Theoretical perspectives in studying design games as interaction

The objective of conversation analysis is to marvel at our ability as humans to make sense of each other, and occasionally transfer meaning across the vast void that separates us. In my research, then, the point is to marvel at how we can engage in such overwhelmingly complex activities such as playing games and coming up with new ideas. To be truly frank, I have skipped at least two dissertations' worth of groundwork and analysis to properly understand the phenomenon I am studying, and am therefore walking carefully in the cross-section of so many intertwining discourses.

But that, I'm afraid, is the role of applied science: to attempt solving the problems that arise in the world in their natural, messy form, trying and failing to learn all the lessons that basic researchers have made available. Here are the three synthetic perspectives that I'm trying to outline, utilize and develop in my dissertation.

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1. Dialogical knowedge co-creation

The motivation for studying service design games in the field of industrial engineering and management lies understanding and exploiting the ability of service design games (SDGs) to facilitate knowledge creation in organizations. In my work I have chosen to utilize an interaction analytical approach to studying SDGs and as such will utilize a theoretical framework of dialogical knowledge co-creation, following Tsoukas (2009). This focus on the interpersonal creation of knowledge is reflected in the use of the term knowledge co-creation to delineate the phenomenon of dialogical knowledge co-creation from other perspectives such as knowledge management.

My contribution to this perspective will be a continuation of dialogical knowledge co-creation using conversation analysis in a setting of intentional knowledge co-creation. The conversation analytical approach will provide further understanding and examples of the structures employed in conversation of knowledge co-creation.

2. Scaffolding knowledge co-creation

The ability of SDGs to support knowledge creation is conceptualized in my work using the scaffolding metaphor which originates from learning science and sociology. This perspective, after Wanda Orlikowski, posits that all knowing is made possible in interaction with material infrastructure which both enables and restricts us. In this work scaffolding is extended into the realm of practice knowledge, the primary definition of knowledge in this work, to propose that action is scaffolded not only by material artefacts but also conceptual artefacts such as game rules and institutions.

My work will provide a process-oriented view into the role material and conceptual scaffolds play in a game setting. The analysis explores the different use of scaffolds in different phases of the game and as a part of different interaction structures.

3. Service design games as interaction

A study of the SDGs to scaffold knowledge co-creation will, finally, require a way of analyzing SDGs as interaction. This work is informed by game studies where games and play are studied as socially constructed activities, but the primary perspective for studying games in this work is institutional interaction.

According to Drew and Heritage (1992, 22), institutional interaction has three typical features:

1. at least one participant is oriented to a particular institutional task or identity
2. the interaction is restricted
3. the interaction involves interpretation frames that are typical for that context

The contribution of my work for the study of service design games in particular and of games in genera is to provide an example of studying gameplay as institutional interaction constructed by the players and afforded by the game material, rules and the larger institution of games. 

Writing roleplaying scenarios is hard

Scratch that, writing any interactive fiction is hard. But writing tabletop roleplaying scenarios is excruciatingly hard. 

I have little actual writing experience (mostly from co-authoring the script to a 100-person crew & cast sci-fi student musical) but at least in stage plays most of the writing is about figuring out the characters and making them do interesting things that make sense for those characters.

Now, what is a roleplaying scenario? In roleplaying games, especially when they're played in conventions, a game master writes and hosts a 2-4 hour session in which players participate with limited prior knowledge about what they're about to do. Think of the players as going to the theater except that you're going to be on the cast and make up your own lines.

Think about that. What would it take for you to do something like that?

I think you the player need to feel like you're going to be taken care of, and provided with material that you can make sense of. Roleplaying games make the whole improvisation theater thing a bit more approachable by not having an audience (besides the other players) and not having to move around on stage (unless its a specific type of scenario in which you're supposed to use bodily interaction). But in the end, the game has to be prepared specifically to allow players to make sense of it on the fly.

Modern video games do this all the time: think about the opening of Portal - or even Super Mario Bros. You have no instructions on what the game is about, what you're supposed to do and how to do it. But in a video game the player(s) can only do things that the game was specifically created to allow. In roleplaying games it's different in multiple ways.

First, tabletop roleplaying is an analog game like board games: no computer will suggest or validate actions. The only things you have to guide players are their expectations based on previous games, the responses of the game master, and whatever explicit game mechanics they can read at the beginning of the session - no long rule books! 

