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I came across this concept somewhere over the net, but cant find it again nor remember exactly its definition (yeah, my google-fu is that weak)

So, whats "color-first" ?

I suspect its related to a property of Apocalyse World that I find really cool, which is the fact that the character classes and abilities and crap are more about creating interesting situations and conflicts in the fiction, than to be measures of power or of simulated physical capabilities.

So, while a Covert Operative´s abilities in Shadowrun would be all about acrobatics and technical knowledge and hi-tech gadgets, in Apocalypse World such a character´s abilities would be all about provoking paranoia and betrayal between the players characters, sabotaging things while framing others, and having occult employers showing up with morally ambiguous jobs and opportunities and such.

In other words, this vs this.

Is this correct ?

I seem to vaguely recall the thread, and the argument was mostly summed up as "ARGLE BLARGLE FLOBADOB-BOBJOB NAAAAARG."

Koumei wrote:BOBJOB

What is this?

It sounds bizarre and potentially interesting.

It's when a person named Bob clears out your gutters.

I've seen it as the mauve goblins having rotten-chicken bombs is way more important than the stats you might apply to goblins, the mauve subrace, or how rotten-chicken bombs are made and how they work.

So having good rules is still very important and all, but you need to be making rules for things that are potentially interesting and memorable and worthy of putting in your game before you should care to have them at all.

So there's no neat generalised solution for throwing optimisation costs and preserving animal parts at all unless the flavour and colour in the game demands that those things exist. And you don't want to be colouring up some awesome rule you thought of, because that doesn't work as well.


Not that I agree, because I'm more comfortable with rules, but I have seen some very cool colour stuff for oldschool D&D from people who do it that way, and the mechanics they ended up tacking on did not offend.

Thanks for the explanation, Tussock.

Do you think we may begin to see a trend of this ? I mean, The One Ring also looks another somewhat "color-heavy" game that got somewhat popular in the last years, as(though I may be mistaken color-first for genre-emulation in this case, dont know).

I don't imagine it would work well for large projects, especially not starting from scratch mechanically. I imagine the work I've seen relies on a firm understanding of potential mechanics, even if the designers aren't thinking about it at the time.

To use for an adventure, encounter, or NPC design within a system, it should be good. Don't sweat the mechanics until you've basically finalised what you want to do with them. But a game from scratch you could end up in a real mess, looking like AD&D with a patchwork of conflicting mechanics everywhere.


One thing we don't need any more of is where the colour doesn't match the mechanics at all. 4e D&D, looking at you.

silva wrote:
So, while a Covert Operative´s abilities in Shadowrun would be all about acrobatics and technical knowledge and hi-tech gadgets, in Apocalypse World such a character´s abilities would be all about provoking paranoia and betrayal between the players characters, sabotaging things while framing others, and having occult employers showing up with morally ambiguous jobs and opportunities and such.

This feels like the difference between the attacker making an attack roll vs the defending making a saving throw

y'know what I mean?

So what is the difference between "flavor" and "color" in this context?

silva wrote:So, while a Covert Operative´s abilities in Shadowrun would be all about acrobatics and technical knowledge and hi-tech gadgets, in Apocalypse World such a character´s abilities would be all about provoking paranoia and betrayal between the players characters, sabotaging things while framing others, and having occult employers showing up with morally ambiguous jobs and opportunities and such.

The latter thing you described is what every character does in Shadowrun. The former thing you described is a thing that is distinct to one character archetype in Shadowrun. The two are not equivalent.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So what is the difference between "flavor" and "color" in this context?

i been thinking the same thing. fluff-first came to mind right away. you detail the why, before the how.

you want a dragon here becuase a dragon here would be fun, not because you want a firebreathing flying thing here with X HD. that would be crunch-first.

fun RPGs are designed fluff-first.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So what is the difference between "flavor" and "color" in this context?

I would say the difference is not of flavor vs color, but of numbers vs color. One approach (Shadowrun) is focused on characters capabilities, while the other (AW) is focused on creating interesting scenes and situations.

Almaz wrote:The latter thing you described is what every character does in Shadowrun. The former thing you described is a thing that is distinct to one character archetype in Shadowrun. The two are not equivalent.

From a genre/premise standpoint, I agree. But the "numbers" game (Shadowrun) dont actually promotes or reinforces the former thing (betrayal, paranoia, scheming) at all. Its just a premise assumed by the players almost on a background level, that can be totally ignored without any damage to the resulting experience. (in fact, the thing I see the most are Shadowrun groups playing on D&D-mode, that is, a party of goody-goody friends against the bad guys).

Now compare this to the "Color" game (AW), which brings the genre/premise to the forefront and then create the mechanics in function to that. Now you have "betrayal, paranoia and scheming" as things the very mechanics guarantee will happen sooner or later (specially if we agree that mechanics tend to inform gameplay).

