# S/Z: On the Difficulties of RPG Theory & Criticism



## lowkey13 (Feb 16, 2020)

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## Bawylie (Feb 16, 2020)

I think we DO have those theories, about craft, about content, about design, etc. 

Maybe not “we” the RPG community - but we do have them. Those discussions, that shared language of theory and criticism, is all over videogame design. That we might dismiss videogame design “because it’s not TTRPGs”, is unfortunate. 

I couldn’t really tell you why “our” discussions don’t run like “their” discussions - but everything “we” lack is one neighborhood over. 

Perhaps, and this is just a guess, our people got sidetracked by these nonsense theories and loaded terms - trying to argue themselves and their practice right - instead of trying learn how to perfect a craft. And we’re left with the realities of those stupid-wars. 

Meanwhile, videogame theory, design, criticism has been tested by the fires of capitalism. Where good ideas get bought and bad ones don’t. (Speaking VERY broadly here. I appreciate you granting me some rhetorical leeway or a few grains of salt). They’ve darn near perfected the Shooter as a genre, for example. I don’t care much for shooters but look at the progress from wolfenstein to COD, and on. 

Maybe we need to start looking somewhere other than amateur RPG theorists’ pet issues if we want to have the kinds of conversations you’re talking about. 

Just as likely, I’m just some dummy on the Internet. And what do I know?


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## prabe (Feb 16, 2020)

I'm in a similar position to what I think you describe, because I have only intermittently been enough into RPGs to care much about design and/or theory, and while I've played in more games than I can remember, there are some (relative) biggies I missed, because the group/s I was in never played them. I'm in a place now where I care about theory-type stuff, at least so I know what rules I'm breaking, but it can feel as though there are decades' worth of stuff to try to sort through, and there are some people who casually use names and terms and language I haven't seen before in this context. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt (at least at first) that they're not *trying* to be opaque, but that doesn't mean they *aren't* opaque.

Then again, I had to figure out some of the things you were talking about in, e.g., cinema by more or less breaking down what the words mean. Fortunately, that's more purely descriptive, and no one is (really seriously) going to argue there's onetrueway there.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 16, 2020)

@lowkey13 

Martin Scorcese’s recent comments on the Marvel movies and their cinematic quality come to mind. There is still plenty of debate even when there is accepted terminology in place. 

So, what can be done about the four obstacles you cite? 

1) Lack of agreed upon framework/terminology
2) Argumentative connotations of terms used
3) RPG Theory being inextricably linked to other battles
4) Conflation of normative (“ought”) and descriptive (“is”)

You say that RPG theory discussion is still worthwhile. Or potentially so, at least. And you provide a general warning that caution is needed in discussion, and I think that’s true. But what more is needed? What can we specifically do to address the specific obstacles you’ve offered?


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## lowkey13 (Feb 16, 2020)

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## prabe (Feb 16, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Well, a few are simple (IMO).
> 
> Concentrate on the small scale play examples, and avoid sweeping theories of generalization.
> 
> ...




I don't disagree with any of these, but I think it's possible, while examining whether an RPG does what it sets out to do, to explore the question of why it does or doesn't. Small (or at least specific) examples seem like the right place to start, here, but it doesn't seem likely that one can answer the "why" question without at least resorting some to theory, which might lead to problems of scale.

Also, while I agree that much of the theory work has been done, in, e.g., film or literature, there are considerations that feel important. First, someone really into RPGs might not know the vocabulary of film theory (to pick an example); if you're using film theory to talk about RPGs, you might want to be prepared to unpack your references. Heck, you might want to be prepared to unpack any and all specialized vocabulary, and not make people feel stupid for needing it (to be honest, I don't get this as an intent here, but it's an easy lapse). Second, RPGs will probably need at least some of their own theory. This doesn't mean there's no point in borrowing from other criticism and theory, but be aware that what you borrow may be an imperfect fit.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 16, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> That's a perfect example of what I'm talking about!




It seemed like it! I found that whole discussion to be pretty interesting, overall. 



lowkey13 said:


> Now, let's say you like art films. Like Scorsese (using the clarified NY Times comments), you prefer ... wait for it ... character-driven cinema. You prefer cinema as "art" as opposed to mere pop "entertainment."
> 
> Obviously, one can start with an interesting observation- while Scorsese rightly notes the tension in what he is doing with Hitchcock, I don't know that he fully credits the divide; prior to Cahiers du Cinéma and the French New Wave, Hitchcock wasn't truly embraced as an auteur, but as a mere "genre" director- the equivalent of our ... Marvel movies today.
> 
> But the thing is, because there are generally accepted definitions both of criticism and of theory, you can generally understand both his criticism, and where it falls short!




Absolutely. I don’t think there’s a “right” answer to the discussion. I quite enjoy most of the Marvel movies, and similar films. I wouldn’t say that they aren’t art or aren’t cinema. But I can understand how many would view them as less emotionally resonant than other films.

Doesn’t make it any less or more a film. 



lowkey13 said:


> The fundental divide, here, is that you are using Scorsese's comments as an indication that theory and criticism should provide definitive answers as to quality and what should be done; this is, IMO, completely incorrect.




That’s odd. I didn’t think that simply mentioning the discussion committed me to one side or the other, or to any specific stance about the matter. 

How did you arrive at this conclusion?  



lowkey13 said:


> Well, a few are simple (IMO).
> 
> Concentrate on the small scale play examples, and avoid sweeping theories of generalization.
> 
> ...




Those are all pretty reasonable, if a bit general. I definitely don’t disagree.


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## pemerton (Feb 17, 2020)

The only well-developed theoretical and critical approach to RPGs I'm familiar with is The Forge. (That's not to say there aren't others; just that I'm not familiar with them.)

The main purpose of The Forge was to understand causes of dissatisfaction with WW/Storyteller-type RPGing, and to establish alternative approaches to design of RPGs. This required some analysis. Some people (eg me) have found the analysis helpful independent of that particular goal (I'm not a RPG designer).

For instance, as someone who played Rolemaster as my primary game for nearly two decades, I think The Forge's account of (what they call) purist-for-system RPGing is far more illuminating than (eg) anything I ever read on the ICE forums. As good analysis should, it gave me insight into what I was doing in my game that I didn't previously have. It also helped me understand how I could move away from some of the assumptions embedded in RM's designs without giving up on some of the fundamentals of RPGing.

One of the observations made on The Forge which was surprising to some of the participants is that early RPGing was (i) an alternative to WW/Storyteller style which (ii) had many things (not everything) in common with the sort of designs being produced at The Forge. This is why there has been a noticeable presence of Forge contributors in OSR context (eg most recently I discovered that Christopher Kubasik, author of The Interactive Toolkit which is practically a proto-manifesto for The Forge, has an ongoing blog in praise of 1977 Classic Traveller).

Obviously most OSR play and design proceeds independently of this convergence. But it's an interesting outcome of Forge theorising.

Here's a passage from The Traveller Book (1982, p 123); it is found in a description of types of adventures, and has no equivalent in the 1977 version of Classic Traveller:

The _choreographed novel_ [my emphasis] involves a setting already thought out by the referee and presented to the players; it may be any of the above settings [ship, location or world], but contains predetermined elements. As such, the referee has already developed characters and setting which bear on the group's activities, and they are guided gently to the proper locations. Properly done, the players never know that the referee has manipulated them to a fore-ordained goal​
For RPGers who want to use the approach describe in this passage, The Forge has nothing to offer and I don't know of any alternative useful body of criticism. Probably the main reason The Forge has nothing to offer is that The Forge places a great premium on transparency of technique and resolution, whereas the approach set out in the passage just quoted emphasises "gentle guidance" and "manipulation" that the players don't know about. (The Forge calls this _illusionism_.)


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## Tun Kai Poh (Feb 17, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> 1) Lack of agreed upon framework/terminology
> 2) Argumentative connotations of terms used




This is especially true in the "lyric game" circles I hang around, on Twitter and itch.io. Jay Dragon's done a good job of trying to lay out the many clashing definitions of "system" in the "System Matters" vs "System Doesn't Really Matter" debate.









