Two levels of game enjoyment

The latest hot stuff in the lunchroom conversation these days is the show My Kitchen Rules. So I watched a bit of it to see what the fuss was. Have no fear, I did the same thing with the Harlem Shake and Rebecca Black. You can see the lengths to which I'll go in order to get my head around pop culture references.

I've no intention of continuing to watch the show but as I watched I saw an important lesson for game designers. It's possible to create a game that is unenjoyable as a participant and enjoyable as the audience.

In the episode I watched there were two contestants who hosted a dinner party for the other contestants and judges. At the end of meal all the guests gave scores for each course. Each episode the role of hosts moves to the next team.

From what I saw it was clear that almost none of the contestants enjoyed having scores come their way. Like most people they think they're more competent than they are so naturally they're disappointed with the scores. Secondly the scores come from the competition, all of whom want to win so naturally there's a tendency to score harshly. Being caught in this kind of game, where the competition determines your success and failure, would enrage me. It encourages spitefulness, vengefulness and bickering. It's unenjoyable.

At the same time this is one of the most popular shows on TV so there are plenty of viewers who enjoy it. I think they enjoy it for the same reason that bitchy soap operas are enjoyable. The show generates spitefulness, vengefulness and bickering: in other words, it creates conflict between people, and the audience likes to see conflict created and resolved.

To repeat the lesson: it's possible to create a game that is unenjoyable as a participant and enjoyable as the audience.

My Kitchen Rules is such a game and is a perfect example of what to avoid when designing a tabletop game. Remember to make the game fun as a participant and as an audience. Creating conflict is good for story games, but don't do it at the expense of player enjoyment.

Thinking FU

I ran a game of Spirit of the Century the other week after finishing a six month campaign of May the FU Be With You. I run FU much like I run Spirit and that's hardly surprising. In many ways FU is Fate on a strict vegan diet. It's lighter, faster and can be blown around by hand waving. It's that hand waving that helps out so much. The link from what the players speak (that is, creating the fiction) and what the dice do (that is, forcing the fiction one way or the other) is solid and intuitive.

There are a couple of things that FU doesn't do and I don't think it pretends to do them. There will always be an element of matching the right system to the right setting and the right kind of story.

It's hard for me to criticise FU, partly because I've greatly enjoyed it and partly because I know Nathan. I wish it handled character development in some way. I hacked a house rule to let players spend a FU point to change gear or a descriptor, as long as the change was accompanied by an appropriate plot development. And I wish it didn't drive players towards being one-trick ponies. I've paid the price for having a character who couldn't use everything all at once, leaving me with a small dice pool. Defining descriptors and gear that work together is the means to munchkin the FU (awful grammar, I know). With the right combination a player can bring a pool of five dice before penalties. That kind of character, though, tends to use the same solution for every problem. It works well for characters like Wolverine (I stab it with my claws) but not so well for Batman (I investigate, I fight, I have money, I...). It can be dissatisfying to play that character except when they succeed so often.

I hadn't intended this to be a review of FU, just some thoughts that were percolating around in my mind.

Spirit of 2013

After a long, long hiatus from the game, tonight I'll run Spirit of the Century. It's an impromptu game that I'm running to demonstrate it. The group is moving to play a supers game and was going to use Mutants and Masterminds, then FU, but now I've suggested Fate I find that I'm the only one who knows it.

I'm going to use the great characters from the book itself as well as get some players to create their characters on the fly. It's a one-shot game and I need to flex its muscles for the group so that they can see how it works.

It brings me back to the days of the first Gen Con Oz. Those indie games on demand tables demanded nothing but SOTC for nearly the whole time. Let's see what comes from tonight, although I expect pulpy fun and laughs.