Designing an FKR game (1)

I might be wrong, but I think I design FKR games. I'm going to talk here about how I have tried to do this in my game Revealed Wrists. 

I'm going to begin in this post by considering by what I mean by an FKR game. 

Revealed Wrists is a game about noble women in medieval Japan. I call it a game of 'aesthetic intrigue' as your characters will scheme for the expresses' reputation using knowledge of taste and, well, aesthetics. 

It doesn't specify any kind of system, nor does it specify if it is a solo/group game.

In some respects, it doesn't look overly like what are normally thought of as FKR games. People might assume its a story game, but it also has no moves or tokens or any meta tools at all. 

What makes this an FKR game in my-mind is that it tries to embody the 'Free' element of Free War-play (FKR).

What does "free" play mean?

Around the birth of the FKR discords, I wrote something in the 'The Neverending Drachenschwanz' which was trying to analyse how people were using the term FKR. I did a simple thematic analysis of the dialogue to that point. 

The definition I came up with was looking for the broadest areas of overlap between uses. Where there were mutually exclusive points (including the on-going question do you have to have a GM), I set those aside. 

The definition I came to was quire straightforward: 

FKR is when formal rules/mechanics are not required to resolve the outcome of an event.

I also picked out a handful of principles, from some of the other themes. Interestingly, one of these had in, my mind, become my working definition of FKR: 

'[FKR really is] When rules/mechanics and world-content are created/used only as relevant to the needs/wants of the table, at the moment they are useful.' 

This second idea is, for me, what makes FKR interesting as a theory of RPG playing as opposed to a more simple descriptor of a style of playing. 

A hypothetical example

I think I can explain this theory with an example of DnD 5e as people often say 'I could play 5e FKR-style'. Following my second definition of FKR this would go something like: 

1. Table A and Table B have only ever played 5e. They both enjoy rolling for perception, whittling away HP, and reading spells every time they use them..
   
   Both tables are playing with the rules as and when they think they need them, and are happy in doing so: they are playing FKR-style.
   
   
2. Table A and B both begin to get frustrated with certain rules or elements of the game-world. 
   
   Table A responds by the DM scouring the internet to find out how to 'make combat faster' or 'satisfy the players', all while essentially sticking to what the pre-printed material says is 5e. 
   
   Table B responds by changing what they play: getting rid of things they don't enjoy, setting elements that don't work for them, and bringing in new elements. They are experimenting and adapting to their own play style.
   
   Even if Table B never stops thinking they are playing 5e, to me that is an FKR approach. Where Table A, even if they were to replace 5e with OSE, would not be while they maintained the same perspective of their relationship to the rules.

Some FKR design principles 

FKR feels like it promotes experimentation, adaptation and gives things space to breathe. There are of course many other features commonly associated with it, such as an emphasis on the diegetic versus the meta (which I theorised about here). But I think a lot of these are the results of an FKR approach, rather than defining causes of it. 

So, let's get a bit closer to designing something: some design principles I have that I think come from FKR as an idea. 

Qualitative Worlds

- Describe things in the world as a part of that world

- Avoid the use of stats or other meta/table descriptors 

- Allows for the use of any system to interact with the world

Blank Spaces

- Do not prescribe all world content

- Do not prescribe exactly how to play

- Point out players' freedom to add/twist/discard

Meaningful Objects

- Try to make elements inspirational and significant

Play as an end in itself

- Try to avoid use of (meta) goals and "gameplay-loops"

- Encourage play for play's sake

In my next post in this series I will reflect on how I tried to apply these principles in some of my game design. 

If you have any other thoughts about this, I would love to hear them.