						Ritual Almanac 1: Beginnings by Possum Creek Games, Jay Dragon
					

The January 2020 collection of thoughts around lyric RPGs.




					possumcreek.itch.io
				




This essay in Ritual Almanac 1 really helps to defuse the problems that rise when people try to talk about "System Matters" - because the truth is that people are usually using very different definitions of "system" as Jay points out. I really like this analysis because it reminds me that my "system" is not necessarily someone else's definition. Sometimes there is a lot of invisible play culture at the table that gets assumed, and if you count that as part of "system" then of *course* it matters...


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## lowkey13 (Feb 17, 2020)

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## lowkey13 (Feb 17, 2020)

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## Ovinomancer (Feb 17, 2020)

Tun Kai Poh said:


> This is especially true in the "lyric game" circles I hang around, on Twitter and itch.io. Jay Dragon's done a good job of trying to lay out the many clashing definitions of "system" in the "System Matters" vs "System Doesn't Really Matter" debate.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Firstly, the article is behind a download 'pay what you want' wall.  That's bordering on commercial, since you didn't lay out the core of the argument.

That said, the core takeaway of the piece is that when people say 'system' they may mean the game as written (text of the game), the ruleset the game uses (engine), or the entire feel of the game.  That's valid, but it just replaces an argument that can be confounded by terminology with an codified argument about how another argument can be confounded by terminology.  It does a good job looking at the material, but doesn't offer a way through, just a caution that terminology may be being used vaguely.

And, with that, whenever I've said system matters, I'm talking about the engine used -- how the ruleset works to resolve outcomes (I'm an engineer, so this definition of system is apparent to me).  While, as the article notes, I might be able to achieve a similar result using different engines, the way an engine works has impact on how the game feels.  To illustrate this, there's a current thread where a poster described the engine of a game they created and how that engine failed in play because the players didn't like _how_ it did things.  Not that it failed to process the game, but that the feel of the engine was something the players didn't care for.  System matters.


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## prabe (Feb 17, 2020)

Without getting into the details of the theories (and thanks for that link! I'll jump links to actual contents, not paywalls), I have to say I *love* the metaphor of a campaign setting as a cabinet of curiosities.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 17, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> I always reference the Meilahti approach; for whatever reason, you have not chosen to ask me about it.
> 
> This site has a quick rundown of a few of them:
> 
> ...



Do you need to be asked to expound upon your preferred ludology?  Very well, I would appreciate it if you would please give a quick overview of the Meilahti approach to game theory.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 17, 2020)

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## Ovinomancer (Feb 17, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> If you had to nutshell it without using fancy jargon, you'd say that it is an approach that concentrates on the social aspects of RPGs, with by examining them in a descriptive way.
> 
> If you're curious, you can read it. For purposes of most discussion, although it has been elaborated upon, I think the original pull quote that is helpful in understanding the various roles is this-
> 
> "If there is disagreement, on for example what the surroundings are like, or what exactly has happened, it is the gamemaster who negotiates and in the end decides, what is true. The role-playing game can be seen as series of incidents that the participants use as a basis for their individual narrative readings. If and when conflicts in these readings are expressed, the gamemaster defines what is true."



Interesting.  How does this handle games where this core statement isn't true, though?  Take a game of Blades in the Dark -- if there's a disagreement about what the surroundings are like, or what has happened, that's not always a GM call.  If it's a matter of scene framing, it is, mostly, the GM's call, so long as is doesn't violate the player decided inputs.  If it's about what happened, that's not the GM's call at all -- it's the mechanics.  If the mechanics say the player succeeded in what happened, then the GM is constrained to that truth, no matter what they may want or care to make it.

Is there an extension, or different formulation, of the theory that can account for games where the GM may be constrained by the system to NOT have this final authority over the fiction?


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## lowkey13 (Feb 17, 2020)

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## Ovinomancer (Feb 17, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> That goes to the first part- "I*f there is disagreement{.}*" I think it is helpful to think about the ways in which a game might constrain GM authority, and the ways in which that constraint might be real (or imaginary).
> 
> Theoretically, given that the examples (before being elaborated on in later years) came from LARPing, one could state that there would be an (implicit, unacknowledged) switch in roles at that time, as is explicit in other games.
> 
> But IMO, the preferred way to look at it is that _there is no disagreement. _The negotiated roles (both written and social) in any game allow for certain parts of fiction to be authored by the different participants, and the only issue is what happens when there is a disagreement between participants.



I think an example is in order.  Let's take a moment from a Blades game.

The Cutter is facing off against two thugs.  The GM has set the scene as a dark alley on the side of the manor where the crew is doing a score.  The player had indicated that their character was watching the egress route to make sure that the crew has a clear line of retreat if the score goes badly.  The GM, in his scene setting, thinks it would be cool to have the alley be a dead end alley to up the tension in the scene.  The player objects, because he established the egress route as a canal, so any alley must abut a canal and can't be a dead end.  This is a disagreement, but the GM loses -- the player has the right to establish this fact and hold it to be true.

After acknowledging the change in scene, the GM continues by describing the thugs as approaching, clearly holding clubs against their legs, and saying that this is their alley and the Cutter's has to pay for being there uninvited -- the implication that the payment is a robbery and a beating.  The Cutter's player announces that the Cutter leaps into the assault!  He's not going to take this kind of intimidation!  The GM sets the position of the action (the risk) as desperate with normal effect as the Cutter is skilled with his knives and these aren't hardened fighters, but crossing the distance to the thugs and getting in the blows without a lot of risk isn't going to happen.  The player disagrees, and thinks that his Cutter is just that awesome!  The GM wins, here, because the GM has the authority to set position and effect for a given action.  The player has to accept it, or withdraw their action declaration.

The Cutter goes through with it, and rolls.  A 5, partial success!  This means the character will advance towards their goal (shut these arrogant thugs up, permanently), but suffers a cost or setback.  The GM announces that the Cutter tries to stab a thug, but the thug's friend hits him with his club and breaks the Cutter's hand, sending the knife flying before the Cutter's blow lands!  The Cutter's player objects, he's owed a success, and it has to be towards his goal of killing or incapacitating the thugs.  The GM must change, here, because the system dictates that his authority to establish outcomes is constrained -- he does not have Rule Zero authority to change things, or be the final arbiter here.  He must alter the outcomes.  He can have the Cutter's hand broken by thug 2, but thug 1 must be out of the fight due to the Cutter's actions.  He accepts this, and says that the Cutter's hand is, indeed, broken by the club of  Thug 2, but it was the hand not holding the knife, which is now buried in Thug 1's heart.  Play will continue, most likely with the player burning stress to mitigate the broken hand and force a different, lesser cost, which the GM will have to accept because that's the player's authority to force such changes, provided he can pay for it.

So, in this example, we had three disagreements in outcomes between GM and player.  The player was able to dictate the outcome of the first disagreement because the player had the authority to do so.  The GM won the second because he did have the authority there.  The player AND the GM both had to accept the outcomes in the last because the system assigned different authorities and constraints on both.


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## Hussar (Feb 17, 2020)

Part of the issue when we want to get into the critical examination of RPG's is simply size. 

We have a shared language to discuss movies (for example) because the discussion of movies has been ongoing for over a century among millions of people.  It's easier to reach a consensus meaning for various techniques when you have such a large audience because the edges tend to get blurred off a lot more easily simply by the fact that you have so many people talking about it over such a long period of time.

Realistically, the critical examination of role playing games is only a couple of decades old and has hardly managed to hit such a large audience to reach any sort of consensus meaning. 

Even in the example of cut scene or montage, it is possible to quibble (is this a cut scene or a montage - how many cuts does it take to make a montage?) but, realistically, that sort of pedantic garbage doesn't go anywhere as it gets drowned out by the much larger audience discussion.

The problem we have now is that there are so few voices and no agreement on terms.  That takes time and repetition.

