If you haven't been keeping track, I've been analyzing an academic presentation at a conference on Game Studies by the Danish researcher Jesper Juul, presented in 2003. I had to take a little break in the series due to some real life issues (family issues, midterms, Avengers: Infinity War...). This post discusses the final element Juul uses to define what is and isn't a game, and I give a few thoughts on his definition of what a game is.
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.
Element 6: Negotiable Consequences
Juul's final element gets a fairly long section in his paper, possibly because it is the fuzziest criterion for defining games. Basically, what he's trying to say is that games, as most people conceive of them, do not have serious, lasting consequences...but sometimes, they really do. Several of the sources Juul used to synthesize his definition of games listed something along the lines of being for fun or having no influence on the world at large. And really, when we think of games, we think of them as a form of pastime or entertainment. Games should be fun, right? We play them for fun. It makes intuitive sense.
Yet, we look at the real world, and we seem plenty of 'games' being played WITH actual consequences (financial, physical or mental health, relationship, etc.). We can gamble on nearly any kind of game, and it has serious financial consequences if the stakes are high enough. Professional games are played. Games can be addictive and damage our physical and/or mental health if we overindulge. What seems like a harmless family game may cause long-term relationship damage. How do we square this actual observational data with the ideal of games being 'just for fun'?
As I mentioned before, Juul posits a cline or spectrum upon which instances of game play can be placed from no consequences to however serious they may be (some sports have deadly consequences from time to time, and most professional sports have high stakes financial consequences).
I can play soccer with my sons. There is no money on the line. Ronaldo plays soccer and makes big bucks. Is Ronaldo not playing a game because he is making money from it? Caillois, one of Juul's sources (yes, I need to read this, I'll get to it) says Ronaldo is NOT in fact playing a game because he is working. But I think most of us would still consider a pro soccer match to be a game. It is identical to that game my sons and I play in the park rules-wise (well, we may bend them since my younger is only 3). Both have variable and quantifiable outcomes. Players are attached to the outcomes in both, and both valorize winning as opposed to losing. Both require effort by the players. Both fit all five previous elements of the definition. It is only in this last that they diverge. And in order to solve the question of divergence of consequences, Juul posits that the game exists independent of the consequences. A game on its own has no serious real world consequences. People may, though, decide to give a game consequences prior to play (negotiating).
In other words, this is not so much a defining element of games as it is a refutation of Caillois and others who claim that games are ONLY leisure activities void of consequence in a real-world sense.
As such, I think it makes sense to have it as part of the definition - because the question of "Are pro gamers still playing games?" is of academic interest. But it has little useful function in defining what is and isn't a game 99% of the time.
In this section, and later when he talks about the chart of games/borderline games/non-games, he mentions several activities that seem to meet the previous five criteria but HAVE serious consequences in real life. The stock market is one. Traffic and war are also given as examples. The stock market is interactive, has set rules, has variable quantifiable outcomes, involves 'player' effort, valorizes some outcomes and not others, and 'players' are most definitely invested in the outcome (pun intended). Yet trading shares of stock is NOT a game. It could be made into a game, but it isn't. Because the default way to 'play' the stock market (and we do use that verb with it, don't we?) demands real financial consequences of play.
Similarly, we have traffic laws. You won't always get to your destination (you could crash, or get lost, or run out of fuel) so it has variable quantifiable outcomes, and drivers and passengers are definitely invested in arriving at their destination. It takes effort to drive a vehicle. Again, is driving a game? Juul says no, because again the consequences of crashing your vehicle are always potentially deadly.
So, Juul needs to address professional sports again in the realm of safety now, and he does. Some sports carry the risk of injury or even death, even if played just for fun. And professional sports have, over the years, continued to evolve their rules and safety precautions in order to minimize injury and death from the sport. We don't have Roman style gladiator contests anymore, we have things like Sasuke and pro-wrestling which minimize injury and death. We make sure the cars used in auto races are as safe as can reasonably be expected. We are constantly seeing advances in sports gear to protect players from injury in a wide range of sports. The ideal is that games should be consequence free, but in reality they often do have serious consequences...but players know this going in and agree to accept the consequences of play.
Gambling, again, is another example of negotiating consequences. I used to play poker with my siblings as a kid. We never wagered any money, though, it was just for fun (and bragging rights). But walk into a casino. In that location, you can't play any sort of poker, craps, roulette, or other games of chance without wagering money on them. The gambling in a casino has mandatory consequences, but it is a choice on the part of the player to engage in it or not. The activities can be and are sometimes played without consequences just for fun.
Finally, Juul notes that there are some non-negotiable consequences of play, and they are often not consciously considered. Games take time to play. The valorization/attachment to outcomes require mental and emotional investment in the game, and can cause hurt. He again mentions sore losers as people who violate the social contract because of their reaction to these unavoidable consequences.
That's a lot of words by me (for a lot of words by Juul), but it can be boiled down to this: games are activities that can be played without any real world consequences other than the time and effort needed to engage in the activity, and the fact that they sometimes have more serious consequences attached to them does not invalidate the activities as games (although people are free to exclude the instances of game play which involve consequences if they like).
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To wrap up the series, I want to re-iterate that this has been mostly a thought exercise for me. I looked at how Juul defines games, and what I see as a missing implication (that most of the elements in the definition are not binaries, but rather sliding scales).
Commenter Mr. T suggested that trying to define games is a pointless task, as no definition will be satisfactory. I think he's right that no definition will ever be satisfactory. But then my academic field, language education/applied linguistics, also has terms that people can't agree on how to define. Yet people DO propose definitions, and other researchers use those definitions (or modify them) in their own work to use as a common baseline for other academics to understand the position of the writer, and to test the ideas presented. The important thing is to spell out your definitions openly so people know where you're coming from.
If I write a paper using a Connectivist Model of Learning, it's fair to critique it using Connectivist definitions. It may be useful for someone else to use a Behaviorist Model and discuss how that would possibly interpret the data and conclusions I present differently, but it's not actually saying I'm wrong because it's using a completely different conceptual framework. It's just saying their framework is different from mine. Any real critique of my work needs to be done first from within the conceptual framework I've chosen, and once the flaws are pointed out in that conceptual framework, THEN another framework can be argued to better explain the data.
