheme, really.

Loonies are here to do the wacky, and do it often. They’re trying to get a rise out of people. Socializer, maybe as high as 90%, with any subtheme, really.

Munchkins are extreme fantasists, but they achieve their fantasy goals through manipulation of the rules, putting them firmly into the Gamer category, too.

Bartle’s Archetypes

The interesting thing about Bartle’s archetypes is that most of his observations apply equally to my own archetypes. The biggest difference between his archetypes and my own is the inclusion of self-expression desires and fantasy. It’s also interesting to note that there are two types of Socializer in Bartle’s breakdown.

Spades want to explore, want to delve into the core of the game world. Simulators are analogous.

Diamonds want to win the game. They push to achieve the game’s set goals, which makes them analogous to Gamers.

Clubs are extreme Socializers, using the social aspect of the game to annoy other players. On the opposite end of that scale, Hearts play to enjoy the company of other players, which means that they are _also_ sozializers, but express it in a very different way. I believe that the focus on socializing and the lack of storytelling or fantasist behavior may have something to do with the nature of MUDs as a role-playing platform.

Laws’ Archetypes

Laws talks about a lot of archetypes in his book, but most of them are covered elsewhere. The ones we’re looking at specifically helped inform the archetype scheme I’ve developed here.

Storytellers and Casual Gamers as archetypes were both integral in building the breakdown we have here. Casual Gamers, especially, are difficult for die-hards to understand, but when I looked at the similarities between Casual Gamers and Bartle’s Hearts, it sort of clicked in my head.

Specialists are a type of Fantasist. Their fantasy involves playing a very specific type of character, over and over again. The character they play is likely a manifestation of something they wish they had in real life, hence its repetition around the table. Specialists are intriguing to me, from a psychological perspective, but I don’t really have the time or expertise to go into it too deeply here. I’ll leave that for people with some of that there book learnin’.

Gold, and a Game About Gaming

So I can't claim I'm a fan of Gold, but I wish I was. It's a cute concept: a group of professional RPG gamers deal with the trials and tribulations of their sports-star lifestyles. They deal with sponsorship issues and injuries, their romantic relationships infringing on their professional lives, rival teams, and whatever else they deal with after the fifth or sixth episode (when I stopped watching). There are some sad attempts at humor, but the series mostly takes itself pretty seriously, which I think is a rather big mistake with this sort of series.

Regardless, this isn't a post about a web-series. If you like it, don't think that my views on it constitute anything even close to a valid opinion on the topic. It is, however, an interesting idea.

As with the World Carved from the Bones of a Dead God, the show sparked an idea when mixed with another idea. Ian was in, talking about the Most Meta Game Ever, something Zak ran over the weekend that he called Final Strike or some such. The premise was basically this: build half of a character sheet, using whatever dice systems, attributes and concepts you like; do this in complete isolation, without input from any of the other players; then, assume that you've been playing a role-playing game with these characters for the past thirteen years, and this is the final session; fight the final boss, save the kingdom, win the world. Now, that's pretty bad-ass as meta-gaming goes, but when someone's like "This was the Most X Thing Ever," in regards to role-playing games, I take it as something of a personal challenge. So I got to thinking: A role-playing game that's actually ABOUT role-playing games would be the best way to make a Supermeta RPG. So how would one go about doing that?

First off, I'm thinking you need to find a way to separate the Real Life elements of the game from the Competition parts of the game. To steal from games that don't suck, I think the two-turn structure of Mouse Guard and Burning Wheel could do some double-duty here. I'm thinking have a Real Life Turn, and a Competition Turn, each that lasts the span of a few challenges. So Real Life challenges would be stuff like "Dealing with Clark's developing heroin addiction, Alec's girlfriend cheating on him and Suzie's love affair with... Well... Sarah..." Competition Turn stuff would be "Defeat the GM, kick the other team's ass, and steal the madest lootz." The turns can be done in whichever order the players like, but things that happen in one turn will effect the other turn; so if your real-life challenges suck a bunch, and your mom dies and you're depressed and your girlfriend is being a douche and everything about your life sucks right now, you're not going to be playing your A-game. If your game is going terribly, your rolls have been pure suck, your teammates aren't getting along, the Fighter's been stealing all the spotlight and the GM hates you, it's going to bleed over into your real life. This is, after all, your livelihood.

Stats would look, to begin with anyway, very game-related. Your Character is a stat, for instance. Your knowledge of the rules, also a stat. How you manage to make those things work in your real life is entirely up to you. The stats look as such:

Character (type) ____
Rules ____
Problem Solving ____
Rolls ____
Method (type) ____
Spotlight ____

Your stats are measured in the size of the die you attribute to them. So a stat that sucks gets to be a d4. A stat that you rock at in ways no one else rocks is a d20. There are six different types of dice (not counting the percentile d10, which we will disregard), and six stats. For those who have only ever played games that use ten-sided dice, the types are thus: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20. Assign them as you please.