/edit to add

BTW, @lowkey13, totally thanks for that link.  That's some interesting reading.  My first foray through a Google search turned up an essay that was a bit... dense for my old brain to wrap around.


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## Leatherhead (Feb 17, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> I thought I'd create a thread based explaining why this happens, and why RPG Theory and Criticism can be so very hard and contentious.



It's contentious because it's a form of gentrification (not the urban kind, the other kind).


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 17, 2020)

Leatherhead said:


> It's contentious because it's a form of gentrification (not the urban kind, the other kind).



I'm not sure I see either how theory makes gaming more refined or polite or how, if it does, that process is contentious.  Could you elaborate?


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 17, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> *Conversations about RPG theory are difficult because 1) there is no agreed framework or definitions that are widely used; 2) many of the basic definitions used have argumentative connotations and are themselves subject to argument; 3) RPG theory is, for many people, inextricably linked to other battles; and 4) the conflation of descriptive and normative- the confusion of what "is" what "ought" - means that most RPG theory puts the cart before the horse, by arguing for how games should be without understanding why games are the way they are.*




There's a major other issue here. Not all people play RPGs either with remotely the same motivation or as part of the same tradition. Indeed I see old school sandbox, the GM written adventure path, and the modern "play to see what happens" as three entirely different categories - and freeform plus may be different again. There's not even an agreed framework for why we play or what success is.

And then the community is exceptionally scattered with small groups all doing their own things and almost never coming together to see what each other are doing. While about the most common book containing design philosophy is the DMG, and each DMG doesn't cover a wide area.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 17, 2020)

I think you need to maintain some separation between the game itself and what is done with the game. The fact that a particular GM, or a particular table might do x,y, or z in a game isn't really the point. The rules for 5E D&D no more constrain a GM from running an adventure path than does FATE, or any other game, same with the sandbox - those are example of table play and reflect decisions and norms present at the table, but they do not describe the game itself in any meaningful way. That is not to say that discussing the played game isn't important, only to highlight that the played game is separate from the game set out in an RPG rulebook. A lot of people fail to make that distinction and confusion generally ensues.

I think the issue of shared vocabulary is a key idea here, not just because having a shared critical vocabulary would facilitate a less contentious discussion in many cases, but also because it would highlight those instances where a contributor to a discussion isn't using the same set of vocabulary of even indeed talking about the same thing at all. One place where definitional stability could be useful is in determining instances of 'is' from instances of 'ought'. Many people who participate in the sorts of discussion we are talking about here regularly conflate 'is' from 'ought' and pounce upon the latter idea as the prime mover. What is generally lacking is any kind of nuanced discussion of the vast array of 'ought' and the difference between personal preference within that realm versus a more complete or descriptive discussion of 'ought' in a general sense.

I feel like posts in this thread should come with references. What I'm talking about here maps pretty well to this article by Markus Montola.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 17, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I think you need to maintain some separation between the game itself and what is done with the game. The fact that a particular GM, or a particular table might do x,y, or z in a game isn't really the point. The rules for 5E D&D no more constrain a GM from running an adventure path than does FATE, or any other game, same with the sandbox - those are example of table play and reflect decisions and norms present at the table, but they do not describe the game itself in any meaningful way.




This is why I consider the current wave of "success with consequences is the likely outcome" starting mostly with Cortex Plus games such as Leverage and continuing through Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark to be almost worth breaking out on their own. Games where the complexities come from messy pile-ups of consequences (an age old system for story writing) do not do well with adventure paths because adventure paths are too organised and the stories are going to end up very twisted and knotty with call-backs. Meanwhile you are definitely roleplaying with them.

Also there are the original meaning of "Story Games" such as My Life With Master and Montsegur 1244 where there is precisely one story arc being told and the whole thing is finite. I defy anyone to run either Dragonlance, Rise of the Runelords, or The Rise of Tiamat using the rules for Fiasco!


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## Leatherhead (Feb 17, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not sure I see either how theory makes gaming more refined




That is the purported purpose of all criticism: To make the thing (or thing's field,  or person, or persons after that person) "better" by providing feedback.



> or how, if it does, that process is contentious. Could you elaborate?




Quite frankly, I can't.

I couldn't begin to tell you all the reasons behind why people pushback against attempts to control or modify "their things or spaces." There are just too many and it would require speculation beyond what anyone is qualified to say.

Edited.


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## pemerton (Feb 17, 2020)

This aspiration for "shared vocabulary" seems to me to some extent to be misguided. I think most literary critics would regard JRRT's LotR as (overly) sentimental in many places. On these boards I would expect there to be many posters who would push back against that. That's not a dispute about terminology.

Criticism can strip away comfortable and comforting understandings of things.


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## prabe (Feb 17, 2020)

pemerton said:


> Criticism can strip away comfortable and comforting understandings of things.




Well, yes. I think the desire here for a (mostly) shared vocabulary is so if that happens, it be both intentional and correctly understood.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 17, 2020)

On the other hand, a shared vocabulary can make it easier for people who disagree to disagree in a meaningful way without dancing around issues of terminology. If we can agree first about what is at stake, we can more profitably disagree in way that makes sense to both sides.

Also, I'm not sure how you meant it @pemerton , but I would suggest that the stripping away of the comfortable and comforting can be a very good thing, at least when those comforting and comfortable things are barriers to mutual understanding and dialogue.


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## Hussar (Feb 17, 2020)

I lofted this idea a while ago and it didn't seem to gain much traction, but, let's try again.

To me, most RPG's are not games in and of themselves.  They are game creation engines.  You never actually play an RPG - you play the campaign (whether it's predetermined or created as you go) using the rules for that RPG.  Which means that every single campaign is a largely self contained game that is not repeatable at another table.  The game consists of the campaign+rules+players.  And, because of those three variables, you can never reproduce a given game at another table.

Which makes any sort of shared language discussion EXTREMELY difficult as each group develops its own game and then, once that game (campaign) is finished, they create another game - possibly similar but not the same - for the next campaign.

I mean, it's laughable to think that my Primeval Thule game with no core casters and almost 100% home brew created is the same game as my Dragon Heist game where I ran the pre-made module.  And neither are the same game as my Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign, despite all three using 5e rules.

When no two instances of any RPG ever have the same starting, middle or end points, how can they be considered to be the same game?  And, since my game, your game and Bob's game over there, despite maybe using the same RPG system, share virtually no commonalities (I'm using Ravnica, you're using a home-brew world and Bob's set in Ravenloft) how can we really have a common language for discussion?


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 17, 2020)

Hussar said:


> I lofted this idea a while ago and it didn't seem to gain much traction, but, let's try again.
> 
> To me, most RPG's are not games in and of themselves.  They are game creation engines.  You never actually play an RPG - you play the campaign (whether it's predetermined or created as you go) using the rules for that RPG.




All that to me says is that you're looking at something more akin to linguistics rather than Chess Opening Theory. Just because it's a broad category doesn't make theory impossible.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 17, 2020)

Hussar said:


> I lofted this idea a while ago and it didn't seem to gain much traction, but, let's try again.
> 
> To me, most RPG's are not games in and of themselves.  They are game creation engines.  You never actually play an RPG - you play the campaign (whether it's predetermined or created as you go) using the rules for that RPG.  Which means that every single campaign is a largely self contained game that is not repeatable at another table.  The game consists of the campaign+rules+players.  And, because of those three variables, you can never reproduce a given game at another table.
> 
> ...




There are the rules of baseball....and then there is any given game of baseball, which will play out in its own unique way according to the rules. I don't think that this means that no one ever actually plays baseball. 

So although I understand what you're saying, I don't know how much that distinction matters? Or how much it would impact discussion.


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## TwoSix (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> When no two instances of any RPG ever have the same starting, middle or end points, how can they be considered to be the same game?  And, since my game, your game and Bob's game over there, despite maybe using the same RPG system, share virtually no commonalities (I'm using Ravnica, you're using a home-brew world and Bob's set in Ravenloft) how can we really have a common language for discussion?



