[OPR] The KUP model

Foreword

I am on Substack from March 2023 however I officially kicked off my VI·VIII·X project in March 2022: I ran for one year an “ordinary” blog with “ordinary” posts and then I moved here… Since some old posts are worth to be read to fully understand my work and purpose, I decided to re-post the most relevant in a new series entitled OPR (Old Post Revisited) where I simply resume these old texts, rephrase them (an ideally keep within the 4-minute length threshold I set as a golden rule) and present again since I consider them “worth to be read”.

May the fun be always at your table!

What is a model? …and what does the KUP model implies?

Before any further detail I need to explain the reasons that led me to rethink the traditional RPG game model: the main aspect I dislike is the complete disclosure of any detail of the game mechanics to the players. First of all, if you look at a Player's Handbook you will find more rules in there than in the DM Guide, by far. Why? Why should players look after tons of microrules which establish a +2 modifier to grapple or a +4 if along with that the target is prone on the ground? What would change if this detail were available only to the GM? In the long run, such an approach has created a generation of players competing against the GM for the "last word on that rule"... this is simply awful!

Back to basics: players should play, regardless to the details of the rules and GM should transform players’ words into outcomes. Full stop. I tried to refocus the importance of the game on the role-play. It is not required to know every rule if you want to use a character: a player has to play, intended both by being part in a game and by interpreting a character because these are at the end the activities which produce the most part of fun.

The KUP model therefore tries to move the burden of the mechanics on the GM's shoulders. It is even more than that: the first paradigm is the less knowledge a player has, the more fun he will experience even from an ordinary situation like finding something never seen before in game. How did I manage to have a KUP model? I aimed to safeguard some basic principles:

• Players do not need to know the rules; ideally, the less they know, the better it is. Players have to look after other aspects than the rules: the character’s morality, the background, and the role-play consistency during the game.

• Players do not need to know all the quantitative info of their PC, since it’d be a waste of fun by doing calculations in order to see in advance whether it's an advantage or not carrying out an action from a mere arithmetical point of view... We do not know ourselves, why on earth a player should know every detail of his PC?

• The GM keeps some pieces of information for his eyes only without disclosing them to the players and the outcome is "the astonishment of ignorance": a player enjoys every aspect of the story because he can have a surprise out of any unknown folding of it.

Based on these principles, what are the consequences of the application of such a model?

1. The first main feature is that the rules are mainly for GMs only. They need to learn and use them: I wrote "use" and not "apply"; despite the fact that in the majority of the traditional RPGs the "rule 0" is invoked, I have tried to leave the rules open to the application of the GM, therefore the GM has define how he wants to use them. The players do not need (or better, have not) to read the rules.

2. The second main feature is that some pieces of information are known to the GM only; for instance, even some PC stats are not known to the players (I called these unknown stats US, the acronym of Unknown Stat...). Players participate to the game by trying to succeed in their actions. They miss a piece of info of their characters therefore they can only make assumptions (and not precise speculations). This keeps high suspense because the outcome is unknown even after the result of the die. To close the circle, a part of the reward system is based on this new status of the player: the player has to guess the outcome of his character action; if he wins the guess his character will earn experience, leading at its turn to an improvement of the unknown stats, and changing the baseline for his future guesses thus creating a virtuous circle very close to the concept of “know thyself”.

3. The third main feature (which is tied to the KUP model as well as to the idea I am developing within the game setting) is the consistency of the character along all his actions; the player is asked to define who is the character up to its inmost side (i.e. its morality) and to move the character consistently; this principle is also tied to the reward system of the game: the more consistently the character behaves, the easier will be the threshold to grow and earn PC’s levels.

4. The fourth (new and fundamental) aspect is the total trust in the GM. The social contract has to be clear as much as possible since the GM is invested of a role and responsibility higher way beyond than in any other traditional RPG. No further comment is necessary if the first three points are clear enough.

Wrapping up: the GM knows more than the players (and this has not to be perceived by the players as a negative aspect as a part of the social contract), this information asymmetry is on the shoulders of the GM and the players are more free to focus on role-play, in-game situation and consistent choices of their PCs. The closest are the assumptions on the unknown info, the quicker will be the character growth but at the same time: by not knowing every aspect of the game mechanics, "the astonishment of ignorance" will make its part in the minds of the players. I strongly believe that with this model the players will be able to enjoy many more details that in past they were not even considered because they were focusing on other aspects of the game (like modifiers, microrules, and so forth).

These are the two original posts: