It's not often that one gets to discuss the underlying structure of a whole genre of gaming. Who was there to debate with HG Wells about the conventions of miniatures games? Or at Avalon Hill when Tactics II was being written. Who was in the Castles and Crusaders society when role play games were first discussed. And most recently, who was in Wizards of the Coast during the writing stage of Magic the Gathering? Few people I would suspect. But those few people had impact beyond their numbers. It is my belief that genres of games, no matter how advanced they become, never quite break away from the basic assumptions of what "they" are. Each game has a basic structural outline that says what the range of techniques that define what that genre is. Step outside of that box and say hello to howling wolves! Because that is who is with you during the first stage. Before launching into what I think are the basic underlying structure of Matrix Games it is best to define what a "structure" is. WHAT IS THIS STRUCTURE THING? I short, a structure is a set of behaviors/procedures that games ask people to do over and over again. Add all the actions together and you have a game. The actions tell a story. And the actions are fun to do – which is why people do them! Miniatures game use toy soldiers. People move them about on a table and do a procedure (like rolling a die or shooting a marble at little men) to see what happens when they "shoot" one another. Many additions are tacked on to this basic idea but in the end all miniatures games are like this. Take away the little men and it is no longer "miniatures"! Board games have boards (often maps) on which players move around counters (often troops). The players roll dice and look at tables to find out what happens in critical moments (like combat). Computer games follow along in this line by electronically storing the "counters" and rolling the dice for you. The board is on the screen but the game remains the same. Take away tracking information with counters and "combat factors" and there is no game. Role play games have players run characters that are described by a set of rules. They play act what their character says and does. They roll dice or some equivalent to see what the outcome of fights are. The "game master" makes up everything else in the world and rolls all the dice for the "bad guys". Take away the play acting or the game master's control and it is no longer a role play game. Lastly, card games use cards. Which tell rules on rolling dice etc, as the game is played. Take away the pretty cards and the game is different. GAME GENRE'S SHARE STRUCTURES Having said that game genres are different because they have different structures I now need to cut my position apart! The fact is that game often share many structures. Miniatures games have benefited from board game combat rules since the 60's. Role playing grew out of miniatures games. Card games are just running role play game like combats in a slightly different manner. And lastly, Matrix Games grew out of role play games. With the waters now completely muddied I will return to my first point. We know a game is of a certain type BECAUSE of the things it asks us to do. Give people miniatures and even a game that uses cards is thought of as a "Miniatures" game! Right now people lump Matrix Games in each one of the established game genres! Why? Because I use miniatures in convention games, people "run characters", I have character "cards" and people ignore how the game is played! Only in Play By Email games does the uniqueness of Matrix Games shine forth. HOW DOES STRUCTURE TELL A STORY I said above that games ask players to do certain actions over and over again and that this tells a story. How? Actions tell stories by making the world change. It is simple as that. The rules tell you what actions to do and how the actions interact with one another. Without this, one gets debates like we are having now on the Matrix Gamer newsgroup about the lack of structure of Matrix Games. Rules tell the players what to do and what it means. And there is a built in trap with this method. By defining what actions one can take in the world (at least actions the "mean" something!) Game designers are inadvertently LIMITING what can happen in the story/game. I know this is obvious but it says a lot about what "structure" is. Structure/rules tell the players what type of story they will tell in the game. When playing a WWII wargame, one can not tell a love story! Which is odd given that war movies often have a love angle in them. The actions of the game keep track of large military units and economic production – not the emotions of individual people. Try as you might – shooting up Nazi's does not tell a love story! Most games impose what the story is in the structure of the game. They can tell no other story because their actions do not allow for the possibility. This to my mind is a great weakness in gaming. THE BASIC RULES OF MATRIX GAMES APPEAR STRUCTURELESS One of the defining structures of Matrix Games is that players make arguments about what they want to have happen next. A few things are added to this, like having a second round of arguments to handle trouble and conflict but the basic structure is still players make arguments. Since players can do anything in their arguments, this set of actions does not give the players a structure that "tells them what to do". It appears structureless. What this allows is for Matrix Games to evade the basic assumption of other games. Namely that the rules tell the players the parameters that they HAVE TO follow. Instead players get to chose their own parameters. The structure allows for total freedom. So what happens with total freedom? Anarchy!!! I'm conservative and I personally do not like anarchy. It is upsetting. It increases uncertainty, fear and anger. One is afraid of making mistakes. One does not know what to do. One starts grasping for any structure available to make sense of what is going on! Is this fun?!? For me...no. And I suspect most other players as well. So the game needs something. A suggested structure if not a rules bound one. Matrix Games do this in two ways. 1. By giving players a number of "things" to move around. Things are wonderful magnets for action. 2. By providing players will a set of "scripts" that tell them actions that must be done to tell a certain story. SO HOW DO MATRIX GAMES BECOME STRUCTURED? The idea of "structure" suggests something like a building. Bricks and mortar put together in a way that makes a house. The pieces can be put together in an infinite variety of ways but no matter how they are arraigned they form a structure. So Matrix Games need to have "pieces" that appear again and again that when put together form to building. The following elements appear in all Classical Matrix Games. 