Three Other Affordances

In this part two post about affordances, part 1 here, I'll use three more basic games as structural models for a different approach to D&D, not as a replacement of the dungeon, but as something for the players to do besides the dungeon. None of them are new to this blog, but perhaps if I describe them differently, more structurally, it might be easier to imagine how they could each be run separately (or even conjoinedly) as scaled affordances that are spacially bounded, have a repeatable procedure and yet still a reliable payoff. This is not a structure for these different game styles that I've tried to outline before, so let's see where it gets us.

The three games are, not surprisingly, Go, Chess and Monopoly. None of these games, obviously, are RPG in structure... but all are built upon a thematic ideal that attempts to simplify a normal part of the human condition, which can also be likewise simulated by D&D. Go is about the acquisition of territory, the placement of stones that inevitably impose jurisdiction upon a wide area. Chess is control through indirect power; the use of pawns to hedge in larger pieces until the most important is trapped. And Monopoly is the mastery of resources through purchase, improvement and ultimately leverage against persons and larger entities.

Go on a two-dimensional gameboard is an adversarial contest between two sides that place stones to capture "territory." In a D&D setting, it's usually assumed that all the "territory" in the setting has already been "captured," but this isn't actually true. The dungeon is essentially territory that the players enter, clean out and plunder... and then abandon, because the empty dungeon in the game is assumed to have no value. That territory doesn't have to be abandoned; it could, instead, be reconstructed and repurposed to be the first stone the players put on the game board. A DM, obviously, could decide to play "gotcha" with the players — "Oh, you thought this dungeon was cleaned out? Ha, you fools!" — but let's assume a DM not threatened by the players having achieved something fairly.

With the dungeon as foothold, the players can either begin to claim the nearest plots of land, either clearing out any creatures that are there (adventuring), which is like laying stones side by side, or jumping to another dungeon some twenty or forty miles away, which is like placing your black stone on the other side of the opponent's white stone. Effectively, the whole of civilisation is covered by white stones, from the player's perspective, but we may also see it as millions of different shades and tones, not getting along with each other, so that the players can conquer small areas and grow their territorial coverage.

Here is our repeatable procedure: start by clearing out two or three dungeons, each of which we then convert into structured, controlled "stones." We hire mercenaries to defend them, or henchfolk, being careful not to spread ourselves too thinly at the campaign's start. We seek ways to tie our stones together; force out the residents of this village OR impose ourselves (kindly, meanly) as their protectors. We might use our wealth gained through plunder to legitimately make their lives better, or we may intimidate them into making ourselves more powerful. Slowly, we accumulate stones until we reach a level that we can seize larger and larger sections of wilderness or the periphery of society; until, inevitably, we can count ourselves as the local lords over such and such a valley, giving our fealty to some higher power who acknowledges our right to legimately "own" our land. This is our predictable and reliable payoff.

After that, we can legitimately enter a foreign land, plunder, seize their territory and call it our own, and use our king's support as a threat against their king. Again, repeatable, again, a reliable payoff. Wholly douable and we're not endlessly in a dungeon.

Chess on a two-dimensional gameboard is an adversarial contest between two players who use subordinate pieces to temporarily apply pressure against other squares, in order to eventually force an enemy to surrender more entities than the number working for us. If we discard the idea that the board squares are "territory," and instead see the board as a resolution of power over whom the players have leverage, then we can see how the game represents all of society falling temporarily into the party's hands. Think of it thusly: there are not 32 game pieces on a side, and there are not two sides, but rather there are thousands of "entities" that fill up the world, each of which has appetites and vulnerabilities the players can exploit, one at a time. To put it another way, instead of acquiring physical territory, the game becomes about acquiring allegiances, while using those allegiances to "take" our enemies resources from them.

Consider the party encountering a bandit party, one that is small enough for the players to intimidate. Rather than destroying them, the players "make a deal" with them. They'll supply the bandits with food, a place of protection, weapons, healing, if the bandits will harry a certain village. Then they approach the village with another deal; "We'll convince the bandits to leave you alone, not for coin, but for the place in the local market your village's charter allows you to use. In fact, we'll do your trading for you."

The village gets the party legitimate access to the town; guards as another "pawn" are bribed, used to eliminate an enemy pawn, a competitor village. Steadily, as the party gains levels, they make donations to a religious entity to gain their good will; to a local squire; to a guild; the money from dungeon plundering is used to grease whichever group can be induced or motivated to work on the party's behalf, while repeating the cycle over and over. Gain access, use the access to find a weak point, use money to turn this force against that, increase access to higher entities.  And at each step along the way comes entitlements, options, goods received from destroyed competitors and always the readiness to confront an enemy physically who won't concede when pressed.