I think "no commonalities" might be somewhat strong.  Obviously a game of Blades in the Dark is very different from a game of AD&D 1E, but they're a lot more similar to each other then they are to a group game of Smash Brothers, and all of those are more similar than having people over to do a barn-raising.  

I would say they're certainly related enough that we can discuss concepts like categories and procedures.  If they were entirely disparate, I think it would be obvious to everyone that we shouldn't even bother to try, and that doesn't seem to be the case.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> On the other hand, a shared vocabulary can make it easier for people who disagree to disagree in a meaningful way without dancing around issues of terminology. If we can agree first about what is at stake, we can more profitably disagree in way that makes sense to both sides.
> 
> Also, I'm not sure how you meant it @pemerton , but I would suggest that the stripping away of the comfortable and comforting can be a very good thing, at least when those comforting and comfortable things are barriers to mutual understanding and dialogue.




I've found that the party which gets to define the terms gets to win the argument more often than not.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> I've found that the party which gets to define the terms gets to win the argument more often than not.



I tend to prefer a more communal and organic process for the definition of terms for just that reason.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I tend to prefer a more communal and organic process for the definition of terms for just that reason.




I don't think such a process exists.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> I've found that the party which gets to define the terms gets to win the argument more often than not.



This assumes that people wanting to discuss how games work are really just trying to win an argument.  I don't care what or how you play, except that you have fun when you do.  These kinds of discussions have greatly improved my game, not because someone else won an argument and convinced me of something, but because I became more aware of how I play games and what other methods exist.  This let me tailor my play to better achieve the goals I always wanted, but didn't fully understand because I lacked the means (or motivation) to examine them.  Now, I play how I want, but know how I do it.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> This assumes that people wanting to discuss how games work are really just trying to win an argument.




Not at all.  One can understand the importance of defining terms in shaping the discussion and not be engaging in the discussion for the purpose of "winning an argument".



> I don't care what or how you play, except that you have fun when you do.  These kinds of discussions have greatly improved my game, not because someone else won an argument and convinced me of something, but because I became more aware of how I play games and what other methods exist.  This let me tailor my play to better achieve the goals I always wanted, but didn't fully understand because I lacked the means (or motivation) to examine them.  Now, I play how I want, but know how I do it.




Sounds good.


----------



## Hussar (Feb 18, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> There are the rules of baseball....and then there is any given game of baseball, which will play out in its own unique way according to the rules. I don't think that this means that no one ever actually plays baseball.
> 
> So although I understand what you're saying, I don't know how much that distinction matters? Or how much it would impact discussion.




But, the thing is, if you play baseball, you follow the rules as instructions.  The rules straight up tell you, these players play these positions.  This person pitches, these people, on the other team, bat.  You can follow the steps exactly as written down and EVERY game of baseball (presuming they are playing from the same rulebook) will follow exactly the same steps.

There are no steps inherent in most RPG's.  When you play an RPG, for example, what's the first step?  Character creation?  Campaign creation?  Something else?  Note, those can both be true - some games start with chargen and then proceed, others start with campaign creation and then proceed.  Neither is more correct than the other.

And that's just the starting point of an RPG.  No two tables start the exact same way.   There are always considerable differences between one table and the next.  And these aren't cosmetic differences.  These are differences that will completely alter how the game plays.

Sure, in baseball, the players change, but, the game never does.  You play one side until you get three out and then play the other side.  You don't suddenly decide to add sharks to the outfield or play in roller skates half way through.  Every game of baseball, from little league all the way through to the pro's plays identically.  Baseball is a complete game.  RPG's are not.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> Not at all.  One can understand the importance of defining terms in shaping the discussion and not be engaging in the discussion for the purpose of "winning an argument".



Okay, to what purpose is the discussion being shaped, then?  This seems a rephrasing of your initial statement without much change.  I'm open to accept I've misinterpreted you, but this doesn't clarify your position for me much.

I mean, there appears to be some goal you have in mind for the discussion to be shaped towards?  I can understand that, as some discussions along these lines are, indeed, aimed at elevating one style or play or game above others.  I'm not interested in doing so, or, really, I'm not afraid to state my opinion on playstyles as my opinion and see no need to control the terminology to clearly state my preferences and dislikes.  Instead, I seek terminology that describes as accurately as possible, even if it's a bit uncomfortable.  I was resistance to the concept of Force, to name a current discussion, because I used it and felt that that term was derogatory.  But, it's not, it's descriptive.  When I use Force now, I do it recognizing that I am, indeed, overriding player input to push my preference for the game.  I limit my applications, and try to do so in a principled manner (my principles being having a fun game, which occasionally means I need to Force the game away from areas where I'm not prepared or ready to improvise and/or areas I or other players have indicated are uncomfortable for them).  But, I do it, and I no longer mind the term Force because it is an good description of the tool.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

@Hussar - There are a significant number of academically inclined people who would disagree with that point of view. The challenge is, in fact, to come up with criteria and ways to describe the many and varied RPGs, usually by virtue of the concepts, mechanisms, and other things they share, rather than by examining the ways in which they differ.

To use you own analogy, the rules of baseball are also not a complete game. You need both the rules, and the game as played. Even using that example, there are different ways that baseball gets realized on the field despite sharing a rules set, much in the same way that, for example, 5e D&D can look markedly different at two different tables. To move away from your analogy, I think the fact that the baseball games you describe all use a common rules set, while the RPGs you compare them to do not, might index a weakness in your choice of comparison.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> Okay, to what purpose is the discussion being shaped, then?  This seems a rephrasing of your initial statement without much change.  I'm open to accept I've misinterpreted you, but this doesn't clarify your position for me much.
> 
> I mean, there appears to be some goal you have in mind for the discussion to be shaped towards?  I can understand that, as some discussions along these lines are, indeed, aimed at elevating one style or play or game above others.  I'm not interested in doing so, or, really, I'm not afraid to state my opinion on playstyles as my opinion and see no need to control the terminology to clearly state my preferences and dislikes.  Instead, I seek terminology that describes as accurately as possible, even if it's a bit uncomfortable.  I was resistance to the concept of Force, to name a current discussion, because I used it and felt that that term was derogatory.  But, it's not, it's descriptive.  When I use Force now, I do it recognizing that I am, indeed, overriding player input to push my preference for the game.  I limit my applications, and try to do so in a principled manner (my principles being having a fun game, which occasionally means I need to Force the game away from areas where I'm not prepared or ready to improvise and/or areas I or other players have indicated are uncomfortable for them).  But, I do it, and I no longer mind the term Force because it is an good description of the tool.




You are imputing motive and words to me that were never uttered.

All I said was: "I've found that the party which gets to define the terms gets to win the argument more often than not."

In other words, the terms being used to define the problem often push those discussing toward a certain solution.  This applies regardless of intent.  It's something that one such as yourself - that wants to be enlightened by discussion should be most mindful of.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> @Hussar - There are a significant number of academically inclined people who would disagree with that point of view. The challenge is, in fact, to come up with criteria and ways to describe the many and varied RPGs, usually by virtue of the concepts, mechanisms, and other things they share, rather than by examining the ways in which they differ.
> 
> To use you own analogy, the rules of baseball are also not a complete game. You need both the rules, and the game as played. Even using that example, there are different ways that baseball gets realized on the field despite sharing a rules set, much in the same way that, for example, 5e D&D can look markedly different at two different tables. To move away from your analogy, I think the fact that the baseball games you describe all use a common rules set, while the RPGs you compare them to do not, might index a weakness in your choice of comparison.




No, I disagree.  If you look at the rules of baseball (granted there are variant rules, but, let's say that we're using a single one) they are a step by step guide to playing the game.  Step 1 do this, step 2 do that.  Follow these steps and you will play a game of baseball according to these rules.

