The Three Actors
Over the course of the spring semester, I did my bachelor’s thesis on posthumanism and emergence in game development. It was a long and arduous piece of work that isn’t going to bring anything particularly eyeopening to the field, but the work has made me realize a lot of things on a personal level. While the thesis itself was focused on video game development, I’m mostly going to talk about tabletop stuff here. This is also going to be a lot of thoughts distilled into text form, so bear with me.
The major revelation for myself was something I ended up calling the three actors of play: the designer, the player, and the “game”. There’s airquotes around that last one for good reason. The game, as we think of it, doesn’t really exist. The true third actor is the physical (or digital) artifact of the game, the product of the designer’s efforts to communicate what’s in their headspace.
Whether it’s a PDF, a physical book, or something else, the artifact is but one of three actors that work to facilitate play. The other two actors are usually human: the designer of the game, who has an idea in their mind and uses the artifact to communicate that idea, and the player, who reads the artifact and tries to have a good time based on that.
As you might see from my wording, there’s a certain problem that can come out of this. The artifact is there to communicate the author’s headspace, but it’s not a direct venue into the author’s head the same way that talking to the author would be. This can make the game hard to grasp, especially for those who might not be familiar with roleplaying games as a medium. It is up to the artifact, not the designer themselves, to explain what the game is about. This is why I choose to classify it as a separate actor, rather than part of the designer’s efforts — it does a lot of work. But it can’t do everything.
The Game
Now, we’ve talked about the actors a fair bit. Let’s talk about play itself. This is where the game itself finally manifests, where the efforts of the designer meet the presentation of the artifact and the actions of the players. It’s at the center of this triangle of actors that play actually happens. Until then, the game doesn’t really exist. It’s all in the designer’s head.
We’ve touched upon some of the parts that make up this triangular space of play.
- When the designer interacts with the artifact, we call it game design. Writing in the documents, filling out tables, thinking of cool stuff for the readers to do in the game. This is what the author can do to make sure the experience in play matches what’s going on in their headspace.
- When the player interacts with the artifact, we call it learning the game. This is the player reading the text, analyzing what play is going to be like and how to get the most of their experience.
A triangle, however, has three sides. We haven’t talked about interaction between the player and the designer. This is what the designer can do outside of the rules to get the players into their headspace. We see this in the wording and layout of the text, in the language that’s used, in the art and presentation of the text.
One reason that I like Dogs in the Vineyard so much is how D. Vincent Baker handles the nature of demons in the game. As any proper religious text should, the game speaks at length about the dangers of demonkind and how much of a threat they are to society. However, hidden away on a half-page about halfway through the book, it explains that demonic influence is felt through otherwise mundane acts. Crops going bad, a house going up in flames, a sickness goes through town. Such detail speaks volumes about the setting and the game itself without really having any mechanical impact. (Apocalypse World is another great example of how the language of the text impacts the tone of the game. It’s not some hopeful apocalypse. It’s the end of the fucking world!)
Catering to this third interaction is crucial to the design of any good game. The rules of the artifact are there to facilitate play, but utilizing the surrounding factors is key to conveying your intent and communicating your headspace to the players. Utilize the methods of interaction that are at your disposal when creating your artifact. It’s going to play two roles — a source of the rules and a mouthpiece to communicate your intentions — so make sure it has the material required to actually do those things.