If you notice the 2nd page on the "color" Covert ops sheet, you will notice it has an ability called "Intrigue!" wich says that every beginning of session, the player must roll and see if its secret Cabal will be asking him to do a covert job. And if you look at the 1st page on its sheet, you will see this Cabal can be of various natures and be using the character for a number of motives/purposes. In other words, in the "color" game, if you have a player picking a Covert ops archetype, you will have a conspiracy in place which will automatically and inexorably generate the aforementioned "betrayal, paranoia and scheming" in-game. While the "numbers" just works as a physical capabilities resolutor and dont ever touch the "betrayal, paranoia and scheming".

Doesn't shadowrun give you build points for baked-in paranoia, betrayal, and scheming?

I know you get points for having a SIN with a criminal record.

silva wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So what is the difference between "flavor" and "color" in this context?

I would say the difference is not of flavor vs color, but of numbers vs color. One approach (Shadowrun) is focused on characters capabilities, while the other (AW) is focused on creating interesting scenes and situations.

So "color" means "flavor". "Color-first" is a way of saying 'Write the flavor text before the mechanics'. That would seem to be the answer to your first post.

silva wrote:

Almaz wrote:The latter thing you described is what every character does in Shadowrun. The former thing you described is a thing that is distinct to one character archetype in Shadowrun. The two are not equivalent.

From a genre/premise standpoint, I agree. But the "numbers" game (Shadowrun) dont actually promotes or reinforces the former thing (betrayal, paranoia, scheming) at all. Its just a premise assumed by the players almost on a background level, that can be totally ignored without any damage to the resulting experience. (in fact, the thing I see the most are Shadowrun groups playing on D&D-mode, that is, a party of goody-goody friends against the bad guys).

Now compare this to the "Color" game (AW), which brings the genre/premise to the forefront and then create the mechanics in function to that. Now you have "betrayal, paranoia and scheming" as things the very mechanics guarantee will happen sooner or later (specially if we agree that mechanics tend to inform gameplay).

If you notice the 2nd page on the "color" Covert ops sheet, you will notice it has an ability called "Intrigue!" wich says that every beginning of session, the player must roll and see if its secret Cabal will be asking him to do a covert job. And if you look at the 1st page on its sheet, you will see this Cabal can be of various natures and be using the character for a number of motives/purposes. In other words, in the "color" game, if you have a player picking a Covert ops archetype, you will have a conspiracy in place which will automatically and inexorably generate the aforementioned "betrayal, paranoia and scheming" in-game. While the "numbers" just works as a physical capabilities resolutor and dont ever touch the "betrayal, paranoia and scheming".

You missed the greater point entirely.

In Shadowrun, all the characters are engaged in "Covert Ops."

I also suspect, honestly, that the mechanic you mentioned will just as often feel hamfisted as it will produce congruent results, based on personal experience with similar mechanics. I'm not 100% opposed to "storygame" types of mechanics, but some of them are... hard sells.

Almaz wrote:In Shadowrun, all the characters are engaged in "Covert Ops."

Yes but the game dont promote the "betrayal, paranoia and scheming" at all. Thats my point.

I also suspect, honestly, that the mechanic you mentioned will just as often feel hamfisted as it will produce congruent results, based on personal experience with similar mechanics. I'm not 100% opposed to "storygame" types of mechanics, but some of them are... hard sells.

Sorry, didtn get this point. Do you mean you only like physics-sim like mechanics ?

silva wrote:

Almaz wrote:In Shadowrun, all the characters are engaged in "Covert Ops."

Yes but the game dont promote the "betrayal, paranoia and scheming" at all. Thats my point.

I also suspect, honestly, that the mechanic you mentioned will just as often feel hamfisted as it will produce congruent results, based on personal experience with similar mechanics. I'm not 100% opposed to "storygame" types of mechanics, but some of them are... hard sells.

Sorry, didtn get this point. Do you mean you only like physics-sim like mechanics ?

Er. No. I play story games a lot. I am suggesting that it is possible that Apocalypse World sucks when stacked up next to other story games.

And you also seem to miss that introducing one person who is betraying, being paranoid, and scheming against other people, does not necessarily make that the tenor of the group. In fact, it makes it very easy for the entire group to unite and throw that character out. Or worse - to regard that player as simply being disruptive. It doesn't really incentivize betrayal or backstabbing - it just mandates it, which is about as ham-fisted and shitty a rule I can think of.

The dilemma of Shadowrun is that everyone has equal incentive to betray the others, and you don't know who it is until it happens. Having "I am going to betray you" on your character sheet paints a really obvious target.

