Friday, November 18, 2022

Next Step Unknown

This post occurred to me while doing dishes with my partner Tamara, talking about video games.  The conversation reminded me of a comment from JB's blog, a week ago, from Jacob.  This was in answer to something I said about how I'd want to play in a campaign, but that's not relevant.  Here's the paragraph that needs attention:

"All of that commitment by the DM to generate systems to provide the sort of rational and believable campaign world that you are after would be better spent coding it up and selling it to the masses as a game rather like Sid Meier's Civilisation."


Funny that Civilisation still gets attention as the height of believability, given that it's woefully out of date.  There are far more elaborate and complex logistical games in existence now, such as Europa Universalis ... but of course, no game is remotely as complex as D&D.  This evening, for my running, the party is going to be travelling through Hades, participating in a series of meetings that I've conjured in the last two weeks.  If I'd spent my time trying to code these events into a computer program, the result would be (1) half-assed, because I wouldn't have near enough time, even if I could spend 80 hrs. a week at it; (2) cheesy and crappy, because I'd have to predict all the players' responses to code them ... and of course I can't know what the players' responses would be, because I'm not omnipotent; and (3) non-existent, because I can't fucking code.  Moreover, I wouldn't have time to earn a living, love my partner, play with my grandson, cook dinners every day, make maps and write these posts for people like you, the gentle reader.  So fuck coding.

Still, that's not the point of this post.

For a time, up until 9 years ago, I was pretty heavy into Civilisation, especially Civ IV.  I used the game to build multiple concepts into D&D worldbuilding, the reader will remember.  Since getting the game on Steam, about seven years ago, I've played 2,038 hours of it.  Before that, I owned the disk.  There have been times when I was so down and disinterested in life that I could wake up in the morning, start a standard size game, finish it, start another game, and finish that, before going to bed.  Unemployed, broke, depressed, unable to find work ... 2009 was a very bad year.

When I'd spend four or more hours playing Civ, afterwards I always felt worse than when I'd started.  During the actual game, I'd fall into the flow that comes from managing all the details of a game, but the end result of that management was destructive of my soul.  This is because, for all Civ's elements, the game itself is fundamentally button-sorting.  I understand that sounds counter-intuitive; sorting buttons is usually seen as gathering different objects together according to their type ... and yes, this is what Civilisation is.

Initially, there's problem-solving, yes.  Mostly in figuring out how the rules work, but also in determining the best combinations of units to fight with and more importantly, how to make each centre as productive as possible.  The only thing is, there's a finite collection of city types and forms of development ... and if you play enough of the game, eventually it becomes a matter of taking that button and putting it in the box it belongs.  This can be distracting ... and if I find myself in a mood so that I just want to be kept busy, then Civilisation is "okay."  But I'm not solving problems any more with it.  Mostly, I'm remembering what I'm supposed to do when this situation occurs, or when the bastards next door are the Chinese vs. the Persians ... since we know, eventually, the Chinese ARE going to stab us in the back.  That is, unless we keep them scared.

But, because I'm going through the motions, I'm basically just a Civ-playing machine.  I'm not really playing, since I know that if I don't do this, I won't do as well.  So, when I'm done ... I feel like the previous four hours, or ten, or whatever, were wasted.  For all the intellectual value the game has left to offer, I'd do better spending ten hours selling phones at the mall.

On the other hand, let's take another game: Oxygen Not Included.  Most of you will have heard me refer to this game now and then.  Since I bought the game around Christmas, 2019, I've played 2,368 hours of it.  Some of this includes forgetting the game was still running ... I once left it run overnight and unattended for 13 hours.  Without a dupe dying.  I think that's an achievement of some kind.

What I like about it is that the game provides endless opportunities for problem-solving.  The systems it's built are remarkably intuitive and interactive, so that with time it's always possible to create a better solution or practice for a problem the game provides.  Whenever I think of a "right way" to do something, soon enough I'm deconstructing that way to make it better.  This includes how the rooms and levels are laid out, and how the oxygen, water, power, morale and aesthetic are managed.  Except for the obvious limitations of the premise, I find it the most sandboxy game I've ever played.

When I put it down, I feel fine.  The game sparks my desire to solve problems, so that if I get a game going in the late afternoon, after an hour or so I'll find myself closing it so I can work on something real ... some passage that needs new copy, a map, a blog post, even working on the splatbook.  When I designed the menu, I'd take breaks by playing ONI.

For those who might be interested, here's what happens when you introduce the enormous sea on the bottom of the map to the magma layer beneath:



Still have two dupes left.  Surprisingly, quite a lot of the base, the part around the  is still fairly cool.  See?



Most of the base is trashed, though.  I've been trying to figure out how to rebuild and vent the heat, especially the open hole.  See, the system has become stable, with the steam condensing and falling out of the air, back down into the magma pit where it boils out at 650 degrees again.  So the natural engine isn't cooling.  And if a dupe steps into it, it dies.  I mean, it becomes incapacitated almost instantly.  The heat in the red areas is 250 F.

Here's the thing.  A game like Civ is designed to be played correctly or lost.  A game like ONI is designed to be played badly and struggled back from.  There's always a way back, because the way back depends on the player's creativity and intuition, NOT the game's design.

This is D&D.  At least, the way I play it.  Most see the game as a collection of things the players are supposed to do in order to succeed, such as clean out a dungeon and get the treasure, or recover the McGuffin.  Whereas I see D&D as an endless set of possibilities, where the players can do anything, while I'm able to "code the game" instantly and on the spot, without needing a computer.  Because I am one.

Thus, if the players enter into a valley where anything might be happening, including a volcano having just exploded, the player's responses are ... um ... unknown.  I mean, absolutely unknown, just as I have no knowledge of how to solve the base problem above.  There's no "guidebook" on the internet that will tell me how, because none of the various pundits who blabber about the game have created the situation I've just shown.  The solution has to be mine.

That's what we want the players to feel.  There is no dungeon, there is no pile of buttons to be sorted, no bottles to wash, no pre-set monsters to kill, no thing to get.  There's the situation, there's the players ... 

Have at 'er.


P.S.,

In all fairness, I should show the hole:



1 comment:

  1. This post perfectly explains what I've been saying for a long time about why I run dnd.

    ReplyDelete

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