We previously examined the idea of conceptual distance as it applied to how far a player (or GM) has to go to conceptualize and understand their character and the world they live in. But conceptual distance is not just a setting/genre issue: it also extends to what the individual characters are expected to know and do.
For example, in a game where the characters are superheroes, the players probably have a very good idea of what they should be doing, and how they do it. They save people from disasters and stop criminals from wrongdoing. Not only are we all pretty much inculcated with the fictional ins and outs of superheroes, but they are also extremely straightforward characters with abilities that point them in a very singular direction. If the character is super-strong, that strength alone essentially tells them what to do: move heavy things, stop runaway trains, punch bad guys, etc. There’s very little conceptual distance between the player and the character.
On the other hand, a game about brain surgery (to use an absurd example) would have a lot of conceptual distance. When the GM says, “Okay, you’re scrubbed up and in the operating room. The patient is unconscious on the table. The nurse looks at you expectantly. What do you do?”
"Uh…”
You could try picking up a scalpel and looking for a place to make an incision, but would that be the right move? You probably have no idea because we’re not brain surgeons (at least, most of us aren’t.)
We could try but even if we guessed our way through it, it probably wouldn’t be very successful, wouldn’t be a very believable scenario, and wouldn’t be very satisfying. It might be fun or funny in a dark humor sort of way, but it’s not going to come close to portraying actual brain surgery unless the game gives us lots of information about how brain surgery is supposed to be done.
But, let’s consider a more serious example: in the game that I’m working on now, the characters are expected to perform heist-like missions to accomplish their goals. That’s who the characters are—they’re crafty criminals. The players, most likely, are not. The players won’t have any idea how to perform a heist of the kind that we read about in books or see in films.
In fact, I’d argue that very few people in the real world could perform such heists. The fiction we’re emulating here succeeds because the writer is creating both the thieves and the location they are robbing.
So I thought, what if the game used that same trick?
In this game, like most heist movies you’ve probably seen, the characters are presented with an initial briefing of the heist. They see a schematic of the location they are going to break into, and all the information about the locks, alarms, guards, and so on are presented there. This, however, is an opportunity for the players, as well as the characters. Rather than putting the responsibility of creating all that solely on the GM, the game rules put it on the players. The players describe the obstacles that they must overcome. “But Monte,” you might say. “They’ll just look at their skills and abilities and tailor the obstacles to things they know they can potentially overcome.”
Yes. Exactly.
Because the overall idea here is that the characters are super skilled and experienced at this kind of thing. Of course they have the right skills for the job. That’s why they’re the ones doing it. When a screenwriter creates a heist in film, they put in obstacles that the characters can potentially overcome, or—to be less meta—they have the characters find ways to use their impressive skills to find a way around the obstacles.
But this doesn’t just give the players the proverbial keys to the kingdom. The GM is involved in this process as well and it all ends up being like a back-and-forth negotiation:
A player says, “Ah, there’s a ventilation shaft that I could access on the roof and use my climbing skills to go down to the floor we need to reach.”
So then the GM might reply, “Yes, but the roof is thoroughly monitored by security cameras you’d have to disable first.”
And then another player adds, “Well, it looks like the system controlling those cameras can be accessed in this room on the first floor. I could sneak in there and shut it down.”
And again the GM replies, “That room is locked and the floor has a pressure-sensitive alarm, so you’ll have to deal with those to get in.”
The GM is empowered to use an equal and opposite reaction to everything the players suggest, not to stymie them, but to ensure there will always be interesting challenges.
If the players try to exploit the system for easy success and say, “According to this, they don’t even lock the front door. We’ll just waltz right in.”
The GM can still respond, “Yes, but that’s because there is a garrison of 30 well-armed guards on duty by the front door at all times.”
By the end of this process, the players (and the GM) now know the relevant aspects of the layout of the location and the applicable obstacles that must be overcome to get what the PCs want. Better yet, no one is weighed down by details that don’t pertain to the characters. If the GM planned out the whole location ahead of time and presented it to the players as their character’s briefing, a lot of what the GM designed wouldn’t even come into play. If the characters aren’t good at sneaking in and disabling alarms instead plan to use disguises and deception to get where they need to go, then the GM doesn’t need to stat up a bunch of irrelevant security systems that won’t come up in the session.
Perhaps the best thing is, when this scene of the game is done, the players have not just learned about their target and developed a plan for their mission, almost without realizing it. You probably know the excruciating pain of the long, drawn-out planning session that is inevitably irrelevant. This whole system streamlines the process and enables the group to (thankfully) avoid that frustration.
And like any good heist film writer, the GM is going to inject (at least) one big surprise complication they weren’t expecting from this initial scene. In fact, the players are informed of that upfront. Even with all this foreknowledge, they’ll have to be able to think on their feet. And the game will provide them some tools for helping with that too (but that’s probably fodder for a different article.)
All this (and what we covered last time) isn’t to say, “Avoid conceptual distance.” Instead, a game designer just needs to be cognizant of it and think of solutions for it. It’s not an insurmountable barrier, just a problem to be solved. In my example, recognizing and mitigating the potential conceptual distance required not a change of theme, genre, or activity, but something that could bridge the gap between player and character.
This is such a fantastic idea for narrative-driven games: "The GM is empowered to use an equal and opposite reaction to everything the players suggest, not to stymie them, but to ensure there will always be interesting challenges".
It is a simple but powerful framework to provide what I call Distributed Narrative Control. Great article, Monte!
The brain surgery example got me thinking of Joey Tribbiani in Friends and his doctor character :D.
Game Masters have to make the right questions and learn to integrate player narrative to make this work for the audience.
We agree with this approach, and it is very much in line with our style of play. It does have a strong focus on "story" motivated type of players, doesn't it? It may lower the sense of "accomplishment" or the sense of justice of game "mechanics" for many?