There are no step by step guides for RPG's.  The rules of the RPG allow you to play the game that you and your table create, but, without that creation - the campaign as it's usually called - there is no game.  And the rules of an RPG do not create that campaign.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> No, I disagree.  If you look at the rules of baseball (granted there are variant rules, but, let's say that we're using a single one) they are a step by step guide to playing the game.  Step 1 do this, step 2 do that.  Follow these steps and you will play a game of baseball according to these rules.
> 
> There are no step by step guides for RPG's.  The rules of the RPG allow you to play the game that you and your table create, but, without that creation - the campaign as it's usually called - there is no game.  And the rules of an RPG do not create that campaign.




Without a field there is no baseball game...
Nor do the rules of a baseball game create that field...


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> There are no step by step guides for RPG's.  The rules of the RPG allow you to play the game that you and your table create, but, without that creation - the campaign as it's usually called - there is no game.  And the rules of an RPG do not create that campaign.




One can call an RPG a guide for creating a game, and one can point out that different tables are different (different expectations, different interpretations, and such), but a given RPG can serve as a sort of meta-language that we can use to discuss what we are doing, in that game. Think of different people, say, on the Internet, talking about the D&D games they all play. While there are certain to be some differences among the various games, the differences are likely to be akin to regional accents (or at their more extreme, dialects). If Linguistic Theory is a thing that helps us discuss how languages work, then there should be a theory that helps us discuss how RPGs work.

What @FrogReaver has said is also relevant.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> No, I disagree.  If you look at the rules of baseball (granted there are variant rules, but, let's say that we're using a single one) they are a step by step guide to playing the game.  Step 1 do this, step 2 do that.  Follow these steps and you will play a game of baseball according to these rules.
> 
> There are no step by step guides for RPG's.  The rules of the RPG allow you to play the game that you and your table create, but, without that creation - the campaign as it's usually called - there is no game.  And the rules of an RPG do not create that campaign.



And yet somehow two games of baseball played by the same rules set can look markedly different based on all sorts of things. The rules of baseball do not produce identical games, nor do they produce the entire game as played. The steps outlined in the rules get followed, sure, but that's not by a long way the 'whole' game. Very much in the same way that the same RPG rules set can produce very different games. Moreover, different baseball rule sets still produce something generally identifiable as baseball much in the same way as a variety of RPG rules sets produce something generally identifiable as role playing. In the latter case, the similarities are enough to have fueled serious and informative academic work. YMMV I guess. You can only stretch the baseball metaphor so far.


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> And yet somehow two games of baseball played by the same rules set can look markedly different based on all sorts of things. The rules of baseball do not produce identical games, not do they produce the entire game as played. The steps outlined in the rules get followed, sure, but that's not by a long way the 'whole' game. Very much in the same way that the same RPG rules set can produce very different games. Moreover, different baseball rule sets still produce something generally identifiable as baseball much in the same way as a variety of RPG rules sets produce something generally identifiable as role playing. In the latter case, the similarities are enough to have fueled serious and informative academic work. YMMV I guess. You can only stretch the baseball metaphor so far.




There are also the ways that play evolves as teams innovate. Sure, "Moneyball." Also Whitey Herzog and the running game, or Tony LaRussa and relief pitching (Eckersley wouldn't be in the HOF without him).


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> But, the thing is, if you play baseball, you follow the rules as instructions.  The rules straight up tell you, these players play these positions.  This person pitches, these people, on the other team, bat.  You can follow the steps exactly as written down and EVERY game of baseball (presuming they are playing from the same rulebook) will follow exactly the same steps.
> 
> There are no steps inherent in most RPG's.  When you play an RPG, for example, what's the first step?  Character creation?  Campaign creation?  Something else?  Note, those can both be true - some games start with chargen and then proceed, others start with campaign creation and then proceed.  Neither is more correct than the other.
> 
> ...




When I bat, I swing at the ball.

When I take my turn in a RPG, I declare what my character is doing.

There are indeed common actions taken by the participants. The fiction I declare may be different from the fiction you declare...but is that more different than a batter hitting a single up the middle compared to popping up to the catcher?

I feel like you’re comparing the fiction of the RPG....which is different for sure...to the procedure of baseball. But really, comparing procedure to procedure makes more sense.

In that sense, a RPG is people sitting at a table taking turns declaring actions. Compared to batters taking turns swinging at a ball.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

Leatherhead said:


> That is the purported purpose of all criticism: To make the thing (or person) "better" by providing feedback.




I don't think that's true at all.  A great deal of criticism is there to inform an audience of the characteristics of the piece.  Movie reviews are the major example here - there is no real attempt to communicate with the people involved with the film, and it is far too late, and unstructured, to be of use to the filmmakers.  The critique is aimed at the audience, not the artist, and I don't think the critics are purporting otherwise.


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> I don't think that's true at all.  A great deal of criticism is there to inform an audience of the characteristics of the piece.  Movie reviews are the major example here - there is no real attempt to communicate with the people involved with the film, and it is far too late, and unstructured, to be of use to the filmmakers.  The critique is aimed at the audience, not the artist, and I don't think the critics are purporting otherwise.




I think there is a difference between reviews and critiques, isn't there? At this point I think of reviews as about "should you [verb] this [media]?" and at their most useful if you as a consumer (moviegoer, reader, whatever) have had time to index your preferences/tastes to a given reviewer's; criticism is more about "how does this work and why" types of questions. There is maybe overlap and those are maybe kinda at the ends of a spectrum, but that's the difference as I understand it.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

Neonchameleon said:


> Games where the complexities come from messy pile-ups of consequences (an age old system for story writing) do not do well with adventure paths because adventure paths are too organised and the stories are going to end up very twisted and knotty with call-backs.




I don't know that I have seen anyone actually try, though.  An adventure path for such a system would not look the same as one for D&D, sure, but I expect there's little preventing it from working.

The designers would have to realize that, as the mechanic itself generates a significant amount of the action, that the adventure path would need to be far more sparsely populated than a D&D or Pathfinder adventure path.  They'd probably want to insert notes as to what kind of callbacks or complications would serve well in any given scene or area of the adventure...

It would be interesting to see, but I doubt these games have enough of the market to make it a viable product at the moment.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

prabe said:


> I think there is a difference between reviews and critiques, isn't there?




I don't think there's much difference in the overall content.  Perhaps there's a difference in presentation.  

But, if we accept this position... then almost nobody ever gets to give critique.  Unless you are in contact with the authors or makers of a work, you aren't giving critique.


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> I don't think there's much difference in the overall content.  Perhaps there's a difference in presentation.
> 
> But, if we accept this position... then almost nobody ever gets to give critique.  Unless you are in contact with the authors or makers of a work, you aren't giving critique.




Presentation is almost certainly different, but I may also have used "criticism" instead of "critique" which is, in my own experience, the word used for input from readers and editors and suchlike.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 18, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> *1. "Wittgenstein, Wittgenstien, what is Wittgenstein?" What is the RPG Jump Cut? *
> 
> So when any media has a well-developed body of work, and of serious study and criticism, certain terms and definitions become codified so that people can more easily discuss them. Many of these are so well known that you don't have to be especially "in the know" to understand them, or have read back issues of Cahiers du Cinéma or dived into S/Z. If I'm talking about a "montage" or a "jump cut" or "diegetic and non-diegetic sound" when I'm discussing film, you know what I'm talking about. You understand _the technique_, and from that point, you can immediately begin the conversation about whether _the technique was accomplished in a manner that effectuates the overall purpose of the author and is intelligible as such to the audience.  _It's the same with literature; whether it's as simple as a metaphor or an allusion, or more complicated like low and high mimetic, there are general terms that have been agreed upon.




Perhaps the issue is that there is no unbiased academic willing on the subject for everyone to rally behind - most attempts are plagued by explaining why you like one playstyle or games with certain traits - inevitably leaving the impression that the criticism is more a justification of a particular style than a valid criticism.



> We ... don't have that for RPGs. At all. In fact, I've seen many threads wherein people can't even agree on what constitutes an RPG. As the boundaries between improv, freeform, LARP, DM-less games (like Fiasco), and various types of TTRPG and CRPGs blur, the question of what even constitutes an RPG can matter.




