Conundrum: Motivators of Play for Cathartic Games

As I continue to work on modifying the Open d6 System for a Wuxia/Tianxia* style game as a revision of Flying Swordsmen, I'm struck by a few thoughts that make me hesitate.

One, which I know I've discussed before in relationship to my Asian-inspired fantasy games, is that of authenticity or at least getting the tone and feel right. Yeah, I'm a White dude, born and raised in the Midwest, but who has lived more than half of my life in East Asia, learning the languages, the cultures, the ways of thinking. Obviously, I don't get it as deeply as someone born and raised here. But I think I do understand it well enough to get a passable game setting. But I still have those nagging thoughts that I'm just making another version of "D&D in Funny Hats" (which was what I was blatantly doing with TS&R Jade). 

The second, which is related, is how to properly set up game systems that will motivate play for this sort of game? While there is an aspect of monster-slaying and treasure-hunting in Tianxia fiction, and a bit of that in Wuxia fiction, the typical D&D trope of slay the monsters and take their stuff, XP points accumulate just doesn't work as well for the sort of game I want to run. Flying Swordsmen has always started out great, but the games peter out pretty quickly because players flounder without simple goals like "go get the treasure." 

The action may be what draws people to the source material (especially the films/TV shows), but it's the character drama that really makes Wuxia interesting.

There's a part of me that thinks the authenticity part is not so important anyway. It's a game. Games are meant to be fun. Catharsis is fulfilling, but it's not always fun. Escapism is nearly always fun. So should I just not worry about it, and make another escapist game with Asian tropes? I could, but I've already done that (and done it well, I think). 

This time, I want to get a game that actually rewards playing not just a cool martial arts mystical warrior, but playing up the rivalries with other students or sects, difficulties with dealing with your sifu who is really good at kung fu but a shit person otherwise, or having to be torn between your duty to society (or family, or the king, or religion, etc.) and your desires for how you want to live your life.

For people equally well-acquainted (or better acquainted) with the Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHCs, as they are sometimes referred to in academics), this won't be a problem. I can present the rules, they will understand the tropes, and be able to work them in easily as they wish. For people not well-acquainted, I'm either going to have to write a cultural treatise on the subject, or else simply find a game mechanic system that will encourage this sort of thing within the rules.

I don't think I am up for the whole treatise thing. It's not my real area of academic endeavor, and it would take a long time and a lot of the people who need it would probably just ignore it, or misinterpret it anyway. So it feels to me, as I sit here today, like it will be a wasted effort. Those who wish to learn this stuff can find all sorts of resources online with just a simple Google search anyway. 

That leaves me with game mechanics. 

What I've got so far, is copying games like White Wolf or PbtA where they have a series of questions for each player to answer at the end of a game session. How did you do this? Can you provide an example of that? Show how you avoided doing this? For each question the players can give that plays to the tropes of the genre or leverages these Confucian relationships, they will get a Character Point. For each example where they break the tropes or go against the social expectations that Wuxia fiction demands.

Of course, then we get into discussions of railroading, metaplots, quantum ogres, and all that sort of thing. I'm not going to get into that right now, but I will say that from my experiences with Star Wars d6, if the players know they are in it for the immersive emulation experience (they want to experience what it's like to be a character in the SW universe), they will put up with more manipulation by the referee than they might otherwise with a more sandboxy D&D game. 

Until I can think of a better mechanic to try to encourage play that is more than just "beat up that guy, take his stuff" in a subtle fashion, I think this is the way to  go.

*Wuxia is very human-focused, Tianxia is more fantastical

Enthusiasm

My Star Wars game yesterday went really well. I had not only Richard (who runs Call of Cthulhu and recently started playing in my Jade game) and Randy (new to tabletop RPGs), but Philip who plays the Brash Pilot Satt Orin returned to the campaign after a hiatus. With Denis, Charles, and my son Steven, that made for six players. 

Even though two were new to the system (one new to doing this not mediated by a computer RPG system), it was easy to get them up to speed and into the game. 