Juul's definition of games is a decent conceptual framework to base further ponderings of RPGs and what makes them games but somehow different from other games. Other conceptual frameworks surely work well, too. I'm not opposed to taking what I've written here (or will write in the future) and examining it from another conceptual framework. But academics need to spell out what conceptual frameworks they're working with, so the idea that games "can't adequately be defined" is really not helpful. They can be defined, and while no definition is perfect, the definition can be good enough to work with going forward. I think Juul's definition is definitely in that category.
In the future (I've been reading more on game design theory, as well as Games Theory which both is and isn't related to games), I'm going to be looking at RPGs and design using this model of what a game is, and probably also evaluating them from a few other models or definitions as well.
Showing posts with label Juul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juul. Show all posts
Monday, May 7, 2018
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Juul's Theory of Games Elements 4 and 5: Effort and Attachment
Jesper Juul (2003) gives a definition of games based on six elements or criteria that can be used to define a game. My initial thoughts on Juul's paper can be found here, a discussion of element 1 here, and discussion of elements 2 and 3 here.
Element 4: Player Effort
In order for a game to be a game, players need to put forth some effort. This seems fairly obvious, and Juul doesn't spend much time describing this element, even though it's arguably the most relevant trait (Chris Crawford, whose On Game Design I'm currently reading, lists this as the final definitive difference between games and other types of play such as toys and puzzles, for example). Here's what Juul has to say in its entirety:
This seems hard to argue against. If games imply challenge. Win or lose. They also imply interactivity, even though there are solitary games. However, this rules out 'games of pure chance' doesn't it? In a game of pure chance: Snakes and Ladders, Candy Land, not to mention many kinds of gambling, does the player put in any effort? Is there any challenge in the game? Or is it just luck?
Later, Juul's graphic taxonomy of games, borderline games, and non-games places these games of pure chance in the borderline category. Even though the player's actions do not affect the outcome (aside from cheating), there is an illusion of agency created by Element 5: Player Attachment to the Outcome. I'm sure we've all been in a situation where we were playing a pure chance game and thought, If I roll the dice just right... and then hoped for that exact number we needed to win (or at least achieve some specific result within the game). And every now and then we're going to roll that number by chance, and our false belief that holding the dice a certain way, or blowing on them before the roll, or tossing them hard or soft actually caused the wanted result to appear. Juul doesn't say any of this, it's just me speculating.
Juul does discuss some activities that fall completely outside of the game definition for violating this element. For one, he lists movies/storytelling as not having a variable outcome (element 2), not requiring player effort (element 4, which we're looking at now), and player attachment to the outcome (element 5, which is discussed below). Now, obviously a movie or story has a set ending. And it doesn't require any effort by the audience other than to devote their time. Nothing the audience does will influence the outcome, it's simply a question of whether you're willing to put in the effort to reach the end of the story or drop it. I'd say many forms of fiction do inspire player attachment to the outcome if it's well crafted. But it's not a requirement. A crappy book or movie still will play out to the end, even if you the audience no longer care about how it ends. But we'll discuss this more below. Fiction, Juul proposes, is NOT a game in any sense. And I would agree, because the outcome is fixed and not dependent on any input from the audience.
Now, looking at RPGs, I'd say that player effort is the whole POINT of the game. We play RPGs because they challenge us. They challenge us with rule mechanics (can we beat the orcs or will they beat us?). They challenge us with puzzles (can we avoid the trap to get to the treasure safely?) and resource management (do we take all the copper coins or leave them because they slow us down?). They challenge us with in-game interpersonal conflict (should we kill the sleeping goblins or just tie them up?). They challenge us with out-of-game interpersonal conflict (do we play without Jim's wizard this week, or put the game off until next week so he can join us?). They challenge us to be creative (how can I make this character interesting and fun for everyone at the table?) and more empathetic (how can my assassin work together with Sarah's paladin?).
Story (Narrativist) games, as opposed to regular fiction, do have a strong element of player effort. The story game tends to give you some guidelines about what the story should be "about" but the story is not there yet. It takes player effort to flesh out the story, and the whole point of those games is to be able to narrate the story your way.
Again, this is my speculation, but it may be that Juul gives RPGs a borderline status despite them not adhering to Element 1: Fixed Rules because of the above. Juul seems to place a heavy emphasis on games having fixed rules which RPGs violate, but because they are exercises in player effort, they pass muster. RPGs crank the dial up to 11 on this one, where games of pure chance dial it down to the minimum effort/decision point of play/don't play.
Element 5: Player Attachment to the Outcome
This is one element of Juul's definition that I'm not sure is 100% necessary. It basically is just a further elaboration of both Element 3: Valorization of the Outcome and Element 4: Player Effort. And Juul seems to realize this, as he himself states that this is a purely psychological aspect dependent on the player having the correct attitude, and stems from player effort.
And it does make sense. We tend to put value on things for which we put in effort. If we did not, then why expend the effort? And if certain outcomes are preferable to other outcomes (valorization), then it is only natural that we feel attached to achieving one of the positive outcomes rather than a negative one. And for a game of pure chance like Candy Land or craps, the fact that the outcome is valorized and there is a competitive aspect to the game (and in the case of gambling games like craps there is a real world consequence at stake), we get attached to the outcome.
Juul discusses the social contract of games here. He mentions poor sports who either refuse to enjoy victory or feel bad about defeat - which is not really something we can lay at the feet of the game, can we? If a game fails to inspire attachment to the outcome THIS TIME we play, is it not a game? In a way, it may not be, but that's not a useful criterion for deciding what is a game and what isn't.
Personally, if I were to revise this definition, I'd roll the various aspects of this element into #3 and #4. Social contract and player attachment are important, but agreeing to the social contract is a form of effort (#4) while attachment to the outcome is an extension/consequence of valorization of outcomes (#3).
Looking at RPGs, whether traditional or story games, I would say that player attachment is an important aspect of play. But it's not completely necessary to have a good time. I've played in one-shot games before, with pregen characters. And in these kinds of games, players tend to have little attachment to the outcomes of their PCs. Yet they still have fun.
