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April 23, 2004
Stylistic Continua
While writing today's WISH (answer them ASAP, because there won't be too many more!), I referred offhandedly to the Claremont-Byrne continuum, which is one of the ways I tend to define games. A Claremont game, so-called after comics writer Chris Claremont, is one in which a lot of plot threads are thrown out and left dangling, to be used at a later date; a Byrne game, after John Byrne, is one in which things are more tightly scripted towards a specific goal, tending towards but not always falling into a plot railroad.
One of my other favorite pairs of descriptors is high-mud/low-mud, referring to the mud factor in a game. Mud is a term I tend to use for mundane activities. In a medieval fantasy game, it includes real mud, disease, social restrictions on women and minorities, and other such potentially unpleasant details. In a modern game, the demands of a job and the limits of income would qualify as mud. In terms of mechanics, mud would be things like encumbrance, weapon speed factor, or detailed critical hit tables.
There's a thread about this sort of thing over on the Master's Council as well. I'm interested in hearing what sort of stylistic continua other GMs and players use for their games. I know my favorites say a lot about me as a gamer.
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Comments
I like high-mud/low-mud; good concept.
Hm. One of the really important ones for me is conspiracy/open -- is the gane designed as a slow relevation of secrets or is it all open from the start?
Posted by: Bryant at Apr 25, 2004 9:33:05 AM
I love low-mud/high-mud!
Some other useful continua:
Grim-n-gritty vs. lighthearted: This is a tonal thing, but can be useful for players sensitive to tone. It's surprisingly separate from mud; I've played high-mud lighthearted, low-mud gritty, and the more expected permutations (high-mud gritty, low-mud lighthearted).
Street-level vs. epic: this is more about how much of the game world is affected by the PCs. Are they just struggling to survive or with goals that affect them and perhaps a small circle of friends? Or do their actions resonate throughout the world or a large sphere of influence?
One thing I've seen done for variety is to start a new campaign in the same game world, and tweak some of these. The amount of mud usually stays the same, and sometimes the amount of conspiracy, but the other parameters are all really free to alter. That lets you see a well-loved world from a different angle. An example here would be playing the serving staff of Amber, rather than the princes and princesses. (That could easily introduce some mud!)
Posted by: Gretchen at Apr 25, 2004 4:31:56 PM
I like the Claremont/Byrne analogy, although I don't think it applies so well to the current WISH. The length of a campaign does not inherently make it more Claremont than Byrne. Many of my campaigns have been Claremont games with a million plots left dangling and I unfortunately haven't usually ended up wrapping up all the dangling plots (much like Claremont never resolves most of his plots). However, I've also played in long running campaigns that were very much Byrne games.
Posted by: Nuadha at Apr 25, 2004 6:37:37 PM
