Expressionism and Systems in Motion
Jay’s original post on expressionism, well worth a read before you check this out
In short (and way too simplified), an expressionist game is a game in which:
- The characters have inner worlds which are not dictated by the rules.
- The rules simulate the social realities of characters (aka: “social cages”).
- There is friction between the text and the players, in which the rules continually get in the way of the player’s abilities to play the game how they might want.
I am here to talk about how Expressionism interacts with Systems in Motion.
I am using Systems here with the very specific meaning of “collections of discrete but connected rules within a game-text which interact with each other when put into motion through play.” I will spend most of this essay elaborating on that statement and discussing “in motion.”
What is a System?
I am going to give you an extremely simple example of what I consider to be a System:
- I have 1 Button, 6 Coins, and 1 Egg. So do my 3 friends.
- I can throw my Egg at a friend, losing the Egg but stealing half their Coins and 1 Button.
- I can buy 2 Buttons or 1 Egg for 1 Coin.
- You win the game by having the most Buttons after everyone runs out of Eggs and Coins.
With 3 game-objects and 1 extremely simple rule for each that references the other 2, we have created a machine of incentive and interaction, not all of which might be obvious at first glance.
(note/joke: this game is also kinda Expressionist, the rules incentivizing me to win by smartly managing Eggs and Coins to end up with the most Buttons, which has tension with my desire to not play the game because I don’t want to have raw eggs all over me. Perhaps I’ll resolve this by ducking when they throw it at me. Or maybe I’ll try catching an Egg and arguing that it’s my Egg now).
TTRPGs tend to have more complex Systems than this, but some don’t! Dream Askew, for example, has a System of Tokens, Weak Moves, Strong Moves, Lures, and Regular Moves, which I think is probably simpler and more understandable on a base level than the Egg-Throwing game, despite having more parts.
Many games get quite complex. Monsterhearts 2e has:
- Stats
- Strings
- Conditions
- Forward
- Harm
- Darkest Self
- Experience
And a whole bunch of rules which alter these or how we engage with them, such as all the basic moves, gangs, playbook moves, etc.
Each of these rules alters how we interact with the System that Monsterhearts has set up of resources, states of being, bonuses, etc. Even trying to map out the Systems of Monsterhearts gets horrifically complicated.
For example, as a Mortal, perhaps I Shut Someone Down who has no Strings on me. I take advantage of their Condition, adding +1 to my roll. This ends up making the difference, and so I take a String on them (because they have none on me). I then Pull Their String, tempting them to fuck me, which they do. As I am the Mortal, this triggers their Darkest Self through my Sex Move.
In this way, in a convoluted sense, I have converted their Condition into their Darkest Self triggering, despite having no direct rules saying I can do that.
This process is an example of a System in Motion.
Expressionistic Games as Systems in Motion
“I want games that challenge me, that provoke me, that force me to fight against the harsh confines of society. I want to rattle the bars of my proverbial cage.”
-Jay Dragon
I love the use of the word ‘cage’ here in relation to Expressionism, but I’m going to lightly sidestep it here, or perhaps push back on it, despite how much I like it.
TTRPGs are not static pieces of art. They are art that is enacted. Perhaps they sit quietly and immovably while we read them, but when dice and tokens hit the table and we begin to interpret the text with each other, they become unbounded and unpredictable.
When I look at some of the examples in Jay’s article, at Seven-Part-Pact with its Time and Companions and absolute behemoth of subsystems, at Praise the Hawkmoth King with Sway, Mercy, shifting stats, Insults, Boons, the Cicada-Shell-Girl’s Bug Tokens and the Wolf-Pet-Boy’s Master, at Triangle Agency with its Demerits and other various fiddly bits, I do not see games that are content with exclusively sitting still and providing a wall to throw yourself against (although I think they certainly have walls that are there to be rattled).
A real-life societal cage does not exist passively. It is maintained through community, oppression, rewards and punishments and incentives. While there are rules we are all told or which are left unsaid for us to puzzle out, it continues to exist because we enact it upon each other. We call it The System.
An Expressionistic social cage within a TTRPG is fundamentally the same. It is something that is enacted, and which moves and grinds up against itself, and something whose nuances and incentives must sometimes be puzzled out and brought into the light. If done with intent, it can be satisfyingly complex and unwieldy to engage with.
Complex and unwieldy games, such as 7pp, Magic the Gathering, and Minecraft, have Systems which theoretically could be created by a single person, yet which interact in ways that I do not believe are possible for a single person to hold in their brain without first engaging with them (if you tell me I’m wrong I’ll assume you’re lying and a fool), and which are certainly not possible to anticipate. If they are Expressionistic, these enormous Systems actively move to facilitate the oppression of the characters and the tension of the players, grinding us down until we adapt to live within them or break them into pieces.
By creating many of these discrete pieces and then finding ways for them to interact with each other, we vastly and exponentially quickly increase the complexity of our games when they reach the table, and take them out of reach of what can be fully understood.
When we then engage in Expressionistic design, making those discrete rules and the ways they interact facilitate a social cage, we end up creating games which, when played, both reveal their constant motion and mirror our real-life Systems in the enormity of their oppression.
What’s the Point of This?
I love seeing Systems in motion. Maybe it’s the autism. I love when resources are turned into other resources. I love when there are non-obvious incentives and punishments that guide your behaviour. I love figuring out what a game is trying to get me to do, and learning how it does that through play.
Expressionism thrives in the space where Systems turn hostile. Where all the little bits and mechanics come together into a System in motion — a System that wants — and where that ‘want’ is contrary to your goals as a player.
These games create enormous and unknowable Systems that hate you, Systems which creak and groan and begin to break under their own weight as they lurch into action, and nothing makes me want to immerse myself in them more.
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