Michael Cunliffe once said to me "I’d be very interested in a post about whether (or how to) use mechanics to suit setting in RPGs – how do you use dice rolls to provide not only dramatic, but thematic effect for players."
And I obey.
I’ve had an informal maxim in my head for years now as a game designer, and with every year that passes and every design I work on, I’m more and more certain it’s the right one. I’ve never really written it down before, but it goes something like this:
Mechanics drive player behavior.
On the surface, this sounds simple – a game about westerns should have rules about gunfights if it wants to have dramatic gunfights, and so on. But it goes deeper than that, I feel. Games feel different depending on what mechanics they use. This is more explicit with board games, card games, video games, and less flexible genres of game, but even the flavor and tenor of role-playing games are impacted by their choice of mechanics.
Take games of a similar genre, such as Boot Hill and Dust Devils.1 Both are Western games, but each is focusing on something different, whether the design is intended or not, and as a result you get different games. While there is a tried-and-true tradition of hacking or drifting rules in RPGs, what the game focuses on in terms of mechanics will consciously and subconsciously impact how the game is played. While some players can (and will) resist against the tide of mechanics, most will gladly be swept right along, and will indulge in the gameplay the mechanics present and reinforce. And a chunk of the feel and setting for an RPG is created by how the players act within it.
So yes, mechanics should help establish the setting in RPGs. But as a designer, how can you do that?
First, you have to know on a very real level what your setting needs to have enshrined in a mechanic. I believe every version of Dungeons & Dragons has alignment, even if the actual system has gone through various changes. The reason, though, is simple: the difference between "good" and "evil" matters in that game. Even if it doesn’t often come up in the game (and in my experience, it doesn’t come up much at all, aside from the odd "Detect Evil" spell), the fact that it exists and that there are parts of the game that work differently depending on that choice means that in D&D being good or evil is meaningful to the game, and therefore to the setting.
Next, you have to make sure those mechanics matter. Every version of Vampire has had Humanity as a mechanic. And not only a little mechanic, a small number tucked away on a character sheet, but a large ladder of dots. It generally takes up a fair amount of real-estate on a character sheet, and many fans of the game will remark on it being a core element of the game. The actual mechanic isn’t used that often compared to other parts of the game, but when it is, it’s often a significant moment. You can literally lose your character on a bad dice roll, so you’re encouraged to take actions that keep you from having to make that roll. If you make that mechanic matter to the player on a fundamental level, it will impact their game.
(As a side note, I once was in a chronicle of Dark Ages Vampire while I was also playing in a different campaign of D&D. There was a fair amount of overlap in some setting elements, such as "medieval hero uses unusual powers to deal with problems," but each game felt very different at their base because of the different emphasis in mechanics. Similarly, I’ve played an Exalted game under the same Storyteller who ran Dark Ages Vampire, and again they were very different feeling games because of the mechanics.)
Finally, the rest of the game needs to reinforce this mechanic. Paranoia is good at this. Although different editions emphasize different parts of the setting,2 the setting always reinforced and encourages the kind of player-against-player backstabbing and treachery that the rules encouraged. Everything about the game – even the name – backs up and supports this player dynamic.
This is why, I think, small games with a few mechanics and a strong direction are doing well these days – if you have a good vision for the game and everything else supports that vision, the game is stronger as a result.
It’s interesting that you mention D&D’s alignment in this, since in the current edition alignment is about as vestigial as can possibly be while still technically being part of the game. It’s one of the things I love about 4e, the removal of anything mechanical to do with alignment. If I remember it right, the very first version of D&D only had three alignments; law, chaos and neutral and they didn’t have all that much mechanical weight behind them, certainly nothing like they would subsequently get.
And yet, D&D without alignment stops being D&D. That choice of “I am choosing this explicit morality” is still important, even if various editions slide that importance around a bit.
Maybe. That’s certainly been true up to this point and will probably be true in the next edition (I’d certainly be very happy to see it jettisoned entirely.) I think that its significant de-emphasis in 4e has been mechanically positive; I’ve yet to hear any horrible stories about paladins being sexually assaulted to make them fall and that’s unambiguously a good thing. What’s interesting and pertinent is that the heroic D&D archetype/behavior is still there, even though the mechanics aren’t. The behavior doesn’t need to be driven by mechanics anymore; it’s on auto-pilot. It’s definitely related to the high-heroic fantasy genre of D&D but also, to a large extent, the instinct from previous editions.
In this case, I view “mechanic” as “something the game calls out as necessary to document.” By putting alignment on the character sheet, the system is saying that it’s important, and that shapes player behavior. Various editions do more or less on the “making it meaningful” scale (and I agree that I don’t think the game NEEDS that particular stick anymore), but it’s still a “mechanic.”
I found myself thinking the same thing about Exalted the other day, the system may be clunky, slow and difficult, at least initially, but it is inseperable from the feel and setting. You start trimming bits you don’t like and you end taking away awesome charms and powers that rely on those mechanics for expression.
A very interesting post. I would suggest that D&D is very much a game of archetypes – while the individual campaigns may have all manner of twists and changes, the game itself still relies on concepts like ‘evil wizard’, ‘goodly knight’ and ‘self-interested rogue’.
The alignment system helps cement characters into these roles, which in turn makes it easier to inhabit the plots of a typical D&D world.
I think this will help cement up my intended mechanics for the system I’m working on.
That’s another good point, but it’s not as easy to point to as an example. But yes, D&D certainly relies on certain group dynamics, which is explicitly clear in 4e.
Luke Crane once said to me, “System is setting.” I think he’s right, for precisely the reason you describe.
I hadn’t heard that before, but I think that’s dead on.
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