1. Characters (In some games the characters are actually groups of people – like political parties or social classes.) 2. Maps (space for action to happen in – a stage) 3. Character Stats (verbal information that describes who the person is and what they might want to do in the game. Recently I've been including a "dramatic question" with this. Kind of like what a director of a play would ask an actor prior to a scene.) 4. Things – treasures, buildings, information, plans, etc (stuff people will want) 5. A basic social structure (a pyramid pecking order – though in many games this is irrelevant.) 6. Lastly there is always extra information that fleshes out the player's understanding of the world they are entering. So games are about moving people and things around in space. Time comes in from there being turns. Actions follow one another in time by the order the arguments are made. (Though sneaky players have started making "flash back" arguments to warp even this!) The above pieces are not unique to Matrix Games. I borrowed the ideas from board games, role play games and miniatures games. This is a virtue in that people are largely familiar with these terms and know how they work in other games. The next part of structure comes from how the pieces are put together. This is done by the argument system. While it is true that players can argue for anything to happen, given the limited number of "pieces" in the game, arguments tend to fall into a narrow range of actions. 1. Arguments plan for the future. 2. Arguments cause trouble. 3. Arguments cause conflict. Trouble and conflict cause second rounds of rolling and resolve a staggeringly wide range of activity. Trouble focusing on "How do you survive this?" and Conflict focusing on "Who will win the prize?" Planning is more difficult to grasp. Planning can be done in so many ways. Here are just a few. 1. Strengthen yourself by adding good statuses to your character. 2. Weaken your enemy by adding bad statuses to their character. 3. Move to a place of advantage. 4. Take control over vital things (defensive locations, information, secrets, political offices, etc.) 5. Make contingency plans on how to handle something in the future. 6. Make plans on how to counter the enemies plans! 7. Build up a reputation for success. Nothing breeds success like success. 8. And on, and on. Planning points towards the second big part of Matrix Game structure – Scripts. Matrix Games can be about many different types of stories. Right now I have mapped out scripts for mysteries, horror or sci fi encounters, quest and plots, spy intrigue, politics, military, revenge and "you are there " games. The scripts for these stories comes from the many books that describe story plots for writers. In effect, Matrix Game players are writers of their own story so it makes sense to borrow heavily from creative writing. This also makes sense since Matrix Games use words to transmit information rather than numbers. The basic outlines of the scripts are as follows. MYSTERY 1. Find clues 2. Arrest a suspect 3. Hold a trial SPY INTRIGUE 1. Recruit a network of agents 2. Steal (or protect) a secret 3. Get the secret out of the country (or try to catch the spies for trial) QUESTS AND PLOTS 1. Learn how many challenges you must face to reach the goal 2. Make up what the challenges are 3. Plan how to overcome them 4. Face the challenges and overcome them (or work to stop the plot from succeeding) MILITARY 1. Raise armies 2. Move to positions of advantage 3. Build defenses 4. Fight battles/sieges 5. Make the enemy surrender POLITICS 1. Gain political office 2. Increase your power 3. Deal with political trouble as it arises 4. Take offices, allies or treasures away from people (conflict) 5. Stay alive, remain in power ENCOUNTERS 1. Learn of a mystery (the hook) 2. Find out what is actually happening 3. Solve the mystery (either by revealing it, stopping the plot or helping it succeed) REVENGE 1. Everyone has a position on a social pyramid/pecking order 2. Climb up the pyramid by pulling people down, climbing over people, etc. 3. Maintain your position 4. Get even and get revenge YOU ARE THERE 1. Be briefed on a major event (like Passchendale) 2. You are a minor character there 3. Each turn you face trouble – survive it or die 4. Live with the consequences of your past survival moves The combination of pieces (like characters, maps, etc.) actions (provided by the argument system) and story arcs (provided as suggestions by scripts) for a very real structure for Matrix Games. IS THE GREAT PERIOD OF EXPERIMENTATION OVER? Are we not gamers? Do we not incessantly tinker? YES!!! So the period of experimentation will never be over. But is much of the basic work done? I think it is. I've not done a good job communicating the details of the Matrix Game structure before now. This is my fault. The conventions described above have existed for years. They are thoroughly tested and work very well. So what has held me back from talking about them? In a word – Lack of audience. Before now, no one was interested in debating how to structure Matrix Games. It was all I could do to get people to even try playing one! I found out early on that the player lost interest when I tried to explain the intricacies of the rules. Taking a cue from the Dervishes I began to "speak in accordance to their understanding." Which meant saying how easy MGs are to play, how fast one learns the basic rules and how fun they are. Now, after MANY years, there are people who understand the basic rules, and are interested in learning more. In fact in taking hold of the idea and making it their own. Which I think is wonderful! The structure I've described above is one way to do a Matrix Game. It is fully formed are geared to be used by beginning players. It is the system I use in the Matrix Game products sold by Hamster Press. It is also how I run all the games I do (both at conventions and PBEM). I hope that it forms a "bedrock" of concepts that other MGs can grow from. Setting a shared set of reality. It is not the best way to do games – just one way. So please, continue to create new structures. Debate the ones we have. And above all else run games! By the way. I credit Tim Price, Bob Cordery, Howard Whitehouse and Steve Lortz as being those people who were "there" when the basics of MGs were written – 1988 to 1992. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #20 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com