The adventure was to break into a rich merchant's house on Tatooine and steal a data cube on Boonta Eve, the day of the big pod race. Twist: Jabba the Hutt has just been killed by that Rebellion leader Leia Organa and her friends. Twist 2: It's Jabba's townhouse in Mos Eisley that they're breaking into. Twist 3: Gardulla the Hutt has also sent a team to steal the cube, which has incriminating evidence on various Hutt rivals. 

It played out really well, and everyone had a blast. Things didn't go as planned, but they worked out in the end. And some player input created some fun complications that I hadn't thought of in advance.

After the game, Steven was really pumped up. He had a lot of fun in the session, saying that it felt like they were actually in a Star Wars movie during this one. We had a discussion about it, and he's conflicted about whether he likes D&D or Star Wars d6 better. He's full of plans to spend the large amount of cash that the party received for the mission. 

Texting with both Randy and Richard last night, they also both had a lot of fun with the game. Richard played through the solo adventure in the rulebook by himself that evening...but says he came to an untimely demise pretty quickly in it. He's considering possibly doing more with the d6 system, although it might be hard to pry him away from CoC. 

Randy had a lot of questions about my methods as a game master. Since he had only played computer RPGs before, he was really curious about how I came up with the scenario and how I managed all the details. How much was planned, how much was improv? Things like that. His mom was one of those Satanic Panic moms, so he never got to play as a kid, but now regrets that he didn't get to try RPGs until his 40s. We talked about my D&D game, too, and I sent him the TS&R Jade book to see what sorts of characters he might be interested in playing if he joins. 

I haven't heard feedback from Philip, Denis, or Charles other than a bit of post game chatting, but they said they enjoyed it a lot. 

All in all, a successful game. And I've definitely got my motivation to keep running Star Wars, when a couple months ago I was thinking I was done with it.

Motivating the Players

The assumption of traditional D&D play is that the PCs are after treasure. The assumption of more modern D&D is that the PCs are going on a heroic quest. Now, these two objectives can be merged, but it's not easy. The object of a quest can easily be a piece of treasure. Just look at any Indiana Jones movie for an example. The problem is that, if the treasure is the end goal, why collect all this incidental treasure along the way? Why give up searching for the MacGuffin to haul a load of coins back to town? Or if simply making that One Big Score is the goal, why keep adventuring once it's been achieved? 

In my current D&D game, the TS&R Jade campaign, I have a feeling that the players are waiting for me to drop a plot on their heads. That there will be a Big Bad Evil Guy to defeat, or a grand quest for the Great Googly Moogly MacGuffin, or some big Earth-Shattering Apocalypse to thwart. But I've just got a local area with towns, castles, caves, ruins, and factions waiting for them to explore it.

The game has been on hiatus due to various events and the holidays, but when we start it up again in January, I want to make a few small shifts in the game to hopefully bridge this gap. 

1. Give the players the DM map. No, not the dungeon maps and keys, but the overland map that has all the dungeons they could have found if they'd gone out to explore the wilderness. West Marches was all about going out to explore the unknown, and I started this new campaign still in that mindset. But the players aren't in a "go out and see what's over that hill" mindset. So best to pull back the curtain and show them the places near town where they can find adventure and treasure. 

2. Ask the players to provide their motivations. I got this idea from the Bandit's Keep YouTube channel. He suggests, after setting up an adventure, just asking the players directly what their motivations would be to actually engage with this, whether it's a dungeon, an event, a faction, or a quest. Get them involved. So when we start up again, I'm going to ask the players to answer these questions: 

• Why does your character need to find treasure?
• What would your character like to find?
• What would your character like to achieve?
• What is the party's current goal?

Hopefully, answering these questions will help get the players in the mood to treasure hunt, and also to feel more engaged with the world. When they can't answer a question, that's when I can provide them with some setting information to help them find an answer and get a better sense of the world. Or point them to a location on the map and let them know that they might get their answers there. Also, I can use their answers to tailor some of the locations that I haven't fleshed out yet to their desires.

