The Game Within The Game

What game are we playing? This is seems like a such a simple question, one easily resolved by looking at the table in front of you, maybe looking at the cover of a book. We’re playing 5e, we’re playing Mothership, we’re playing Hat Horse Gun, and so on and so on.

Maybe a better question is ‘which game are we playing?’ - which is to say most games we play at the table is really two games folded together - the playing of the game, and the creation of that game itself.

I’ll be a little less cryptic.

Above the actual playing of the game, most modern ttrpgs have a meta-game of character. And that is one we all play, and one we tend to judge each other much harsher on our performance for.

The Second Game

Let’s call this game The Second Game. And this game is the process by which we chose (or have chosen for us) the stats, skills, traits, items and whatever for our characters. It’s how we build the avatars in which we play the main game, The First Game.

Playing The Second Game

Whereas the main game is ostensibly the character making choices and seeing outcomes, The Second Game is purely played by the player themselves.

Jenny is playing Ar’ul the Thief.

During a game session, Ar’ul navigates a room, Ar’ul in the one deciding to do that. This Is The First Game

After the session, Ar’ul levels up and gains new powers. Jenny is the one deciding what power to get. This Is The Second Game

Each game, consciously or unconsciously, will set the complexity and amount of The Second Game it allows. To work through some examples, lets look at three popular examples: D&D 5e, Mothership and Fiasco

Within 5e, there is a lot of Second Game that is front loaded, but it tails off sharply - you get to pick species, class, skills, stats (maybe), items, backstory, the whole kit and caboodle. But once that’s set, the options get really withdrawn (outside of a multi-class choice), many level ups offer no choice whatsoever, whatever original sin is baked in your character is just set. Outside of shopping for new magical items (if allowed), you are mostly on a conveyer belt.

Mothership, due to it is random name of generation, is actually quite light on the Second Game at the start, all you can pick is class, skills, and whatever amount of backstory you imbue the character with, often none. After this though, the Second Game ramps up, you get the options to train in skills (albeit on a loong timeline), but has a brilliant game mechanic in which you can convert the stress of your adventures into stat increases. You make some rolls (which you should be attempting to stack in your favour) and then grow exactly how you want, narratively or mechanically, as well as finding time to upgrade your kit and ships

And finally Fiasco. As a inherently one-shot game, there is no onwards Second Game, and the initial game takes an unusual form: There are no stats, no skills, no classes, all you really have is a name and two connections, which can range from a location or item, or a mission or relationship. Crucially here, those connections are co-created with all players, others give you those connections as much as you pick them for yourself.

What Isn’t The Second Game

This is an excellent point to quickly define what isn’t The Second Game, which I would draw as the personal nuance of your character. Which is say, if you decide your Teamster smokes like a chimney and loves cats, that’s not The Second Game, if your Paladin just an asshole to anyone not of his faith, that’s not The Second Game. Those are choices you can just make, there aren’t rules driving and corralling those decisions.

(Caveat that there are certainly some games that do offer structures and rules to define this stuff, but it isn’t the norm)

Why Does It Matter

So, after all this, why do we care about the Second Game? My view is that this is very often a over-looked part of the playing experience. We talk about crunch vs rules light and the like, but the weight of the Second Game often bears over all that. As we design games, we need to think about this as much part of the overall game as much as our combat rules.

To paraphrase Chris McDowall on the excellent Quinns Quest podcast “If you’re making a game with potential death in it, you don’t want character creation to be overly involved.”

And this isn’t a plea for a design choice one way or another, more a plea to consider how much the two games work together. To make your Second Game work in parallel with First, and consider it as much as you consider the vibe of your First Game.