Second, where board games most often rely on setting up a system up front with all the rules, pieces and goals are explained to everyone, roleplaying is supposed to be mostly imaginary and free. So free, in fact, that if a player comes up with something they want to do and a game master will deny it without giving enough explanation why, the whole group of players can and will call bullshit on the whole game. Roleplaying is terrifyingly free - both for the player and the writer.

And that's what I find terrifying about writing roleplaying scenarios. The trust that people I haven't even met yet are placing on me to take care of them.

I can't let them down.

PS. If you're interested in what I'm talking about, feel free to check out The Laundry World, the Apocalypse World hack that I'll be running the game with, and the full scenario I wrote and ran in Ropecon 2014!

Giving rise to a better generation of (co-creative) roleplayers

A friend of mine put it succinctly: "D&D is a cargo cult of older D&D". Basically he claimed that new editions of Dungeons & Dragons try to replicate the story  of how "original" D&D was a game of mystery and whimsical adventure, whereas the game was actually designed as a tactical skirmish-level wargame. He also noted that even the current editions make more sense when viewed through this lens - when the character is just a set of numbers that enable you to solve puzzles and reach goals within the game, the "gameness" of D&D with its encounters and reward systems comes alive as a complex and fascinating challenge. 

But I've been thinking, if a person comes into roleplaying games via D&D, will its fundamental principles become ingrained habits in any future games that the person plays or designs? Many aspects of D&D have ended up in definitions of that roleplaying games are, such as the preeminence of a gamemaster's vision of the world ("Is there a door here?" "No"), the limitation of a players' agency to the character's agency ("having authority end at the ends a character's fingertips"), and having logical, social and tactical challenges as the core of the game experience. 

The  watershed moment of roleplaying beyond D&D in our gaming circle was the introduction of Apocalypse World after its author, D. Vincent Baker, visited Ropecon in 2013. The post-apocalyptic game of Playbooks and Moves instead of Classes and Attacks took us by storm. Suddenly we were handing out storytelling authority let and right, groaning about the uselessness of detailed battle maps, and writing our own derivative games called "hacks" in AW circles.

But out group didn't really "click" with these games, not in the way convention games I played in did. We laughed and usually had a good time, but we couldn't replicate those moments when everyone around the table is leaning in with anticipation and hanging on every word of a dialogue between two players. And that kept bugging me.

As this was going on, I was researching facilitating knowledge co-creation with games  (you know, the serious stuff). Studying these "serious" games finally helped me pinpoint what it is about roleplaying games I find so irresistible but often beyond my grasp. It's the act of co-creation.

To be precise, it's the act of spontaneous, intrinsically motivated social co-creation with a dynamic team in a psychologically safe space. And what my research into co-creation has taught me is that all those other words around "co-creation" are redundant: co-creation is either the result of or the cause of spontaneity, intrinsic motivation, sociability, team dynamism and psychological safety. 

What's more, games research superbly summarized in length by Jaakko Stenros indicates that both (free-form) play and (structured) games are adept at creating this kind of mental and social space.  The first time I saw people playing the knowledge co-creation game ATLAS, all I could think of was "this looks exactly like roleplaying". People throwing dice, moving tokens, having discussions about imaginary things they were personally invested in, all in the intense atmosphere of co-creation.

Years later and despite getting proficient with a number of co-creation methods and tools, I still struggle with the same themes. It is hard getting into a co-creative space for fun, let alone at work where you maintain an image of responsibility and usefulness. But in understanding my struggles with our D&D background roleplaying group, it sheds a light on why I have found it so hard. Unlike at work, I don't have routines of co-creation with these people and I'm in a setting where I have modes of acting that date back to our D&D days.

So I arrived at a conundrum: What could I change about our regular gaming that would create the expectation of and the ability to create a space conducive to co-creation? 

I didn't find an answer to that question, but on the side I have begun a project to introduce new people into the hobby by running beginner-friendly roleplaying games. The games I'm running are based on tropes from popular media (our first game was set in Victorian England) to provide content authority, and utilize lightweight description-oriented systems (such as FATE Accelerated) to give system authority to the players . After that it's my responsibility to run the game as a facilitator which in my mind involves setting expectations and providing an inciting goal or a shove that will orient the players and get them over the awkward start of a game.

Early results with these games look encouraging. I still feel that the "click" eludes explanation but creating a culture from scratch had led me to some tricks that make it more probable. Whatever the answer, co-creation has proven to be a challenge worthy of tackling in an academic discussion - with the potential to save my living room table.