Fetch Quests and Delivery Quests Suck

Why are fetch quests and delivery quests so popular in games? I understand to a degree why video games use them, since they primarily end up being side quests in that format. But in RPGs, they are pretty lame. I think I mentioned that I joined a PbP game of the 5E adventure Storm King's Thunder. And we're in the middle of a boring delivery quest right now. It's dragging on and on since it's PbP and takes weeks to get through an encounter. Someone spoiled the adventure for me, at least partially, and from what I heard, there are more dumb fetch/delivery quests waiting. I'm considering dropping out of that game.

And the 2E game I just joined that I mentioned in the previous post just got underway with all of our PCs meeting in a tavern with an NPC who wants us to be errand boys. Joy.

I figured that this was not a good way to manage a game session many years ago. In my first 3E campaign back in 2000, one of the adventures was based off of a story in Welsh mythology where the hero had to visit increasingly older and wiser creatures to learn the knowledge he sought. When I translated it into a D&D adventure, it ended up being a series of magical fetch quests for weirdo NPCs. And my players were fine with the first round, but when they found out there was a second, and then third round, they were not too happy. After the game, we discussed what I'd hoped for, and what they experienced in the game. I've not used the fetch quest or delivery quest since then in D&D thanks to their feedback. 

Players are gathering around to play D&D, or any other RPG, because they want to vicariously experience adventure through their character's experiences. Having an NPC just tell them, "Bring me back the MacGuffin and I will reward you." or "Take this MacGuffin to NPC B and they will reward you." is not very adventurous. Well, it can be adventurous if done well, but often it's just tedious. And if not done well, it can be very railroady.

So, what to do instead? 

First of all, it's perfectly fine for NPCs to want certain things, and even to offer rewards if the PCs can bring them those things. But that should just be one of many possible hooks or rumors that might drive PC actions. Whatever the MacGuffin is, it should not be something vital. It should not be something demanded of the PCs (an exception is when geas or quest spells get used, more on that below). Similarly, if an NPC wants something taken from here to there, why force the PCs to do it? Unless it's in some dangerous or difficult place to reach, why should a bunch of treasure seeking ne'er-do-wells or even glory seeking would-be-heroes waste their time playing Fedex?

The NPC makes it known that they would like to have X, or have X taken somewhere. Maybe they even say what the reward will be. That's a rumor you can introduce to the players when in the home town. If they follow up, they may contact the NPC for more information, and accept the job if they feel like it. If not, no big deal. There are other rumors or hooks for them to follow. And if they come across the item of a fetch quest, intentionally or by chance, and then offer it to the NPC, they can claim the reward. Of course, they should always have the option to just ignore the MacGuffin, or even keep it for themselves. Similarly, the PCs should be free to abscond with the MacGuffin of a delivery quest if they so choose, or just simply ignore the whole affair and find something more interesting or challenging to do.

Now, there will be times when PCs end up under [often magical] compulsion. This may be due to a geas or quest spell, as mentioned previously, or something they agree to as payment for a service (removal of a curse or to have a slain companion raised, for example). But this should happen as a consequence of the PCs' actions and choices. If they try to rob the Temple of Golden Pigs, and the High Hogg's men catch them, the High Hogg may slap a quest spell on them as punishment. That's fair. It's the consequence of their failure. 

Even then, the quest/geas spells allow you to ignore the compulsion, accept a penalty, and try to find a way to remove that magical compulsion somewhere else. And if it's not a magical compulsion, and the PCs are willing to accept the legal or social consequences of their actions (possible arrest or being labelled as outlaws, refusal of further services by the Temple of Golden Pigs, etc.), again there is nothing forcing them to finish the fetch quest. 