Character is a measure of how kick-ass your characters are, how well you min-max, and how much familiarity you have with playing a character of that class. The (type) line of a character is the character's class. Choose between Fighter, Mage, Thief and Cleric. When there is more than one character of a specific class in a party, the players of those characters get a +2 bonus to Character Rolls. If a class is missing from a party, all characters get a -4 penalty to Character Rolls.

Rules is how well you know the rules of the game, errata, minutia, and how much rules-lawyering you can get away with.

Problem Solving shows how quickly your character works through challenges.

Rolls is an indicator of how lucky your character is. Does he roll twenties, and roll them all the time? Or does he roll crit fail after crit fail?

Method is a descriptor of the type of role-playing you're most proficient and interested in. The types of methods are Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist. Gamist play is all about "winning the game," dealing with rules and manipulating them for a fun gaming experience. Narrativist gaming is all about the story, compelling characters and awesome experiences. Simulationist play tries to emulate reality to the closest point possible. I understand that this is a terrible bastardization of GNS theory, and I'm totally alright with that. ^_^

The Dice Mechanic

The GM sets a stat to challenge, and a number that you have to meet or beat to succeed in the check. You roll the die associated with that stat on your character sheet. If you meet or beat the difficulty number, you succeed on the check. If you don't, you fail the check.

After that, there are Traits, that are rather like the traits from Mouse Guard, because Mouse Guard uses some damned fine traits. Traits are both good things and bad things. If you happen to be an obese son'bitch, that serves in your favor in some situations, and not so well in others. How you decide to use your traits (as a bonus or a flaw) is up to you, with the following restriction: you can only use a trait as a positive as often as you've used it as a negative this session. So if it isn't getting in the way, it isn't helping you out either. If you take a Trait like Angry, and you want to get some righteous anger on in your Competition Turn, you'd best have gotten mad at your teammates for something stupid during the Real Life turn. You can bank negative uses, if you like. A positive use of a trait gives you a +3 bonus to any roll. A negative use of a trait gives you a -5 penalty to any roll. For now, just pick a descriptive word (any descriptive word) and make that a trait. Choose three of those.

There are three "derived stats." At the beginning of your first session, roll your Character die and your Spotlight die. The total rolled will be your Hit Points. Roll your Rules die and your Problem Solving die. The total rolled will be your Stress. Roll your Method die and your Rolls die. The total rolled will be your Drama. Each of these numbers is the total amount of "damage" you can take before you "break." Each stat starts at 0/total. So if you roll a total of 7 in Hit Points, you start with 0/7 hit point damage. When you reach 7 hit point damage, you break.

Damage is dealt when you fail a check. If you fail a check in Character or Spotlight, you will take 1 Hit Point damage. If you fail a check in Rules or Problem Solving, you will take one Stress damage. If you fail a roll in Method or Rolls, you will take one Drama damage. Each type of damage will break your character in different ways. Hit Point breaks will cause your character to hesitate at key moments. Each time you break in hit points, the GM can force you to _not_ take an action that you wish to take. Stress breaks will make your character take brash actions that you would normally not take. Any time you break in wish to take an action (or not take an action), the GM can force you to take that action in the angriest way possible. Drama breaks cause your character to act in one of two ways: he or she can become a whiny bitch at the worst possible times, or he or she can become a back-stabbing asshole at the worst possible times. You can choose which you prefer, and the GM can force you to act in that way, targeting the person or situation most recently responsible for your Drama.

When a character breaks, remove all of that type of damage from him or her. A character can have more than one break of each type.

The Turns

During the Real Life turn, the GM will present the party with a series of "real life" challenges. The nature of those challenges is largely up to the GM, the players, the character's back-stories and the like. Each challenge is addressed by a single character, with the other characters taking an secondary role for the duration. During a single session, a character cannot be the main character in a challenge twice. Each challenge should require an amount of role-playing, and the rolling of one or more stat. Secondary players in a challenge may also roll to help the main character in a challenge, so long as they describe how they are helping. If a secondary player succeeds on his or her check, the main player gets a +1 bonus on his or her roll. If a secondary player fails, he or she takes one damage of the appropriate type, and the main player takes a -1 penalty to the roll.

During the Competition Turn, players may attempt to rid themselves of damage. Competition is something the players enjoy, it's a way to blow off steam and have some fun. Each success during the Competition Turn eliminates one point of the appropriate type of damage. If a character has no damage, but has broken, they have a chance to get rid of the break by rolling a "critical" on a check (the highest number that can be rolled on that type of die, so 4 for a d4, or a 10 for a d10, or a 20 for a d20). The higher the die, the less likely the character will be able to eliminate a break; they're better at that type of challenge, but getting over the defeat is a lot harder when it's something you're particularly good at.

During the Real Life turn, the GM sets out a challenge to which the players react. During the Competition turn, the players set out a goal, to which the GM sets a challenge.

Progression

There really isn't much in the way of progression, here. The point is that you're already playing world-class gamers, sports stars. This is a potential flaw in the design. It may be better as a one-shot game or as a few sessions to cover a story arc.

Anyhow, that's my take on The Most Meta Game Ever. ^_^