Thinking of games like Call of Cthulhu, or D&D modules like The Tomb of Horrors, though, I would consider them to be an inversion of the valorization of outcomes. In CoC, the ideal outcome may in fact be the death or insanity of your PC. When playing Tomb of Horrors, the idea may be to see in what humorous/grotesque/idiotic way your PC dies. That may be the prized outcome of the game. Looking at the one-shot game through this lens, it may simply be a flipped valorization scenario, in which case players are in fact attached to the outcome of their character - it's just that the outcome they are attached to is the one they normally try to avoid in standard play.
Element 4: Player Effort
In order for a game to be a game, players need to put forth some effort. This seems fairly obvious, and Juul doesn't spend much time describing this element, even though it's arguably the most relevant trait (Chris Crawford, whose On Game Design I'm currently reading, lists this as the final definitive difference between games and other types of play such as toys and puzzles, for example). Here's what Juul has to say in its entirety:
Player effort is another way of stating that games are challenging, or that games contain a conflict, or that games are "interactive". It is a part of the rules of most games (expect* games of pure chance) that the players' actions can influence the game state and game outcome. The investment of player effort tends to lead to an attachment of the player to the outcome since the investment of energy into the game makes the player (partly) responsible for the outcome. (p. 7)*He obviously means except here, emphasis added.
This seems hard to argue against. If games imply challenge. Win or lose. They also imply interactivity, even though there are solitary games. However, this rules out 'games of pure chance' doesn't it? In a game of pure chance: Snakes and Ladders, Candy Land, not to mention many kinds of gambling, does the player put in any effort? Is there any challenge in the game? Or is it just luck?
Later, Juul's graphic taxonomy of games, borderline games, and non-games places these games of pure chance in the borderline category. Even though the player's actions do not affect the outcome (aside from cheating), there is an illusion of agency created by Element 5: Player Attachment to the Outcome. I'm sure we've all been in a situation where we were playing a pure chance game and thought, If I roll the dice just right... and then hoped for that exact number we needed to win (or at least achieve some specific result within the game). And every now and then we're going to roll that number by chance, and our false belief that holding the dice a certain way, or blowing on them before the roll, or tossing them hard or soft actually caused the wanted result to appear. Juul doesn't say any of this, it's just me speculating.
Juul does discuss some activities that fall completely outside of the game definition for violating this element. For one, he lists movies/storytelling as not having a variable outcome (element 2), not requiring player effort (element 4, which we're looking at now), and player attachment to the outcome (element 5, which is discussed below). Now, obviously a movie or story has a set ending. And it doesn't require any effort by the audience other than to devote their time. Nothing the audience does will influence the outcome, it's simply a question of whether you're willing to put in the effort to reach the end of the story or drop it. I'd say many forms of fiction do inspire player attachment to the outcome if it's well crafted. But it's not a requirement. A crappy book or movie still will play out to the end, even if you the audience no longer care about how it ends. But we'll discuss this more below. Fiction, Juul proposes, is NOT a game in any sense. And I would agree, because the outcome is fixed and not dependent on any input from the audience.
Now, looking at RPGs, I'd say that player effort is the whole POINT of the game. We play RPGs because they challenge us. They challenge us with rule mechanics (can we beat the orcs or will they beat us?). They challenge us with puzzles (can we avoid the trap to get to the treasure safely?) and resource management (do we take all the copper coins or leave them because they slow us down?). They challenge us with in-game interpersonal conflict (should we kill the sleeping goblins or just tie them up?). They challenge us with out-of-game interpersonal conflict (do we play without Jim's wizard this week, or put the game off until next week so he can join us?). They challenge us to be creative (how can I make this character interesting and fun for everyone at the table?) and more empathetic (how can my assassin work together with Sarah's paladin?).
Story (Narrativist) games, as opposed to regular fiction, do have a strong element of player effort. The story game tends to give you some guidelines about what the story should be "about" but the story is not there yet. It takes player effort to flesh out the story, and the whole point of those games is to be able to narrate the story your way.
Again, this is my speculation, but it may be that Juul gives RPGs a borderline status despite them not adhering to Element 1: Fixed Rules because of the above. Juul seems to place a heavy emphasis on games having fixed rules which RPGs violate, but because they are exercises in player effort, they pass muster. RPGs crank the dial up to 11 on this one, where games of pure chance dial it down to the minimum effort/decision point of play/don't play.
Element 5: Player Attachment to the Outcome
This is one element of Juul's definition that I'm not sure is 100% necessary. It basically is just a further elaboration of both Element 3: Valorization of the Outcome and Element 4: Player Effort. And Juul seems to realize this, as he himself states that this is a purely psychological aspect dependent on the player having the correct attitude, and stems from player effort.
And it does make sense. We tend to put value on things for which we put in effort. If we did not, then why expend the effort? And if certain outcomes are preferable to other outcomes (valorization), then it is only natural that we feel attached to achieving one of the positive outcomes rather than a negative one. And for a game of pure chance like Candy Land or craps, the fact that the outcome is valorized and there is a competitive aspect to the game (and in the case of gambling games like craps there is a real world consequence at stake), we get attached to the outcome.
Juul discusses the social contract of games here. He mentions poor sports who either refuse to enjoy victory or feel bad about defeat - which is not really something we can lay at the feet of the game, can we? If a game fails to inspire attachment to the outcome THIS TIME we play, is it not a game? In a way, it may not be, but that's not a useful criterion for deciding what is a game and what isn't.
Personally, if I were to revise this definition, I'd roll the various aspects of this element into #3 and #4. Social contract and player attachment are important, but agreeing to the social contract is a form of effort (#4) while attachment to the outcome is an extension/consequence of valorization of outcomes (#3).
Looking at RPGs, whether traditional or story games, I would say that player attachment is an important aspect of play. But it's not completely necessary to have a good time. I've played in one-shot games before, with pregen characters. And in these kinds of games, players tend to have little attachment to the outcomes of their PCs. Yet they still have fun.
Thinking of games like Call of Cthulhu, or D&D modules like The Tomb of Horrors, though, I would consider them to be an inversion of the valorization of outcomes. In CoC, the ideal outcome may in fact be the death or insanity of your PC. When playing Tomb of Horrors, the idea may be to see in what humorous/grotesque/idiotic way your PC dies. That may be the prized outcome of the game. Looking at the one-shot game through this lens, it may simply be a flipped valorization scenario, in which case players are in fact attached to the outcome of their character - it's just that the outcome they are attached to is the one they normally try to avoid in standard play.