If you can't distinguish between adding rules to the game, and adding rules to the sheet, then you're a failure as someone who reads roleplaying games. If you also can't see how writing details in to the setting can itself influence how players act, then you're a failure as someone who writes roleplaying games. In either case, you're wasting everyone's time on your failure to understand the value of subtlety.

Almaz wrote:And you also seem to miss that introducing one person who is betraying, being paranoid, and scheming against other people, does not necessarily make that the tenor of the group.

Except that everybody is provoked to being paranoid and betraying in AW - thats the point behind Hx and other inter-player mechanics like Manipulate, Read a Person, and Help/Interfere. And thats why the GM is adviced to create player-npc-player triangles and provoke players reactions - to generate inter-player conflicts of interest. The fact the covert ops player has an edge on it doesnt mean the other players are not engaged in it.

The dilemma of Shadowrun is that everyone has equal incentive to betray the others..

If by that you mean zero incentive, I agree. Because Ive never read such a thing in any of the GM advice, nor in mechanics, nor in the example fiction in the book (in fact, all iconical fiction in the core Shadowrun books - "And So It Came To Pass" - treat the group as the default D&D "party of friends against the bad guys"). But feel free to point to me where intra-party conflict is explicitly promoted/incentivated in Shadowrun. Maybe im letting something pass.

In fact, I would say AW system is much better suited to the Shadowrun premise than its own original system, because it has mechanics that actually promote the expected tropes of the heist/criminal party genre - like the barter rules that offer a simple metric for the cost of jobs, the Hx rules that promote intra-party conflicts (and betrayals), and the player-driven/sandboxy gaming structure that fits SR premise much better than the adviced gameplay in the GM chapters.

silva wrote:

Almaz wrote:And you also seem to miss that introducing one person who is betraying, being paranoid, and scheming against other people, does not necessarily make that the tenor of the group.

Except that everybody is provoked to being paranoid and betraying in AW - thats the point behind Hx and other inter-player mechanics like Manipulate, Read a Person, and Help/Interfere. And thats why the GM is adviced to create player-npc-player triangles and provoke players reactions - to generate inter-player conflicts of interest. The fact the covert ops player has an edge on it doesnt mean the other players are not engaged in it.

If you are now saying that AW is better because "everyone is encouraged to betray" and NOT just the Covert Ops character, then you have failed to make the logical bridge between "this character sheet has rules content addressing betrayal" and "this character sheet is better for evoking an atmosphere of betrayal." Because if it's part of everyone's character then it doesn't matter if anyone has "will betray the party" written on their character sheet. If B follows from A then it doesn't matter if C is also in-play.

I feel really sad that Apocalypse World has defenders and advocates like you on this forum, because your total inability to string logical reasoning together is really doing it a disservice. And I say that as someone who has yet to be be convinced of the value of pissing on flaming Apocalypse World rules to put them out.

Sorry Almaz, but Im having a hard time understanding what your point is in this discussion.

First you defended that the shadowrun covert ops is also about paranoia and betrayal the same way the AW one is. Then I asked you to show me how the SR game promoted that, and you failed to show it.

Then you defended that shadowrun has a supposed "dillema" where every character has incentive to betray and be paranoid with each other. To what I responded that no, in all my 20 years of SR gaming I never saw this kind of behavior (intra-party conflict) be promoted by the rules, nor the GM advice, nor the fiction in the core books. And asked you to show me where in the books this is incentivated. And again, you failed to show me.

Then you defended that the AW covert ops is inneffective since its supposedly the only one potentially enaged in betrayal and paranoia. To what I showed you that all characters in AW are potentially engaged in betrayal and paranoia because this is something the very system adress with specific mechinics and GM advice. In other words, intra-party conflict is one of its design goals. Then you failed to show me otherwise.

And now you seem to be defending that if any character is there to betray then a character who is better equipped to that breaks the game in some way. (which I disagree, since betraying is just another aspect of the game, like combat, social interaction, making money, healing, etc - if there are archetypes that are better at those aspects, why cant we have an archetype thats better at betraying ?).

Sorry, but whats your point in the discussion is ? Because, by the way you fail again and again to back up the points you raised - limiting yourself to sidestep to a new point everytime I prove youre wrong - one suspects that you know zero about the games that are the subject of this discussion, and is more concerned in trying to prove me wrong at all costs, than to make some constructive criticism or conversation about the subject matter. Ive been respectful with you and taking you seriously all the while in this conversation, and would like to continue to be. But its getting harder with each new post of yours.

Silva, I try not to get heavily involved in your threads because you come off as kind of a twat and also you seem to think that attacking me personally somehow gains you street cred around here. But seriously, you need to rethink your entire approach.