Consider Rock music and all it's subgenres.  What certain individuals are willing to call Rock has traditionally been quite varied.  Even today the "critics" and the laypersons often disagree about how to classify certain music.



> That said, even when looking at just traditional RPGs (TTRPGs, with a "GM" and "Players" and rules and procedural mechanics to resolve issues), there is no universal agreement on what basic definitions mean, so you end up with interminable debates between people and A saying, "Well, by player agency I mean X" and person B saying, "But by player agency, I mean Y."




Such debates have been raging in theology, philosophy, music classification, film classification and basically anything that human beings try to classify.  I'm not seeing anything particularly different about RPG's compared to these - except 1 thing - RPG's are often more deeply personal for the individual than all these other things.  

Personal investment makes criticism difficult IMO.



> When the basic terms can't be agreed upon, it's hard to develop theory and do appropriate criticism. It would be like two people discussing a film, and one saying. "I liked that jump cut." And the other person saying, "Well, I hated it, because I hate montages."




Here's the thing though, humans often blend different styles - and so there may come a point where you do a montage of jump cuts or a jump cut of montages.  What does one call that?

The point is that at some point you will have to confront terms and language breaking down as new techniques are created that share elements of both of the previously defined things.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> You are imputing motive and words to me that were never uttered.
> 
> All I said was: "I've found that the party which gets to define the terms gets to win the argument more often than not."
> 
> In other words, the terms being used to define the problem often push those discussing toward a certain solution.  This applies regardless of intent.  It's something that one such as yourself - that wants to be enlightened by discussion should be most mindful of.



Well, okay, I don't see how asking you questions to clarify is in any way imputing anything to you.

Again, you suggest that there's a "certain solution" in mind, and that I should be mindful of that, which confuses me -- what is this "certain solution" I should be mindful of?  As far as I know, I only want better tools to discuss and understand how games are played.  My only goal is to better my own game through better understanding, and to have tools to discuss things I find interesting.  Is this what I should be mindful of?

All honest questions.


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## Leatherhead (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Movie reviews are the major example here - there is no real attempt to communicate with the people involved with the film, and it is far too late, and unstructured, to be of use to the filmmakers.




Most criticism is after the fact, which would be used to inform the medium and help works in the future.



Umbran said:


> But, if we accept this position... then almost nobody ever gets to give critique. Unless you are in contact with the authors or makers of a work, you aren't giving critique.




You have a nonstandard definition of the word critique.
A teacher could critique the work of a dead artist for the benefit of their students, for example.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> Well, okay, I don't see how asking you questions to clarify is in any way imputing anything to you.




Maybe because you keep doing more than that...

For example you said:



> Again, you suggest that there's a "certain solution" in mind,




Here you imput to me the idea of "a certain solution in mind".  I never said there was any solution in mind, certain or otherwise.  You see how your subtle change in words completely imputes to me something I never said, suggested, implied, nor otherwise entertained.

To make it clear. I never suggested there was any mind in which there was a certain solution.  Nor that there was any intent by anyone to push a certain solution.  Only that using certain terms would do so regardless of intent.



> and that I should be mindful of that, which confuses me -- what is this "certain solution" I should be mindful of?




Define the problem, define terms.  I may can tell you then.  Or I may not can as I by no means claim to be able to see the implications of using any given set of terms - only that using them will likely push me somewhere.



> As far as I know, I only want better tools to discuss and understand how games are played.  My only goal is to better my own game through better understanding, and to have tools to discuss things I find interesting.  Is this what I should be mindful of?




nope.  You should be mindful that the terms by which something is defined will often lead you to a solution which defining the terms in some other way would lead you to a different solution.



> All honest questions.




Then why do you keep imputing to me things I flat out deny saying or implying?


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> Again, you suggest that there's a "certain solution" in mind, and that I should be mindful of that, which confuses me -- what is this "certain solution" I should be mindful of?




That would vary from person to person.



> As far as I know, I only want better tools to discuss and understand how games are played.  My only goal is to better my own game through better understanding, and to have tools to discuss things I find interesting.  Is this what I should be mindful of?




Certainly, you are aware that people have unconscious biases.  

Speaking not to you, personally, but about people in general - most human opinion is not based on facts and analysis.  We create opinions that are based on feelings and intuition, and then support that with rationalizations - there are neurological reasons for this I can go into if you wish.  But, this is why simply laying out facts on the internet rarely changes anyone's mind - because the mind wasn't made up on the facts in the first place. 

This is why modern science has double-blind studies, and peer review - because the action of the mind is insidious, and can lead us astray, even if we intend and claim and vow to the heavens that we have no personal agendas.  And, honestly, the more you reject the possibility that you can be biased, the more likely you are to be impacted by your bias - because your confidence in your ideological purity leads you to not worry so much about safeguards against it.  I'm afraid that these strong claims of really only wanting to understand put you in a high-bias-risk category.

In this context, you can imagine that any given analyst will have their own preferred playstyle.  They can't help it.  And, the language they choose is very, very likely to reflect that.  And once the language has style embedded in it, the whole framework is biased, and thought and analysis done with that framework will tend to have a similar bias.

This, honestly, is the larger issue with discussion of theory and criticism - we are not using any sort of guards against bias, and we reject the possibility that we are biased.


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> In this context, you can imagine that any given analyst will have their own preferred playstyle.  They can't help it.  And, the language they choose is very, very likely to reflect that.  And once the language has style embedded in it, the whole framework is biased, and thought and analysis done with that framework will tend to have a similar bias.
> 
> This, honestly, is the larger issue with discussion of theory and criticism - we are not using any sort of guards against bias, and we reject the possibility that we are biased.




I don't think people here have pretensions to doing science, here. I think we just are hoping we can find a way to talk about RPGs in a way that is generous and helpful and clear. Given my thinking of RPGs as something of a meta-language, I guess what we're talking about would be a meta-meta-language; no wonder it's difficult to come to any agreement about it. ;-)


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

Leatherhead said:


> You have a nonstandard definition of the word critique.




You so quickly lost the narrative there, that it isn't even funny.

I _EXPLICITLY SAID_ "if we accept this (prabe's) position".  I am taking prabe's position to its logical conclusion, not stating my own definition.

Now, please take this reading issue in context of talking about biases.  Even thought I specifically said what I was doing... you lost that, and turned it into something else.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe because you keep doing more than that...
> 
> For example you said:
> 
> ...



Alrighty, then.  You've clearly mistaken my intent as trying to impute things to you when I'm trying to understand what it is you're trying to say.  The best I can get from the above is that you'd like everyone to share a general concern that definitions might tend toward some conclusion and to be aware of this.  That's... super helpful, I guess, in a vaguely cautionary way.

I do find it ironic that you chastise me for my choice of words seeming to impute things to you, but leave aside that your phrasing does largely the same thing in the reverse.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

prabe said:


> I don't think people here have pretensions to doing science, here. I think we just are hoping we can find a way to talk about RPGs in a way that is generous and helpful and clear.




Yes.  So, what do you think the people who built out the modern scientific methods were trying to do?

Before science, medical practitioners were trying to talk about medicine in ways that were helpful and clear - and they developed language around humours, and chi.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> That would vary from person to person.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Nah, thanks, we just did this.   I'm not up for round 2 of you telling me what I'm saying, me trying to correct, and you calling me obnoxious.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> I do find it ironic that you chastise me for my choice of words seeming to impute things to you, but leave aside that your phrasing does largely the same thing in the reverse.




Yeah.  These guys are trying to be generous and clear.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Certainly, you are aware that people have unconscious biases.




They can.  Strangely the very notion that others can have unconscious biases is more often used as a justification for disregarding what they say than for reevaluating what we believe.  

As such it's possible that the whole focus on unconscious bias is actually a large contributor to remaining bias.



> Speaking not to you, personally, but about people in general - most human opinion is not based on facts and analysis.  We create opinions that are based on feelings and intuition, and then support that with rationalizations - there are neurological reasons for this I can go into if you wish.  But, this is why simply laying out facts on the internet rarely changes anyone's mind - because the mind wasn't made up on the facts in the first place.