Monday, April 2, 2018
Juul's Theory of Games Elements 2 and 3: Outcomes
This is part 3 of my analysis of Jesper Juul's (2003) article The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness The first part is here, the second is here. The original article by Juul is online here (page numbers are from the PDF version).
Juul, as noted previously, outlines six criteria that he holds up as being necessary and sufficient to label an activity as a game (or not). Yet, as I noted when discussing the first one (fixed rules), he mentions several 'borderline' cases, including tabletop RPGs, which still seem to be games, but don't conform to one or more of the elements of his definition. My hypothesis is that each element is a cline or gradient, and the dials can be turned up or down along the axis of each of these elements. In this post, I'm looking at his second and third elements, which are related: Variable and Quantifiable Outcomes and Valorization of Outcomes.
Element 2: Variable and Quantifiable Outcomes
By variable outcome, Juul means two things: first the system of the game must allow for chance and/or skill to affect the result; and second the skill level of the players must be such that the outcome is uncertain.
He doesn't spend much time on the first point, only giving the example of ring-a-ring-a-rosies (or as we called it as kids, ring-around-the-rosie). For young children, this is a fun activity. It has set rules (link hands in a circle, sing the song, move clockwise as you sing, fall down at the end). But it only has one outcome: everyone sits down. So, by this definition, it is not a game.
The second point he goes into more detail. He again uses a game for young children, tic-tac-toe. Anyone who knows the system well and plays against another player who knows the system well will ALWAYS result in a draw. Someone who knows the system (an older child or adult) who plays against someone who doesn't (a young child) will always win or draw, never lose. Only two players who do not yet fully understand the system will have a chance of winning, losing or drawing when they play. Hence, tic-tac-toe is a game, but only when played by young children or others who do not yet fully understand it. Once you learn the system, it ceases to be a game for you and becomes more of a puzzle.
He then mentions several games that have handicap rules to allow players of various skill levels to compete. Without the handicaps in place, those instances of play are unlikely to have variable outcomes. Related to this is the phenomenon of a player purposefully not playing at full potential, such as a parent purposefully allowing their child to win a game in order to build interest and confidence in the activity.
This reminds me of my college days. One of the students in my dorm, Eugene, was a chess master. We'd play from time to time, and of course I knew going in that there was no way I could beat him. I just play chess casually. He competed in and sometimes even won tournaments. Yet, it didn't stop me from playing with him now and then. And there WAS a variable outcome. It just wasn't 'win/lose.' Instead, the variable outcome was to see how many moves I could last before the inevitable defeat.
So, again, I think Juul may be being too strict when he posits an either/or dichotomy in his definition of games. This also leads into the second part of this element is what he terms "quantifiable" outcomes. Just as a game has strict rules, Juul says that "the outcome of a game is designed to be beyond discussion, meaning that the goal of Pac Man is to get many points, rather than to 'move in a pretty way'" (p. 6). In other words, outcomes are objective rather than subjective. To me, this seems fairly non-controversial. Game systems define the 'win conditions' but it's also possible for players to decide on their own 'win conditions.'
The obvious example of computer games without quantifiable win conditions seems to be Will Wright's games like Sim City and The Sims. There are no intrinsic goals for these games. Nothing within the game will tell you that you've won or lost. But players are able so self-assign goals and try to achieve them or fail to do so. Juul puts them as borderline games because of Element 3 (see below), but several other writers I've been looking at, including the creator Will Wright, see them as toys rather than games because of this trait.
Element 3: Valorization of the Outcome
Valorization is a fancy term to use, but what Juul simply means is that for an activity to be a game, some outcomes need to be better than others. If all outcomes are equally good, then there is no point to the challenge of the game. In Game Theory (which both is and isn't about games), Zero Sum and Fixed Sum games are set up so that one player can only achieve a positive outcome if the other player achieves a negative outcome (or at least a less positive outcome for Fixed Sum games). In cooperative games, all players work together to either beat the game or fail to beat the game. In RPGs, you can slay the dragon/blow up the space fortress/prevent the Great Old One from rising. Or, you can get roasted to a crisp/get disintegrated by droid ships/go insane and join the cult. In many RPGs and computer games, live or die is a commonly valorized dichotomy of outcomes.
Again, an open ended simulation like The Sims doesn't valorize outcomes. While it's possible to give yourself goals within the game, there's no pressure to actually achieve them other than personal satisfacton, and no award of any kind when you (inevitably unless you choose to give up) achieve that goal. Juul also notes Conway's Game of Life (the computer microbe simulator) and watching a burning fireplace as systems with rules and variable outcomes but without any positive or negative value assigned to those outcomes.
This element is, in my estimation, an actual dichotomy, rather than a cline. I'm having trouble imagining an activity where the outcomes are all somewhere equally positive or equally negative yet still being able to call such an activity a game. If all outcomes have the same value, then where is the challenge? The activity may be play, but it is not, I think, a game. If someone can give me an example of a game with only partially valorized outcomes, I'll be happy to change my stance here.
What these Elements Have to do with RPGs
First of all, I don't think there's any doubt that traditional pen and paper/tabletop RPGs like D&D conform to both of these elements. There are definitely multiple outcomes, and a combination of chance and skill determine what outcome you achieve. There are system outcomes like how much XP you gain, or whatever advancement reward system the game uses which is variable and quantifiable. In addition, in-game outcomes - save the town/defeat the bad guy/complete the quest - are also variable and quantifiable. Basically all of these outcomes, whether looking at system or in-game, break down into outcomes where you advance your character/continue playing it (positive) or else fail to gain XP or die (negative).
Narrativist/Indie/Story games, however, are a bit different (remember, this line of posts was inspired by Zak's close analysis and criticism of GNS theory). Now, my experience playing them is very limited, but from what I've experienced and what I've read about them, the system of those games is probably higher up the scale of Fixed Rules (element 1) than traditional TTRPGs. This is because the rules of these games aren't designed to provide guidance for actions taking place within the in-game fiction. They're designed to assign narrative agency to various players. In these games, when the rules come into play, you're not rolling to see if you can jump across the chasm, you're rolling to see which person sitting around the table gets to decide if you manage to jump across the chasm and what complications or benefits may arise because of the jump. [Again, people with more experience in these games correct me if I'm wrong here.]
