Streamlining has become a byword in tabletop RPG design over the last decade or so. And not for bad reasons. Almost every GM and player out there has encountered overly verbose, bloated, and pointless wordage in games. It confuses rules, adds to the word and page count to no benefit, and is rightfully driving a shift in thinking about how to pay writers. But there’s been an unintended world building effects, and it’s time to dive into that, and how to balance wordage, world building, and good game design.
Background
To me, this streamlining movement really kicked off with 4e D&D. In its development and release phases, a lot was said about how they cut content that had persisted through multiple editions, consolidated other material, and about how it was the most streamlined version of D&D to date. To be honest, it still is. But, in my opinion, it opened the flood gates for this ethos in design and it’s been detrimental since.
What Was Gained
Not all streamlining is bad. Not by a longshot. One of the best things that’s come from streamlining has been rules and mechanics in games being presented in less ambiguous and more easily understood ways. Another is a shift from paying per word (which encourages writers to max out wordage because we got bills) to offering a lump sum and a word maximum. The later is often equivalent to 10¢ or 12¢ per word to the given maximum number of words. This encourages writers to write succinctly and clearly because the concern of having to hit the maximum is absent.
I also love that streamlining has led to a boom in indie SRD documents and games designed for others to build from. This has been great for the hobby because it puts systems into the hands of people for whom game mechanic design isn’t a strong point. It’s great to see and I love what it’s been doing to empower creators.
What Was Lost
Detailed world building was one of the first casualties. It’s clear in a lot of games that there’s some kind of world concept behind the mechanics, monsters, technology, and so on. But that world is either never presented or the brevity used in its description is so severe that you question why it was even included. It’s Gygax all over again; creating a game with obvious cues to a world, but thinking that everyone will have the time and ability to create their own worlds to play in. As we’ve seen with Pathfinder, and especially in its second edition, world building still sells. It sells hard. It builds fans. But too often we see it discarded to keep something “streamlined”.
Equipment. This one is a particular issue to me because over my decades of being a GM, the most direct way that players interact with a fictional world is through their equipment. Items. Weapons. Armour. Vehicles. Mounts. Clothes. Special materials. Unique materials. But, time after time now, I see settings released with none of these things. In core books, this manifests as “generic” tables, using broad categories that have been scrubbed of individuality. In supplements, there might be a quick side bar with some rough equivalencies between core book, or there may a handful of special items and nothing else. And this is where settings suffer. People, players, thrive on names. It’s recognition. It’s immersion. It’s developing favourites.
Unintentional Racism
To be specific, streamlining can lead to racism by omission and erasure. It’s seldom if ever intentional, but the result is the same, and happens for lack of recognition of the importance of including a well-rounded presentation of a place. We see this in different ways both in the disastrous Tomb of Annihilation book, and in the otherwise excellent Lost Omens: Mwangi Expanse book. The result is the same though. Euro-centric conceptualizations are treated as a universal norm, and it lessens worlds.
Mitigation
The first way to mitigate the downsides of streamlining is introspection. Look at the place you’re creating and ask yourself what’s influencing your development of it. What real world influences are there? What about them makes them unique? Look at the culture, the things they make, how they fight, what so they wear (and why?), and determine what parts can be incorporated into your work.
Next up is space allocation. These kinds of additions don’t have to be lengthy. Two or three pages can be a fantastic baseline for a new location. I’ve seen it done in as little as about three quarters of a page and a sidebar. The point is that it was planned for at the inception of the project. Instead of leaving it as a “maybe, if there’s space” situation, it’s actively planned for.
The last thing is collected works. These used to be a thing, but have fallen out of style these days. Basically, every few years or so, publishers used to collect up all the new gear, notes, and so on from the last few years into a single volume. And to be honest, I liked this practice. As a player, it was a lite approach to the larger world and what it had to offer; enough to make characters or add some unique flavour to them. As a GM, it was the same lite approach and a resource for NPCs. They also fuelled interest in the larger setting and directed me (and others) towards other books. Now that I’m on the creator side of the show too, I see it as an opportunity to make game material that’s low cost on both sides and a way to drive interest in games and settings.
Final Thoughts
I like streamlining as a general practice. I like the succinct, clear writing, and the vast improvements to layouts and organization in books. But I’m also becoming more cognizant of the downsides. I’m seeing the same things happening in multiple games and settings, and that indicates that it’s becoming a systemic norm. There’s a difference between wordage used for thoughtful world building and bloat. Bloat can absolutely be an issue, but in fear of being seen as having made “bloat” for a game, we’re losing out on world building, diversity, and immersion. Whether it’s a lack of world building, or a lack of items/equipment and so on, it all compounds. I hope that we can move past this as designers, and bring the best worlds and gear possible to the players and GMs out there!