Pawns are any group that is expendable and numerous: the aforementioned bandits, dock workers convinced to strike, fisherfolk for whom we buy boats so we can corner the market on fish, any group that is really unable to defend themselves because they have no real power. The religious community is a bishop, free to cut diagonally through society, invoking their control through belief, legitimacy, sanctuary, denunciation, charity and moral authority, all of which can be levied even against a monarch. Soldiers are knights, which can move this way, that way, with sanctioned irregularity: they can appear where needed, ignore what they're told to ignore, and force change without waiting for procedure. Fortifications are rooks, anchoring territory, controlling approaches, dealing with common folk who dare to use violence to undermine our framework of promises and lies that ensures our power over them.

And the Queen is the prestige we gain through union with another entity like ourselves: prestige, title, legitimacy, access to the highest levels of society, a piece with maximal mobility that changes what is possible everywhere. It is the most powerful piece because it multiplies your options.

All this relies upon a DM who does not care if we succeed. One who is willing to shrug, even laugh at our audacity, while conceding, "Yes, that makes sense, that would probably work." It needs a DM that understands this is how the real world actually works, who doesn't feel the need to moralise "the decent way to play" the game, like everyone's a hero. I'm that DM. But I don't honestly think there's another DM anywhere who is. Chess, however, is a game where even the most powerful of pieces can be eliminated ruthlessly, in exchange for advantage over an enemy. There is no "morality" in chess, no "favourite knight" we would never part with. Every piece except the king, ourselves, is expendable. D&D, played with that mindset, where every NPC in the game is, in the DM's mind, just as expendable, works. But if the DM has favourites? There's no point in even trying to play this form of game. If the DM won't play chess and insists on playing Tic-Tac-Toe, then the only winning move is not to play.

Monopoly is an economics-themed game where the players move randomly around a 2D board and purchase properties when they become available. Once the properties are purchased, the players collect rent from visitors, until sufficient capital is available to upgrade the property so that more rent can be obtained. In D&D, vast parts of the game setting are available for purchase, much of it dirt cheap or even, in the case of the wilderness, free for the taking. The loop is simple when we translate this into the game setting: acquire assets, develop them, create income, use income to acquire more assets and survive the swings of bad luck long enough to compound. "Boardwalk" is replaced with a riverside warehouse, an inn, a farm, a fishing boat, a kiln, a smokehouse, a toll bridge. "Rent" is accumulated as produce, fees, settlements, margins. "Railroads" and "Water Works" are replaced by smuggling, guilds, trade routes, public contracts, banking... and of course still, flat out plunder.

And at first, yes, plunder is the easiest way to gain, but capitalisation is reliable, foreseeable, non-threatening and, inevitably, it grows exponentially. Though it requires a party not to think small; it requires a party ready to do bookkeeping; it requires a DM willing to just let the players' assets be, just like every other asset with an owner in the game world. If their business have gotten along just fine for twenty years, then the players should expect the same. The DM cannot feel obliged to burn down the players' bakery for the sake of "drama"... and if the players own an inn, warehouse, kiln or ferry, these too should be respected.

In fact, consider it thusly. If it is not permissible to kill the players' character without granting that character the right of a fight for life, then it is not permissible to do the same with the players property without also giving the players a right to fight to keep it. Let us say the bakery does catch fire. Then, if so, the players should be on hand to try to put it out; they should have an equal chance to put the fire out as they would collectively to save their own lives in a fight; and if they should lose that fight, then it is is a fair loss, not the ad hoc removal of something the players have earned upon a DM's whim.

So long as a party can respond — whatever kind of game is played — take actions, make rolls, spend resources, call in help, accept trade-offs and succeed or fail with the same principle as a dungeon fight, then the DM is justified in imposing a threat. But just as the DM cannot say, "your character died in their sleep," just because the DM decides it, then what the character's own, even if we talking about a fish hook, cannot be taken away without the due process of challenge, die rolls and success/failure. This is a contract that every DM should absolutely observe, whatever the game played.

It is the only way to define "fair play."

Once the players understand this contract exists, and the DM will respect it, then they can relax. They can feel able to step up fairly and justifiably with the expectation that "If I work for it, it's mine, and only mine, and not something the DM can arbitrarily take away." With that assurance, players can do anything. They don't have to believe their only choice of action is just another dungeon.