The stated outcome of these games is to, through play, craft a compelling narrative about a theme. As Zak posted, Ron Edwards originally believed a morality play to be the highest form of the genre but other game designers have moved away from the explicit moral judgment of the narrative. Which is funny, because Edwards' original intent was an attempt at valorization of the outcome while actual practice (if Zak is correct, and my limited experience agrees with his) has tended to unvalorize the outcomes. The goal is simply to craft a narrative. If a narrative is crafted, the goal is achieved. And I can't help but think that no matter how you play these games, a narrative WILL be crafted. That is not variable.
Juul points out that interactive fiction, like text adventure games and I assume the analog version of Choose Your Own Adventure style books, don't really have variable outcomes...there are numerous outcomes but they are finite and unchanging if I always make the same choices every time I play/read. If I play a story game, but my character dies at the end, it still may be a satisfying narrative - a heroic tale of loss, or a tragedy in the classical sense, for example. Is it quantifiable? I suppose you could make an argument about whether the narrative is 'good' or not, but Juul again suggests that subjective appeals to art (making Pac Man move in a beautiful way) are not quantifiable. Even if we give story games this, that a good story is a better outcome of play than a bad story, how do we judge if the narrative is good or not? It goes back to Element 2, that the outcome must be beyond discussion for the activity to be a game rather than just a form of play.
So one of three conclusions are possible: a) Juul's definition of a game is incomplete [the null hypothesis], b) story games fail the game test because of a paradox of not being able to uphold both Element 2 and Element 3 at the same time, or c) I'm missing some way to put valorization of outcomes on a cline rather than a binary which would allow story games to exist somewhere in the middle.
I think story games, like traditional RPGs, would likely fall in the borderline zone if they do fail the test. Just like Juul places The Sims/Sim City in the borderline, story games DO have definite rule systems, require player effort, have players attached to outcomes, and have no or negotiable real-world consequences. And they either conform to Element 2 or 3 as well. I'm liking this line of thought because it not only explains the difference between role playing and other games in general, but also easily shows how traditional and story RPGs are different.
If anyone can debunk me, though, I'll be happy to review this again. Next up, I plan to cover the player in relation to the game with Elements 4 and 5. Then I'll wrap this up with negotiable consequences and some final thoughts in the last post.
Juul, as noted previously, outlines six criteria that he holds up as being necessary and sufficient to label an activity as a game (or not). Yet, as I noted when discussing the first one (fixed rules), he mentions several 'borderline' cases, including tabletop RPGs, which still seem to be games, but don't conform to one or more of the elements of his definition. My hypothesis is that each element is a cline or gradient, and the dials can be turned up or down along the axis of each of these elements. In this post, I'm looking at his second and third elements, which are related: Variable and Quantifiable Outcomes and Valorization of Outcomes.
Element 2: Variable and Quantifiable Outcomes
By variable outcome, Juul means two things: first the system of the game must allow for chance and/or skill to affect the result; and second the skill level of the players must be such that the outcome is uncertain.
He doesn't spend much time on the first point, only giving the example of ring-a-ring-a-rosies (or as we called it as kids, ring-around-the-rosie). For young children, this is a fun activity. It has set rules (link hands in a circle, sing the song, move clockwise as you sing, fall down at the end). But it only has one outcome: everyone sits down. So, by this definition, it is not a game.
The second point he goes into more detail. He again uses a game for young children, tic-tac-toe. Anyone who knows the system well and plays against another player who knows the system well will ALWAYS result in a draw. Someone who knows the system (an older child or adult) who plays against someone who doesn't (a young child) will always win or draw, never lose. Only two players who do not yet fully understand the system will have a chance of winning, losing or drawing when they play. Hence, tic-tac-toe is a game, but only when played by young children or others who do not yet fully understand it. Once you learn the system, it ceases to be a game for you and becomes more of a puzzle.
He then mentions several games that have handicap rules to allow players of various skill levels to compete. Without the handicaps in place, those instances of play are unlikely to have variable outcomes. Related to this is the phenomenon of a player purposefully not playing at full potential, such as a parent purposefully allowing their child to win a game in order to build interest and confidence in the activity.
This reminds me of my college days. One of the students in my dorm, Eugene, was a chess master. We'd play from time to time, and of course I knew going in that there was no way I could beat him. I just play chess casually. He competed in and sometimes even won tournaments. Yet, it didn't stop me from playing with him now and then. And there WAS a variable outcome. It just wasn't 'win/lose.' Instead, the variable outcome was to see how many moves I could last before the inevitable defeat.
So, again, I think Juul may be being too strict when he posits an either/or dichotomy in his definition of games. This also leads into the second part of this element is what he terms "quantifiable" outcomes. Just as a game has strict rules, Juul says that "the outcome of a game is designed to be beyond discussion, meaning that the goal of Pac Man is to get many points, rather than to 'move in a pretty way'" (p. 6). In other words, outcomes are objective rather than subjective. To me, this seems fairly non-controversial. Game systems define the 'win conditions' but it's also possible for players to decide on their own 'win conditions.'
The obvious example of computer games without quantifiable win conditions seems to be Will Wright's games like Sim City and The Sims. There are no intrinsic goals for these games. Nothing within the game will tell you that you've won or lost. But players are able so self-assign goals and try to achieve them or fail to do so. Juul puts them as borderline games because of Element 3 (see below), but several other writers I've been looking at, including the creator Will Wright, see them as toys rather than games because of this trait.
Element 3: Valorization of the Outcome
Valorization is a fancy term to use, but what Juul simply means is that for an activity to be a game, some outcomes need to be better than others. If all outcomes are equally good, then there is no point to the challenge of the game. In Game Theory (which both is and isn't about games), Zero Sum and Fixed Sum games are set up so that one player can only achieve a positive outcome if the other player achieves a negative outcome (or at least a less positive outcome for Fixed Sum games). In cooperative games, all players work together to either beat the game or fail to beat the game. In RPGs, you can slay the dragon/blow up the space fortress/prevent the Great Old One from rising. Or, you can get roasted to a crisp/get disintegrated by droid ships/go insane and join the cult. In many RPGs and computer games, live or die is a commonly valorized dichotomy of outcomes.