And in cases where the PCs willingly accept a fetch or delivery quest, it had better be worth the players' time. A trip from village A to village B, maybe with a planned encounter or two on the way, is not so exciting. Having to find an object in a remote, dangerous, or magical environment (dungeon, cursed mountain, other plane of existence, etc.), or deliver the object to a similarly hard to reach place, is a good step to making the quest more interesting. But even then, what's in it for the PCs? 

In my West Marches game, there were NPCs who wanted certain things. There were sometimes rumors about these things, and the players followed them up from time to time. But they were just rumors I threw out there, that could lead them to new areas of the Marches, or else suggested things they could do, but hadn't considered on their own, in areas they'd already explored. I had one NPC who would occasionally pop up in town seeking new monsters for his menagerie. A few times the PCs followed up on this, trying to hunt down that type of monster, capture one or more, and bring them back to town. Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they failed, and sometimes they just gave up because they found something more interesting. And I was fine with all of that. I could always wait a few months then reintroduce Throckmorton P. Ruddygore, with a new request for the capture of a new type of monster in a different area of the Marches. 

Similarly, in my Star Wars game, the PCs wanted a faster hyperdrive for their ship. So I determined that there were three places to get one on the Outer Rim planet they were based on. Two NPCs would sell them outright, or would reduce the cost if the PCs would help in some way. A third wanted safe passage off the planet (he was wanted) and would exchange the hyperdrive for help escaping. In this case, the idea of improving the hyperdrive was 100% a player-driven goal. And if they'd pooled their money, or gone on some other adventure to make up what they lacked, they could have just purchased a hyperdrive without any hassle. They also had three different places to find one, and if they had tried to leverage one against the others, they could have possibly gotten the discount without the "quest." 

In the end, they ended up taking on the quest of the first merchant they talked to, who wanted them to salvage an AT-AT walker for spare parts. And of course, there were other interested parties that the PCs had to deal with while doing so. In the end, it was challenging and fun for the players, and they managed, through their own initiative and effort, to get the reward they wanted. 

So please, don't start an adventure -- and definitely don't start the entire campaign -- by forcing the players to go on some boring fetch quest or delivery quest for an NPC in order to "advance the story." Use NPC desires as potential motivators of action, but leave it up to the PCs to follow up on that or not, and make sure that if they do follow up, there is adventure and challenge along the path.

Chanbara: Coming Together

I've been making some mental notes about how to put together a "running the game/GM advice" chapter for Chanbara, as well as introductory text.  This was actually inspired by some of my academic reading, so maybe studying for a Ph.D wasn't such a crazy idea after all.  It's making my game writing better.*

First of all, considering the audience (likely to be primarily experienced RPG gamers), I think the introduction will have even LESS "what is an RPG?/How do you play?" stuff than Flying Swordsmen did, and I cut a lot of that out of FS.  Instead, I'm probably going to go straight to the heart of the style of game and the goals of play (as I see it).

The goals (what the game is about in Story RPG terms) is two-fold.  First of all, the game lets you emulate Medieval Japanese hero tropes battling against traditional creatures from Japanese folklore (and/or Medieval Japanese villains).  That's the surface level game.  Secondly, the game is about exploring social bonds, duty, responsibility, and reciprocity.  This is the deeper game.

Chanbara can be played at a "beer and pretzels" surface level, and hopefully will be fun.  "I'm Hattori Hanzo, you're Abe-no-Seimei, together we fight Orochi."**  Killing monsters and taking their stuff, D&D in funny hats, katana and sorcery pulp action, call it what you will.

But with the Allegiance system, every character will have a family bond, a patron or lord, and possibly another group or professional organization (trade guild, religious affiliation, etc.).  This replaces alignment in the game, and is heavily influenced by the Allegiance system in d20 Modern, but not identical.  Characters will earn XP for defeating monsters and overcoming challenges.  They can also earn XP for treasure acquired IF they donate it to one of their lieges***.  And this is where the deeper game can come into play.

