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More than a month ago, I did this open call for a thread on definitions for "gameable lore". My reasons for diving into this is because I had first encountered the term in Sworddream spaces, but there had never been a "formal" definition to it.
Let's get started. RTs welcome. https://twitter.com/TheDovetailor/status/1278294394311860224
Let's get started. RTs welcome. https://twitter.com/TheDovetailor/status/1278294394311860224
First off, across the definitions I've collected, there are two emergent thought patterns at work here:
1.) Defining what it means in game design, as a designer
2.) Defining what it means for game facilitators for creating adventures, and for facilitating games with players.
1.) Defining what it means in game design, as a designer
2.) Defining what it means for game facilitators for creating adventures, and for facilitating games with players.
Personally, I'm fine with having no "official" definition. I would rather consider the viewpoints under these two approaches, expound on them, and present them here. I'll be attributing things to the people who shared ideas. Apologies if I missed your input, it's been ages!
@john_errwin defines gameable lore on the level of design. They are setting pieces that can be engaged by characters or players. Examples would be equipment that hints at the tech of the world, in-world story and gossip that implies the flow of adventures.
In this sense, the "micro" implies things on a macro level. However, it is important to leave everything open to definition. Such an approach is solidly ANTI-CANON. Players aren't required to possess copious amounts of knowledge on the setting, or it story. All pieces can be
engaged by players, claimed by them, and made into something uniquely attributed to the playgroup. There are no "official" answers, nor are their wrong ones. Playgroups could have wildly different interpretations of the same text from the same book.
Blades in the Dark from @john_harper possesses a lot of gameable lore. From its timeline to the sparse descriptions of NPCs & factions, the game gives us JUST enough flavor & detail to paint evocative pictures of the setting. @ShawnTomkin does a similar job with Ironsworn.
Conversely, classic World of Darkness presented pages in the hundreds of lore across its rulebooks, and novelized fiction that canonized particular narratives. Notably, many traditional games - Legend of the Five Rings, Dungeons & Dragons - take this approach to varying degrees.
While trad games imply that we can make whatever they like out of the setting/stories they provide, there are still some "non-negotiable" aspects to the world. There's still a canon that implies that anything that exists outside of it is "wrong". Not a bad thing. Just different.
@TrebuchetOps builds upon Erwin's definition with some nice distinctions. In his eyes, nothing in a game's premise should be "real" until players interact with it. The only "canonical" things that happen are what occurs at a a table, within a playgroup.
This has implications for devs who want to make sure that this translates well into their work. They will need to provide ample references for what "fits" in the game. Of course, "need" is a tricky concept. Once a game has been bought, players will do as players will.
The approach @Allandaros takes is a mix of a design approach and a game facilitator approach. Gameable lore is what is information in a setting that directly informs PC decisions. His specific analogy was: "if I'm running a game in Karachi 1865, then info about...
William the Conqueror is not gameable lore (even though William is a major figure in British history and Brits control India at the time). However, info about desi cultural practice, major movers and shakers, ongoing events... all of those are gameable."
On a smaller scale, @SundaeTaco pointed out that random tables are excellent design tools for gameable lore because they separate the lore from the writer. By presenting things in possibilities and fragments, one deliberately leaves gaps for players to fill out as they will.
@PactofTheFerret approaches gameable lore as an interconnected thing between support tool and game facilitator aid. Gameable lore empowers a player, giving them narrative control over the campaign, or a way to "win" in the story. Furthermore, allowing players to fill details
in for themselves, a facilitator may better understand what players want and what they are looking for. This has the potential to increase investment in the experience at the table, and acknowledges that all parties in a playgroup have equal stakes.
At this point, you may have noticed that the idea of usability comes up often. Gameable lore must be "useful", and ultimately? It must be useable for people consuming the premise of the game on the pretense of playing it, or understanding the narrative possibilities it offers.
Now on my end, the approach I take towards gameable lore straddles the concept as design work, and the concept as something usable for game facilitators and playgroups. I frame gameable lore as a designer's defamiliarization with their own work.
When you design a game, especially one with a robust world, you tend to have a sharp picture of its "canon". Even if your approach is geared more towards providing a premise with an "empty" world, it's almost inevitable that you'll have some "official" answers in mind.
Designing effective gameable lore, then, is an act of alienating yourself from your internal canon. It's providing questions in place of answers, fragments that are open to interpretation. It is relinquishing the hold you have over your own narrative & releasing it into the wild.
When you create a continent, you have the whole picture in your head. When you have an NPC in mind, you have them in your thoughts as a completed picture. Turning those examples into gameable lore means blurring out some of the finer details, and existing in ambiguity.
Now when you're GMIng for something that has a "set" canon and you want to make it more accessible to your players, that could involve the act of interpreting the gaps, or rehashing that which has been stated as a truth. Lived experiences are multifaceted, with seemingly
contradictory truths. Another way would be to revise what has been presented, disregarding whatever's not useful to your group. You may also seek to fill in the natural gaps that come with any game's prevalent narrative. All stories differ in what they include and exclude.
I'd like to cycle back to the idea of usability. Technically, everything presented in a book is usable because if you center usability around players, all players have different thresholds for what enables them to play better.
Some players like lengthy works of fiction in their game books, and consider them helpful for visualizing the game world for themselves and their characters. Others feel that fiction bars them from buying into the game world in a compelling fashion.
What does this mean for game devs? I think there are a lot of ways to answer this. In my opinion, however, the most important thing to remember is that there is no "correct" way of doing things. We can only hope to be as intentional with our decisions as a dev as possible.
I don't believe that games are designed badly on purpose. Designers have visions they want to communicate, and differing ways of understanding usability for players and game facilitators alike, and natural limitations that come from "gaps" in skill, context, beliefs, et al.
Add in sticky stuff like "marketability" for larger products (because yes, games must sell, and yes, corporations have their own interests), and... let's be real here, so many things change on the regular in the development of any product. Things get missed. Ideas get murky.
So anyway, those are my talking points on gameable lore, and perspectives offered by people who reached out to me on the matter. Again, if I missed anything, I do apologize!
This thread is open for kind discussion and other perspectives. Tell me what you're thinking.
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This thread is open for kind discussion and other perspectives. Tell me what you're thinking.
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Postscript: yeah see I knew I was forgetting things. @phenexian had some super cool thoughts on how gameable lore could be lore that props up the mechanics of a game. They cited A Rasp of Sand, which uses lore to define a world that best drives the intended play.
And I quote: "Lore which defines enough of the hard boundaries to delinate a collective world which describes and conforms to the mechanics of the game, while leaving enough room for, and inspiring acts of creative expression within it".
Then @Odd_Johnisms sees it as "lore that is inspiring but has enough open space in it for the DM or playgroup to expand upon". They also echoed that gameable lore ought to be something that works in harmony with its mechanics.
Okay, now we're really done haha. (end!!)
Okay, now we're really done haha. (end!!)