Again, an open ended simulation like The Sims doesn't valorize outcomes. While it's possible to give yourself goals within the game, there's no pressure to actually achieve them other than personal satisfacton, and no award of any kind when you (inevitably unless you choose to give up) achieve that goal. Juul also notes Conway's Game of Life (the computer microbe simulator) and watching a burning fireplace as systems with rules and variable outcomes but without any positive or negative value assigned to those outcomes.
There is a tendency that the positive outcomes are harder to reach than the negative outcomes - this is what makes a game challenging; a game where it was easier to reach the goal than not to reach it would likely not be played very much. (Juul, 2003, p. 7)This is an important point. Especially when we're talking RPGs. I'll have a bit more to say about this below.
This element is, in my estimation, an actual dichotomy, rather than a cline. I'm having trouble imagining an activity where the outcomes are all somewhere equally positive or equally negative yet still being able to call such an activity a game. If all outcomes have the same value, then where is the challenge? The activity may be play, but it is not, I think, a game. If someone can give me an example of a game with only partially valorized outcomes, I'll be happy to change my stance here.
What these Elements Have to do with RPGs
First of all, I don't think there's any doubt that traditional pen and paper/tabletop RPGs like D&D conform to both of these elements. There are definitely multiple outcomes, and a combination of chance and skill determine what outcome you achieve. There are system outcomes like how much XP you gain, or whatever advancement reward system the game uses which is variable and quantifiable. In addition, in-game outcomes - save the town/defeat the bad guy/complete the quest - are also variable and quantifiable. Basically all of these outcomes, whether looking at system or in-game, break down into outcomes where you advance your character/continue playing it (positive) or else fail to gain XP or die (negative).
Narrativist/Indie/Story games, however, are a bit different (remember, this line of posts was inspired by Zak's close analysis and criticism of GNS theory). Now, my experience playing them is very limited, but from what I've experienced and what I've read about them, the system of those games is probably higher up the scale of Fixed Rules (element 1) than traditional TTRPGs. This is because the rules of these games aren't designed to provide guidance for actions taking place within the in-game fiction. They're designed to assign narrative agency to various players. In these games, when the rules come into play, you're not rolling to see if you can jump across the chasm, you're rolling to see which person sitting around the table gets to decide if you manage to jump across the chasm and what complications or benefits may arise because of the jump. [Again, people with more experience in these games correct me if I'm wrong here.]
The stated outcome of these games is to, through play, craft a compelling narrative about a theme. As Zak posted, Ron Edwards originally believed a morality play to be the highest form of the genre but other game designers have moved away from the explicit moral judgment of the narrative. Which is funny, because Edwards' original intent was an attempt at valorization of the outcome while actual practice (if Zak is correct, and my limited experience agrees with his) has tended to unvalorize the outcomes. The goal is simply to craft a narrative. If a narrative is crafted, the goal is achieved. And I can't help but think that no matter how you play these games, a narrative WILL be crafted. That is not variable.
Juul points out that interactive fiction, like text adventure games and I assume the analog version of Choose Your Own Adventure style books, don't really have variable outcomes...there are numerous outcomes but they are finite and unchanging if I always make the same choices every time I play/read. If I play a story game, but my character dies at the end, it still may be a satisfying narrative - a heroic tale of loss, or a tragedy in the classical sense, for example. Is it quantifiable? I suppose you could make an argument about whether the narrative is 'good' or not, but Juul again suggests that subjective appeals to art (making Pac Man move in a beautiful way) are not quantifiable. Even if we give story games this, that a good story is a better outcome of play than a bad story, how do we judge if the narrative is good or not? It goes back to Element 2, that the outcome must be beyond discussion for the activity to be a game rather than just a form of play.
So one of three conclusions are possible: a) Juul's definition of a game is incomplete [the null hypothesis], b) story games fail the game test because of a paradox of not being able to uphold both Element 2 and Element 3 at the same time, or c) I'm missing some way to put valorization of outcomes on a cline rather than a binary which would allow story games to exist somewhere in the middle.
I think story games, like traditional RPGs, would likely fall in the borderline zone if they do fail the test. Just like Juul places The Sims/Sim City in the borderline, story games DO have definite rule systems, require player effort, have players attached to outcomes, and have no or negotiable real-world consequences. And they either conform to Element 2 or 3 as well. I'm liking this line of thought because it not only explains the difference between role playing and other games in general, but also easily shows how traditional and story RPGs are different.
If anyone can debunk me, though, I'll be happy to review this again. Next up, I plan to cover the player in relation to the game with Elements 4 and 5. Then I'll wrap this up with negotiable consequences and some final thoughts in the last post.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Juul's Theory of Games Element 1: Fixed Rules
In my post the other day, I got some good feedback from people. I'd just like to make a clarification before moving on to the first of Juul's six elements that he considers necessary and sufficient to label something as a game.
This is just a theory that I found interesting. It's 15 years old, and Juul may have gone on to modify or clarify it (I haven't checked). I did find his Masters thesis online, which argued that narrative and game were incompatible, with a note from him that he's changed his stance on the issue since then.
I'm not posting Juul's theory as some sort of definitive matter on the subject of what is and isn't a game. I'm just throwing this out there as a potential framework upon which an actual workable theory of RPGs could be based, since they share all of the listed elements to a greater or lesser degree (yes, even the one I'm discussing today, which was the big point of contention in my previous post). Feel free to disagree with the theory. I may play devil's advocate here defending it, since I'm presenting it, but I don't have any stake in Juul's theory. If it doesn't stand up to criticism, then it's not a very good theory and we can look for something better.
So, once again Juul's six elements and my brief definitions of each:
Juul (2003) argues that a game must meet these qualifications:
1. Fixed Rules [players don't need to debate rules during play]
2. Variable and Quantifiable Outcomes [there are specific goals or end points, and they are not the same in all instances of the game]
3. Valorization of the Outcome [some outcomes are better than others]
4. Player Effort [the player must act to overcome the challenge, not just rely wholly on random chance]
5. Attachment of the Player to the Outcome [players are invested in achieving certain outcomes or avoiding certain other outcomes]
6. Negotiable Consequences [while most games can be and are played with no real world consequences, it's possible to bet on, play professionally, or in some other way attach real-world stakes to instances of play]
OK, here goes nothing!