I think you underestimate the power of internet persuasion.  While we rarely see an immediate change in someone - our words can have a profound impact on others beliefs.



> This is why modern science has double-blind studies, and peer review - because the action of the mind is insidious, and can lead us astray, even if we intend and claim and vow to the heavens that we have no personal agendas.




I thought double blind was to eliminate 2 different issues.  A truly double blind test makes it impossible to cheat and also tests for the placebo effect.  

Peer review primarily helps ensure accuracy of the work.  A small part of that may be control for bias but that's more a side effect than the purpose.



> And, honestly, the more you reject the possibility that you can be biased, the more likely you are to be impacted by your bias - because your confidence in your ideological purity leads you to not worry so much about safeguards against it.  I'm afraid that these strong claims of really only wanting to understand put you in a high-bias-risk category.




I think you are being to hard on him.

By the way, is it possible that most of this focus around unconscious bias is itself biased?



> In this context, you can imagine that any given analyst will have their own preferred playstyle.  They can't help it.  And, the language they choose is very, very likely to reflect that.  And once the language has style embedded in it, the whole framework is biased, and thought and analysis done with that framework will tend to have a similar bias.




Sure, but the notion of a professional is typically someone that can avoid having their biases impact their decision making process.  I think that's possible, but we all must be careful that we are being honest with ourselves as well (what the bias concept used to be called)



> This, honestly, is the larger issue with discussion of theory and criticism - we are not using any sort of guards against bias, and we reject the possibility that we are biased.




Yep - and the more personal the topic, the more validating it is to your worldview the easier it is to sucummb to bias.

That said, I think the notion of unconscious bias is being overplayed these days.  It's not that it doesn't exist.  It's that people are more able to sit it aside than what we are being told IMO.


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Yes.  So, what do you think the people who built out the modern scientific methods were trying to do?




I think they were trying to define science, and science-adjacent fields and terms.



Umbran said:


> Before science, medical practitioners were trying to talk about medicine in ways that were helpful and clear - and they developed language around humours, and chi.




And those languages (or theories, I guess) were factually wrong. I'm not sure how the comparison is relevant to something I'm thinking of as more like literary theory, but I'm willing to be enlightened.


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Yeah.  These guys are trying to be generous and clear.




Well, *I at least* am trying to be generous, and I'm looking for clarity.

I'm also trying to avoid getting caught in a crossfire. ;-)


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## Leatherhead (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> You so quickly lost the narrative there, that it isn't even funny.



Oh. That's how it came across.
I apologize.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> Alrighty, then.  You've clearly mistaken my intent as trying to impute things to you when I'm trying to understand what it is you're trying to say.




I don't think your intent was to impute to me something I didn't say or imply - but I think you were doing that.



> The best I can get from the above is that you'd like everyone to share a general concern that definitions might tend toward some conclusion and to be aware of this.  That's... super helpful, I guess, in a vaguely cautionary way.




That's all I was saying.



> I do find it ironic that you chastise me for my choice of words seeming to impute things to you, but leave aside that your phrasing does largely the same thing in the reverse.




Please be specific about my words and what you see them imputing to you.  I gave you that courtesy.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> Without a field there is no baseball game...
> Nor do the rules of a baseball game create that field...




True, but, the rules of a baseball game define the field to be used.  They tell you the distance to between the bases, the distance of the pitcher's mound, so on and so forth.  So, the rules of baseball very much do define the field.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> And yet somehow two games of baseball played by the same rules set can look markedly different based on all sorts of things. The rules of baseball do not produce identical games, nor do they produce the entire game as played. The steps outlined in the rules get followed, sure, but that's not by a long way the 'whole' game. Very much in the same way that the same RPG rules set can produce very different games. Moreover, different baseball rule sets still produce something generally identifiable as baseball much in the same way as a variety of RPG rules sets produce something generally identifiable as role playing. In the latter case, the similarities are enough to have fueled serious and informative academic work. YMMV I guess. You can only stretch the baseball metaphor so far.




You're missing the point.  Variations of baseball rules are still defined BEFORE play begins.  So long as we always use the same variation, our baseball games will be pretty much the same - same field, same number of players, same rules.  Two campaigns using the same RPG rules can be so different that, to an outside observer, they aren't even sharing the same rules.   

IOW, the rules of games define the start and end points of games.  RPG rules barely define the start points and do not define an end point at all.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2020)

And, no, taking a turn at the bat is not the same as taking a turn in an RPG.  Primarily, the rules define EXACTLY what you can do, where you can stand, what kind of bat you can use, etc. when you get up to bat.   And, EVERY SINGLE PLAYER will follow the same rules, in every single game (presuming that we are using the same variant rules of baseball).  No matter what, if we are playing fastball, for example, I must stand within the batter's box, I must hold my bat a certain way, my bat must be made of wood.  I'm not allowed to bring a tennis racket out and start swinging with that can I?

But, in an RPG, I am not only allowed to bring out a tennis racket, I'm actually expected to do so.  In D&D, many adventures introduce new monsters that use new mechanics that were not part of the game before.  Tomb of Horrors gave us the Demi-lich.  A creature that uses completely new mechanics unrelated to anything seen before in the game.  In any other game, this would be cheating.  It's Calvinball - making up the rules as you go along.  In an RPG, it's not only accepted that new rules may be interjected during play, it's applauded. 

Virtually nothing that you do in an RPG is actually defined by the rules.  Your character wants to go talk to the mayor of the town.  Where, in the rules, did that mayor come from?  What rules say that this town has a mayor?  Heck, what rules govern creating this town and the people in it?  Some gaming systems give us random tables as an assistant for creating a town, but, the GM is certainly not beholden to them.  In fact, the rules state that the GM should IGNORE the tables from time to time.  

What game tells players to ignore rules?  What game tells players to make up rules on the spot?  Any action that you take in an RPG might have rules attached to it (combat being the obvious one) but, that's because, yes, this is a game.  But, you only use those combat rules to adjudicate actions taken by players that are not actually defined by the rules.  The rules of an RPG are basically a long list of If/Then statements where If the player does X/ Then use mechanic Y to resolve that action.  But, at no point in the game is any player expected to take action X.  It might happen or it might not.  Depends on the campaign.  Certainly doesn't depend on the game.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 18, 2020)

You’re comparing what the characters in the fiction do to the baseball players. The characters are not the participants. The players are. 

What do the players do? They don’t have swords or tennis rackets....they have character sheets and dice, a book and some pencils.  

I think that your premise is based on this flawed comparison.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> You’re comparing what the characters in the fiction do to the baseball players. The characters are not the participants. The players are.
> 
> What do the players do? They don’t have swords or tennis rackets....they have character sheets and dice, a book and some pencils.
> 
> I think that your premise is based on this flawed comparison.




Where on your character sheet does it say, "Talk to the bartender"?  

This is, after all, an action that you can certainly take in the game.  And it's an action that potentially can have all sorts of impact on subsequent play.  

Yet, nothing on your character sheet allows you to take that action.

OTOH, every single action that a player in baseball can take is prescribed by the rules.  In actual fact, taking any action that affects the game that is outside of the rules is considered cheating, or, at the very least, poor sportsmanship.  

Ok, let me put it another way.  I am currently running an adventure in Greyhawk where the party is following a treasure map to a temple of Baphomet.  Show me where in the rules that I can find any of those actions.  What rules allowed the generation of a treasure map?  What rules created the intricate, minotaur filled maze that the adventure will eventually take place in?  What rules created the fact that dinosaur scat can be used as a replacement for dinosaur guano in the manufacture of smoke powder?

What rules govern the reaction of the various factions surrounding the island with the newly discovered dinosaurs likely going to war over the island and it's resources?  

Pretty much everything that is happening in my campaign has nothing to do with the rules of D&D.  Certainly the most important points anyway.  