Each family/organization/master will have different goals and desires, threats they must overcome, etc.  They can easily provide adventure hooks to players.  Also, when players donate treasure to them, they can advance their goals, and there should be rewards in it for the characters.  However, it's hard to serve two masters.  Donate all of your wealth to your daimyo, and the head of your family clan may turn against you.  The master of your shinobi clan's goals may contradict those of the trade guild you also serve.  This is built in conflict, and that's a good thing!  Not only does it give the GM and player something to use to spur adventures, it is something players can negotiate with the GM to make the game more fun.

Players that wish to explore the deeper game will hopefully get an experience closer to a lot of the fiction I'm drawing on as inspiration.  Players will go on adventures (sometimes of their own choosing, sometimes at the behest of a patron/liege.  When they're successful, they then have to make choices about which patrons/lieges to support, if any!  After all, in order to build up their own social/political power, they'd want to keep as much treasure for themselves as possible.  Duty, responsibility, loyalty, honor -- some of the main tropes of Japanese fiction right there, folks.

Or at least that's the goal.  We'll see if I can pull it off.





*I kid.  The Ph.D course has been great, actually.  I've learned a lot and actually enjoy learning more about teaching English to non-native speakers.  Even if I never get a position as a professor, it's been worthwhile.

**Hattori Hanzo - famous ninja (historical)/Abe-no-Seimei - famous onmyoji (historical)/Orochi - 8-headed serpent (mythical)

***Thinking of changing the name to Patron as it's an easier term to use, but that's not an exact fit.

What motivates the players?

Two and a half years ago, I blogged about character motivation here and a follow up here.

Recently, in my grad school classes we've been talking about motivation with regards to teaching English as a second or foreign language.  And it got me thinking again about motivation in RPGs.  Two years ago, I was thinking about in-character motivations for your PC.  Now, I'm thinking about motivations for you, the player (or DM).

One convenient way to classify types of motivation is as either intrinsic (internal) motivation and extrinsic (external) motivation.  Long story short, intrinsic motivation means you're self motivated, while extrinsic motivation means something outside your own mind motivates you to do something.  In ESL circles, intrinsic motivation is preferred, as intrinsically motivated students tend to work harder, but extrinsic motivations are still necessary otherwise intrinsic motivation can evaporate. 

So what motivates us to play RPGs?  I've made a list.  Not an exhaustive one, by any means.  Not necessarily the most thought out list either.  But I'm gonna put this stuff up here on the blog for people to consider and comment on, and if someone can point out where and how I'm wrong, I'll improve my model.  The essence of peer review right there.

First off, all the stuff I talked about before, the in-character motivations, are really for the player extrinsic motivations, whether they are intrinsic or extrinsic to the fictional player character.  Yes, there is some wish fulfillment in gaming, but I don't think anyone's satisfying their actual craving for gold or power or lovers by playing a game.  Living vicariously can act as a stop-gap measure, but in the end won't satisfy.  Or maybe there are a few people who are, but I'd guess they're outliers rather than part of the normal distribution of players.

Some other extrinsic motivations for players might include:
System Mastery - contact with the rules, Min/Maxing, sussing out the exploits, rules lawyering, etc.  I'd almost consider this as intrinsic, as it's something you can do in your head, but it also relies on the rule system you're trying to master, plus the fact that mastery is pointless if you don't ever play.  Still, it may be a good example of the fact that the extrinsic/intrinsic split is more of a spectrum than an either/or decision.

Character Advancement - some game systems do this better than others, obviously, but in most games there is some way to advance and improve your character, and doing so is often a motivation to play.  It stimulates our reward centers in our brains.  We've got bigger numbers or a longer list of stuff on our character sheet.  We've got a feeling of achievement.  And again, while it's personal to a large extent, it's also something that you need others to pull off.  Even with a solo game system of some sort, you're really still interacting with the designers in order to advance.