This was a point of contention in the previous post not so much for what Juul actually says on the point (which I didn't go into detail there, that's what this post is for). It was that this was the one element Juul noted that table top RPGs violate, for which he labels them as a 'borderline' game. Note here his terminology. He's not saying TTRPGs aren't games, he's putting them on the border - hedging his bet. In other words he just made a theory saying games must have these six things, but here are a class of activities that are sorta soft on one of the main elements but are recognized broadly as games. So he notes them as more of an exception that proves (in the sense of tests) the rule along with a few other borderline cases.
Here's what Juul has to say himself:
Notice, he doesn't say arguments over the rules can't happen, he says they don't happen "every time you play." And the more established a game is, or the more carefully developed (for commercial games), the fewer ambiguities the rules are likely to have.
He also doesn't say the game can't have a referee. At the end there, he notes the "hardware" needed to implement a game includes the human brain. A referee can judge whether or not a rule has been followed or broken, but does not (ideally) modify the rules during play.
What he is saying is that a game has (or at least should have) rules that are clear and well understood by all players. Any rule that is not well understood by all players will be modified over time to become clear. Because of this, computers make a great medium on which to program and play games. It's the ultimate impartial referee. It also helps explain one appeal of many Euro-style board games, with their clear and simple rules that make them easy to start playing.
Here's his chart of various games, pass-times, and systems-based activities and how they relate to his six elements.
Juul points to two activities that violate the Fixed Rule element: RPGs and freeform play. Now, like I assume most readers of this blog to be, I'm a table top RPG enthusiast. And it may seem grating at first to see our beloved pass-time listed as less of a game than a computer RPG or board game. But at least hear me out as I delve into how I think this definition of 'gameness' may help develop a better theory of RPGs than GNS.
How do (tabletop) RPGs violate the element? Juul says:
The important takeaway from this, in my opinion, is the inference that can be made from the chart above and Juul's comment that rules evolve over time to be unambiguous:
These six elements are not binary. It's not a question of "does it have it or not?" but instead it's a question of "how much does it have?" Each element is a cline, and activities can be more or less game-like along each axis. Some of the clines may be steeper (less forgiving of deviance) than others. That will require a bit more analysis of Juul's taxonomy presented in the chart above.
Tabletop RPGs have fixed rules. That's what the rulebooks are. But, by their nature (simulating a fantasy universe) they need that wiggle room of sanctioning the game master/referee to modify, add, subtract or otherwise change the rules to fit unusual situations or the preferences of the game group. Juul doesn't say they are not games, he says that they are not normal games. In other words, the game master allows RPGs to exist down the cline of rules fixedness, but still within the scope of activities considered to be 'games' by this definition.
I included the Calvinball comic above because, if it were a real game, that's an example of something that would be farther down the cline of rules fixedness from RPGs but still above free-form play (although not by much). Calvin and Hobbes do create rules for their game, it's just that the rules are in a constant state of flux. I don't remember seeing a 'calvinball' comic where Calvin and Hobbes argue about the rules. It would seem, like with improv acting/comedy training, that the one fixed rule is that every player has to accept what the other players throw out, although with the ability to further modify the input by creating a new rule later.
True freeform play is as far down the cline as you can get, and Juul labels it as "not a game."
Games have rules. Well-established/well-developed games have fixed rules. Games without fixed rules, or with ambiguous rules, tend to solidify the rules and remove ambiguities over time.
The interesting coda of this is to look at the evolution of various games over time. OD&D, for example, is full of ambiguities and vague references. Basic D&D helped clarify them. AD&D sought to expand, clarify, and disambiguate for tournament play. AD&D 2E sought to clarify the hodgepodge presentation (and some still ambiguous rules) of 1E. 3E sought to streamline the mechanics with a universal resolution system (no more questions of what die to roll, do I roll over or under, etc.). 4E tried to turn table top gaming into a system like those in computer RPGs. 5E has taken a step back from 4E as that system was hurting what distinguished TTRPGs from other types of games (4E made the play too 'normal' in Juul's terms), but still tried to make the game simple and easy to understand. Pathfinder went in the direction of codifying EVERYTHING to remove ambiguity.
Look at spells. Originally spell descriptions gave a brief description of what it did. As we move forward in time, more and more creative uses of spells get ruled out straight away, or else sanctioned and given specific rules with which to implement them in that manner. Can I cast light in the evil high priest's eyes to blind him? We go from DM ruling on that to specific allowance in the rules. Can I stand on my floating disk to use it as an impromptu elevator? It says follows me at waist level... Again, we go from DM needing to make a ruling in earlier editions to specific statements that the disk does NOT change elevation suddenly (like if you fall) but only slow elevation changes like going up a ramp or flight of stairs in later editions.
The OSR, on the whole, seems to be a reaction to this drift toward disambiguity, trying to preserve what makes RPGs unique and distinct from most other types of games.
I don't have enough experience with multiple editions of other games to make a similar comparison, but it would be an interesting line of research to follow.
This is just a theory that I found interesting. It's 15 years old, and Juul may have gone on to modify or clarify it (I haven't checked). I did find his Masters thesis online, which argued that narrative and game were incompatible, with a note from him that he's changed his stance on the issue since then.
I'm not posting Juul's theory as some sort of definitive matter on the subject of what is and isn't a game. I'm just throwing this out there as a potential framework upon which an actual workable theory of RPGs could be based, since they share all of the listed elements to a greater or lesser degree (yes, even the one I'm discussing today, which was the big point of contention in my previous post). Feel free to disagree with the theory. I may play devil's advocate here defending it, since I'm presenting it, but I don't have any stake in Juul's theory. If it doesn't stand up to criticism, then it's not a very good theory and we can look for something better.
