A Narrative Mind
I have recently been able to put together a game based on FATE Core which I call Guiding Fate. To me Guiding Fate is a philosophy based around the idea of both figuring out why people game and how to capture the complicated movements of the mind in a containable manner. This initial product is a first step towards establishing a better handle on this admittedly loose idea, but I am hoping that minds who share this vision might take inspiration and guidance from my efforts.
Anytime I am exposed to a new tabletop gaming system, I am always aware of the push and pull between the narrative and the mechanics and how they feed off of each other. But then question raises as to why we need to limit ourselves by the mechanics of games in the first place? What prevents us from instantly being able to produce compelling narratives as easily as waving our hands? And there are narrative games which do away with most mechanics in exchange for more freeform structures. However, these freeform structures can grant so much freedom, that it can be paralyzing. In such games (as in life) we have so many options to choose from that it takes time for us to reach a decision. The mechanics in more crunch, rule focused games can grant the ability to prune options and paths, to have an idea, if not a certainty, what actions will have what outcomes.
Guiding Fate takes the tidal push and pull between narrative and mechanics and tries to help them flow together by treating them in a fractal manner. Inspired by the ideas in FATE, I started to wonder about the predictability of plots, and if there were not some manageable handful which could be pulled apart and reassembled. The solution I came up with, was Fatalisms.
Fatalisms
As I read my books, watched my shows, played my video games, I started viewing them all through the lens of FATE and it seemed like I could almost see the world reflected fractally and distorted. When the Chanter of Blades appeared unexpected at the main characters’ retreat, it was an attack action in the game of FATE. When the main characters needed to collect the integrity chip from the temple of the mechanical gods to prevent a virus from taking control of all robots, I saw a quest to create an advantage.
However, as I noticed the similarities between the stories I was seeing and the mechanical actions in FATE, I still could not put all of the pieces together well enough to “gamify” plot. It was not until I separated the FATE actions into there narrative outcomes (which I call Fatalisms) that I felt they could be more comfortably fit into a game. Defeating an opponent, Capturing a target, Reveling something new, Influencing those who will listen, I had a collection of finite story elements I could mix, match and rearrange to make new plots.
But with the birth of Fatalisms, I noticed a thread which would stick with me throughout the design of Guiding Fate, the ability of narrative elements to provide a filter for the innumerable expectations a person could have for the future and the ability of mechanics to provide a filter for the innumerable choices a person could possibly make.
We need narrative to make sense of the world. When two nations go to war, we see the conflict as between two separate institutions, not as a situation in which millions of lives each make their own separate decisions or even how those lives are made of billions of atoms each tumbling against each other. No, when it comes to such scopes beyond our own minds to contain, we use narratives, losing some of the information in the process but gaining the ability to hold that situation in our heads.
Likewise, we need games. In order to know what action I should best take in the moment, I have to whittle it down from the many possible actions that I can take, calculate which best to take, and then use the game I have created to predict how others might behave. In such a way I can update the state of the narrative in my head, and predict even further into the future.
Future Philosophy
I realize I might not always be the most eloquent speaker for my cause, but I really feel like there is something special in the bones of Guiding Fate, past all my inept attempts to convey it. I do hope that at least other parties can look through my efforts and get some idea for concepts I was going for.
However, I intend to write more about the ideas and concepts that lay behind the work and hopefully I can get them across through sheer effort if nothing else.
But that is enough from me, have any of you had an epiphany about how games relate to life? Feel free to share them in the comments below!