Socialization - this one's probably obvious.  Sometimes, it's not so much the game itself, or the character you've created, or the exploration of the game world.  It's spending quality time with friends that motivates you to play.  Related to this are two more types of motive I thought of:

Bragging Rights - some people play in order to win.  Yeah, there are no win conditions in an RPG.  Or at least not in the typical sense of most games' win conditions.  But yet, there is competition at times.  Players can play games of oneupsmanship with each other, and at times that might be a strong motivation to participate for some gamers.

Schadenfreude - and the converse to bragging rights, the gamer who's not so interested in doing "better" than others, but who gets a kick out of all the bad things that can happen to PCs in the game.  I don't know if this would be someone's primary motivation to play, but there is definitely a sense of enjoyment to be had in watching another player do something stupid, or fail a saving throw, or whatever.

Narrative Crafting - one last one I'll mention for now is the desire to create a story.  It's the goal of the game for some games (you know, the Forge-derived "story now" stuff which doesn't really suit my preferences, but that's just me).  Some games don't make it a goal, but players may still have it as a goal or driving force.  They attend the game to create drama, and that's where they derive their fun.

So, now let's move on to what I consider some intrinsic motivations for gaming.  Again, not intended to be an exhaustive list, and also there can be some extrinsic elements or factors within some of these, just as there are some intrinsic factors in the extrinsic motivations I've detailed above.

Immersion - one of the big intrinsic factors, I think, is the desire to lose yourself in the character, the imaginary world, or both.  While it does require some interaction with others to play the game, how deeply you immerse yourself in the imagined fiction depends on you and you alone.  One player can be very immersed in the game, while another player in the same game may not be immersed at all.  Yes, that can cause some dissonance but that's not the point.  You control how immersed you are in the game, so I consider it an intrinsic motivation.

Escapism - I think we can all relate to this one, and yes, it's connected to immersion.  We game to escape work, study, family obligations, the quotidian reality of daily life.  There's a desire to be something more than we are, if only for a few hours a week.  Does it seem like I'm contradicting myself where above I talk about wish-fulfillment being an extrinsic motivation?  Maybe I am, but the way I'm looking at it now, escapism is more of a general wanting Calgon to take me away* feeling than a specific vicarious activity performed through play. Gaming to escape worrying about the mortgage payment for a few hours = intrinsic escapism.  Gaming to pretend to do something you can't in real life = extrinsic vicarious motivation because that thing you can't do in real life is by definition not part of you.

Completionism - this is one of the weaker ones on the intrinsic list, but similar motivations exist in other types of games.  Completionism could take many forms, from wanting to play every type of character or try every option, to wanting to fully explore (or create) a fictional world, to wanting to play out that ideal character type over and over again until you get it "right."  Yes, there are some aspects of extrinsic motivation in this one.  Exploring a prepublished game world, or your DM's masterpiece involves something outside of you.  Playing "one of everything" requires lots of game time, which requires other people (usually).  But the motivation to do so exists regardless of the feelings of other players to some extent. 

Emergent Story - in contrast to the extrinsic motivation to actively craft a story, the hope that an interesting story will emerge from play organically is more of an intrinsic motivation.  It's up to semi-random chance that an interesting and satisfying narrative will emerge from any session, as player choice and the whims of the dice may see fit to scupper any coherence or sense of rising and falling action in one session, and enhance it in another.  So I consider waiting around for it to happen and basking in it when it does is again something that mostly can happen just in your own head, although if others share this motivation it becomes more extrinsic.

Fun - should I include this?  I think so.  JB was writing a while back about how fun is not a goal of play, it's an expectation of play, and I agree.  We expect playing games to be fun, so we are motivated to play them.  And while it's best if everyone is having fun together, what makes something fun for me might not be the same thing that makes something fun for someone else.  There's a whole big list of motivations in this thread, none mutually exclusive, that will lead you to have fun at the table.  And my fun is not always contingent on your fun, and sometimes may even hamper your fun (a sign of incompatible players).  So, in my opinion, fun is an intrinsic motivation of play.




*dating myself, but then I figure much of my readership is of the same generation as me.  For all you whipper-snappers reading this, Google is your friend.