For starters: your whole thread here is completely incoherent. Like, completely incoherent. People are throwing out guesses as to what the fuck you're on about because there is no way to be certain what your thesis even is from your actual posts. Tussock's discussion about flavor and mechanics is fairly coherent and you thanked him for his explanation, so I'm going to guess that his posts were what you actually wanted to discuss. But even in that context, I can't make hide nor hair of what your contributions are supposed to be about.

So I'm assuming you want to talk about designing rules from flavor as opposed to designing flavor from rules. That's a reasonable thing to talk about. We could talk about the fact that a magical beast in Shadowrun does the amount of damage that it does "because it is a big dog", while a magical beast in Dungeons & Dragons does the amount of damage it does "because it is a 4th level creature". That's a good example of flavor first as opposed to rules first design. The limitations of each are fairly obvious: in Shadowrun the flavor-first paracritters really aren't that threatening because they don't have guns; while in D&D the rules-first monsters are often fairly world-incoherent.

But none of that has anything to do with what you actually wrote. Which I remind you, was this:

Silva wrote:So, while a Covert Operative´s abilities in Shadowrun would be all about acrobatics and technical knowledge and hi-tech gadgets, in Apocalypse World such a character´s abilities would be all about provoking paranoia and betrayal between the players characters, sabotaging things while framing others, and having occult employers showing up with morally ambiguous jobs and opportunities and such.

This is completely incoherent. Also, it has nothing to do with rules-first or flavor-first design. This is seemingly about whether your character sheet has actual rules relevant to playing the game (your Shadowrun example), or whether it's just a list of backstory and plot hooks (your Apocalypse World example).

In your example, it is simply that the Shadowrun character sheet is useful and relevant as a playing aid, while the Apocalypse World character sheet as you described it is not. That cannot possibly be what you meant to say. Also, it's not even true, in that Apocalypse World character sheets do in fact have game relevant numbers on them, telling you what your bonus is when you roll a Sharp test (or whatever).

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:People are throwing out guesses as to what the fuck you're on about because there is no way to be certain what your thesis even is from your actual posts.

Thats understandable. I also dont know exacly what Im looking for here. I know its something that I see in some games, but not on others, but I cant put my finger exactly on it.

Tussock's discussion about flavor and mechanics is fairly coherent and you thanked him for his explanation, so I'm going to guess that his posts were what you actually wanted to discuss... So I'm assuming you want to talk about designing rules from flavor as opposed to designing flavor from rules. That's a reasonable thing to talk about

Touché! Yes, this is spot on, I guess.

..Also, it has nothing to do with rules-first or flavor-first design. This is seemingly about whether your character sheet has actual rules relevant to playing the game (your Shadowrun example), or whether it's just a list of backstory and plot hooks (your Apocalypse World example).

Emphasis mine. Thats what Im talking about. I think "Color-first" may be not the best label for what Im pointing to here. Maybe "Story-first" or "Hook-first" is a more accurate (if ugly) one. Thats what drove me to start this thread. This quality of some systems to function as a generator of interesting in-game situations. Or hooks if you will. Thats the quality I pointed to in AW that SR lacks (as do most traditional games, really, since they come from a paradigm of adjudicating tasks, and little else).

When did this "built-in hook generator device" begin ? What games created it ? What would you guys call it ? What other games out there have it ?

Elaborating more on my original point (one year after ), I see this same "color/fiction-first" thing I cited from AW in some old rpgs as well, in the form of tables you roll on, like this one (from Rolemaster, I think): click If you look through it there are some gems like:

81 - 86: "Bite and swallow tongue in excitement. Stunned for 2 rounds"

120: "Shot through both ears. Hearing impaired, death imminent. Awesome shot."

In this case the fiction/color is all about combat, but the underlying logic is the same: when you roll the dice you dont just compare cold numbers on a pass/fail process, no, instead the results feed colorful new facts directly into the fiction. This is what I think AW produces brilliantly through its moves, in contrast to more traditional / late 80s / early 90s games with their skills/abilities-based rules.

In other words: these kind of rules communicates fiction directly to the scene, like if you were picking choices from a Choose Your Own Adventure booklet! While your trad rpg skill/abilities lists only communicates cold numbers to adjudicate physical tasks and thats it.

Hope it makes more sense.

Everything I have heard says that you cannot describe anything about Rolemaster as "Fluff-first, crunch after" in any kind of intellectually honest way.

Granted, I must admit in full disclosure that I have not read Rolemaster, much less played it. Every time I've tried, I've been filled with an overwhelming desire to chew off my own leg to escape. Rolemaster is the triumph of rules-heavy roleplay.

Yeah, I know RM is a rules behemoth. Only that bit thats related to the color-first thing Im talking about.