So, once again Juul's six elements and my brief definitions of each:
Juul (2003) argues that a game must meet these qualifications:
1. Fixed Rules [players don't need to debate rules during play]
2. Variable and Quantifiable Outcomes [there are specific goals or end points, and they are not the same in all instances of the game]
3. Valorization of the Outcome [some outcomes are better than others]
4. Player Effort [the player must act to overcome the challenge, not just rely wholly on random chance]
5. Attachment of the Player to the Outcome [players are invested in achieving certain outcomes or avoiding certain other outcomes]
6. Negotiable Consequences [while most games can be and are played with no real world consequences, it's possible to bet on, play professionally, or in some other way attach real-world stakes to instances of play]
OK, here goes nothing!
Fixed Rules
 |
| Calvinball: Probably not a game by this standard. |
Here's what Juul has to say himself:
1. Fixed rulesJuul develops his six elements of his definition of 'game' from seven previous definitions, and all seven included some sort of phrasing about rules and/or procedures. The rules should be unambiguous. Over time, rules for games tend to lose any ambiguity they may have once had.
Games have rules. The rules of games have to be sufficiently well defined that they can either be programmed on a computer or sufficiently well defined that you do not have to argue about them every time you play. In fact, the playing of a non-electronic game is an activity that in itself involves trying to remove any unclearness in the game rules: If there is disagreement about the rules of the game, the game is stopped until the disagreement has been solved. In a commercial game, the developer will (hopefully) have made sure that the rules are unambiguous, but what about non-commercial games? A non-electronic and "folk" (i.e. non-commercial) game tends to drift towards becoming unambiguous, not in the sense that they don't require ingenuity to play, but in the sense that it doesn't require ingenuity to uphold the rules. This explains some of the affinity between games and computers - and the fact that a several thousand year old non-electronic game is easily implementable in a computer program: The drive towards unambiguity in games makes them ripe for implementation in a programming language. To borrow some concepts from computer science, the rules of any given game can be compared to a piece of software that then needs hardware to actually be played. In games, the hardware can be a computer, mechanical contraptions, the laws of physics, or even the human brain. (p. 5-6)
Notice, he doesn't say arguments over the rules can't happen, he says they don't happen "every time you play." And the more established a game is, or the more carefully developed (for commercial games), the fewer ambiguities the rules are likely to have.
He also doesn't say the game can't have a referee. At the end there, he notes the "hardware" needed to implement a game includes the human brain. A referee can judge whether or not a rule has been followed or broken, but does not (ideally) modify the rules during play.
What he is saying is that a game has (or at least should have) rules that are clear and well understood by all players. Any rule that is not well understood by all players will be modified over time to become clear. Because of this, computers make a great medium on which to program and play games. It's the ultimate impartial referee. It also helps explain one appeal of many Euro-style board games, with their clear and simple rules that make them easy to start playing.
Here's his chart of various games, pass-times, and systems-based activities and how they relate to his six elements.
How do (tabletop) RPGs violate the element? Juul says:
Pen and paper Role-playing games are not normal games because with a human game master, their rules are not fixed beyond discussion (p. 8)With an end note saying:
Rather much of the enjoyment of role-playing games is due to the flexibility of the rules. (p. 13)This is a sentiment I think most RPG players would agree with. Isn't the flexibility of the rules one of the first thing we praise about table top RPGs when comparing them to computer RPGs?
The important takeaway from this, in my opinion, is the inference that can be made from the chart above and Juul's comment that rules evolve over time to be unambiguous:
These six elements are not binary. It's not a question of "does it have it or not?" but instead it's a question of "how much does it have?" Each element is a cline, and activities can be more or less game-like along each axis. Some of the clines may be steeper (less forgiving of deviance) than others. That will require a bit more analysis of Juul's taxonomy presented in the chart above.
Tabletop RPGs have fixed rules. That's what the rulebooks are. But, by their nature (simulating a fantasy universe) they need that wiggle room of sanctioning the game master/referee to modify, add, subtract or otherwise change the rules to fit unusual situations or the preferences of the game group. Juul doesn't say they are not games, he says that they are not normal games. In other words, the game master allows RPGs to exist down the cline of rules fixedness, but still within the scope of activities considered to be 'games' by this definition.
I included the Calvinball comic above because, if it were a real game, that's an example of something that would be farther down the cline of rules fixedness from RPGs but still above free-form play (although not by much). Calvin and Hobbes do create rules for their game, it's just that the rules are in a constant state of flux. I don't remember seeing a 'calvinball' comic where Calvin and Hobbes argue about the rules. It would seem, like with improv acting/comedy training, that the one fixed rule is that every player has to accept what the other players throw out, although with the ability to further modify the input by creating a new rule later.
True freeform play is as far down the cline as you can get, and Juul labels it as "not a game."
Games have rules. Well-established/well-developed games have fixed rules. Games without fixed rules, or with ambiguous rules, tend to solidify the rules and remove ambiguities over time.
The interesting coda of this is to look at the evolution of various games over time. OD&D, for example, is full of ambiguities and vague references. Basic D&D helped clarify them. AD&D sought to expand, clarify, and disambiguate for tournament play. AD&D 2E sought to clarify the hodgepodge presentation (and some still ambiguous rules) of 1E. 3E sought to streamline the mechanics with a universal resolution system (no more questions of what die to roll, do I roll over or under, etc.). 4E tried to turn table top gaming into a system like those in computer RPGs. 5E has taken a step back from 4E as that system was hurting what distinguished TTRPGs from other types of games (4E made the play too 'normal' in Juul's terms), but still tried to make the game simple and easy to understand. Pathfinder went in the direction of codifying EVERYTHING to remove ambiguity.
Look at spells. Originally spell descriptions gave a brief description of what it did. As we move forward in time, more and more creative uses of spells get ruled out straight away, or else sanctioned and given specific rules with which to implement them in that manner. Can I cast light in the evil high priest's eyes to blind him? We go from DM ruling on that to specific allowance in the rules. Can I stand on my floating disk to use it as an impromptu elevator? It says follows me at waist level... Again, we go from DM needing to make a ruling in earlier editions to specific statements that the disk does NOT change elevation suddenly (like if you fall) but only slow elevation changes like going up a ramp or flight of stairs in later editions.
The OSR, on the whole, seems to be a reaction to this drift toward disambiguity, trying to preserve what makes RPGs unique and distinct from most other types of games.
I don't have enough experience with multiple editions of other games to make a similar comparison, but it would be an interesting line of research to follow.
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