In any other game, the addition of all these elements would be cheating.  In an RPG, it's what we're supposed to do.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2020)

I think where we are diverging @hawkeyefan is that I see the campaign, what the players and the DM actually play at the table, as the game.  The RPG rules are there to facilitate and guide that game, but, they aren't actually what's being played.  We play a campaign.  We don't play the DMG or the Greyhawk boxed set.  Those are just there to help us create our campaigns, which is what we actually play.

Now, in more indie style RPG's, sure, the creation of the campaign often gets spread around the table a bit more, and choices from the players might drive things a bit more than they might in more traditional games, but, the basic framework still exists.  You don't play Dread - you play a game that is created using the Dread rules.  You don't play Blades in the Dark, you play in a campaign that is created using the clocks of BitD.  So on and so forth.

You can't sit down, open up the RPG's rules and just play.  It doesn't work.


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I'm not sure how you meant it @pemerton , but I would suggest that the stripping away of the comfortable and comforting can be a very good thing, at least when those comforting and comfortable things are barriers to mutual understanding and dialogue.



I teach a theoretical sociology course with a fair bit of Marx and Weber in it - I'm all over _stripping away the comfortable and comforting understandings of things_. That said, it can be fairly brutal or at least demanding when one turns the blowtorch directly on oneself!

Whether that sort of thing can help mutual understanding and dialogue is a further question. Maybe sometimes. My view is not in all cases. I pick this up again below.



Fenris-77 said:


> a shared vocabulary can make it easier for people who disagree to disagree in a meaningful way without dancing around issues of terminology. If we can agree first about what is at stake, we can more profitably disagree in way that makes sense to both sides.



A lot of vocabulary used by criticism builds in premises which are up for grabs in the critical endeavour. For instance, Durkheim's notion of _social facts_ is, in my view, a relatively useful tool, but it's not a neutral vocabulary across all forms of social analysis. For instance, I don't think that social choice-type analyses really have any room for it.

I hope that it's obvious that more pointed examples could be given (while sticking with well-known classical social theorists), but I don't want to sail to close to the wind of board rules.


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## aramis erak (Feb 18, 2020)

TwoSix said:


> I think "no commonalities" might be somewhat strong.  Obviously a game of Blades in the Dark is very different from a game of AD&D 1E, but they're a lot more similar to each other then they are to a group game of Smash Brothers, and all of those are more similar than having people over to do a barn-raising.
> 
> I would say they're certainly related enough that we can discuss concepts like categories and procedures.  If they were entirely disparate, I think it would be obvious to everyone that we shouldn't even bother to try, and that doesn't seem to be the case.



To some, no amount of similarity trumps their perceived differences. Sometimes even delusional perceptions of difference.



Hussar said:


> There are no step by step guides for RPG's.  The rules of the RPG allow you to play the game that you and your table create, but, without that creation - the campaign as it's usually called - there is no game.  And the rules of an RPG do not create that campaign.




I'll point you to D&D for Dummies, Moldvay's D&D Basic, Mentzer's D&D Basic, and Denning's D&D Basic set (the big black box. And to all three editions of WEG Star Wars. And to the Beginner boxes for L5R5 and Star Wars by FFG. All of which carefully lay out the mode of play. The D&D sets by example text. The GM and player folios for the FFG Star Wars Beginner Boxes, which literally walk a total novice through pretty clearly.



hawkeyefan said:


> When I bat, I swing at the ball.
> 
> When I take my turn in a RPG, I declare what my character is doing.
> 
> ...



That also describes a number of board games (EG: Flash Point Fire Rescue, AH's Gunslinger, and Warhammer 40K)

The fiction affecting the mechanics rather than simply being a product of them is, for me, the quintessential difference of TTRPG's and Storygames... but not all Storygames include role assumption - EG: Once Upon A TIme.



Umbran said:


> I don't think there's much difference in the overall content.  Perhaps there's a difference in presentation.
> 
> But, if we accept this position... then almost nobody ever gets to give critique.  Unless you are in contact with the authors or makers of a work, you aren't giving critique.



Alpha and Beta tests are usually (except for Black Industries) critique to devs.

Review also to me implies less rigor in evaluation that critique, and critique implies explaining why the problems are problems.


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> These kinds of discussions have greatly improved my game, not because someone else won an argument and convinced me of something, but because I became more aware of how I play games and what other methods exist.  This let me tailor my play to better achieve the goals I always wanted, but didn't fully understand because I lacked the means (or motivation) to examine them.



This is very similar, I think, to my description upthread of my response to The Forge. Reading stuff there helped me better grasp what I was doing, and to learn new techniques to do it better. The fact that - I think, judging from what they write - people like Ron Edwards and Vincent Baker would probably find my games rather shallow, even juvenile, isn't a problem. I'm not asking them over for a session (as cool as that might be!). I'm learning from what they have to offer as a result of their thinking about RPG play and design, which clearly is quite a lot.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2020)

aramis erak said:


> /snip
> 
> I'll point you to D&D for Dummies, Moldvay's D&D Basic, Mentzer's D&D Basic, and Denning's D&D Basic set (the big black box. And to all three editions of WEG Star Wars. And to the Beginner boxes for L5R5 and Star Wars by FFG. All of which carefully lay out the mode of play. The D&D sets by example text. The GM and player folios for the FFG Star Wars Beginner Boxes, which literally walk a total novice through pretty clearly.
> 
> /snip




I'll use Moldvay Basic because that's what I'm most familiar with (and I happen to have it sitting right on the shelf next to me).  In Moldvay Basic, you are told to have a town and a dungeon.  The players go from the town to the dungeon, do their thing in the dungeon, and then go home.  The town is simply where they PC's rest and recover, before heading back into the dungeon.

Does that sound like a campaign to you?  It certainly doesn't to me.  Or, at best, it's an example of one campaign, but, certainly not any more than that.  So, if you follow those steps, you will create a single campaign.  Sure.  Ok.  Now, what happens the next time?  Do you repeat those same steps?  Are your campaigns nothing but a town and a dungeon?  

No, of course not.  

I've yet to see a single RPG which would allow me to open the game, read the rules step by step and begin play in the way you could any other game.  EVERY RPG requires you to create material that is not governed by the rules of the RPG.


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> There are no steps inherent in most RPG's.  When you play an RPG, for example, what's the first step?  Character creation?  Campaign creation?  Something else?  Note, those can both be true - some games start with chargen and then proceed, others start with campaign creation and then proceed.  Neither is more correct than the other.
> 
> And that's just the starting point of an RPG.  No two tables start the exact same way.   There are always considerable differences between one table and the next.  And these aren't cosmetic differences.  These are differences that will completely alter how the game plays.



I tend to agree with @Fenris-77's  response.

Also, some of what you say is true only because RPGs have, traditionally, had incomplete rule books, in the sense that they don't actually tell you everything you need to know to play the game. Just as the rules of baseball might take for granted that we know what a _throw _is, or _what it is to run_, so RPG rulebooks often take for granted that we know what it means to say what our PCs do, or for the GM to say what happens next. More recent games tend to have more complete accounts of the relevant procedures (eg look at a Vincent Baker game like In a Wicked Age - it even tells you when it's time to pour the wine for the table!).

That's not to say that some games might not be able to be approached with different sequences. But then the rulebook, if it was complete, could explain that and spell out some of the differences in play that might result from those different sequences.


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Yes.  So, what do you think the people who built out the modern scientific methods were trying to do?
> 
> Before science, medical practitioners were trying to talk about medicine in ways that were helpful and clear - and they developed language around humours, and chi.



Philosophy of science has only pretty modest application to the study or practice of criticism.

I'm prepared to allow that criticism can produce knowledge, although that is contentious - for example, in discussions I've had around academic freedom that emphasise the importance of the academy as a source of expert knowledge, I've worried that colleagues in English/Literature departments won't be covered by this shield.

But the way it produces knowledge, if it does, isn't anything like the way that science produces knowledge. I'm not persuaded, for instance, that _non-collusive convergence _is very relevant in the field of criticism.


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> You can't sit down, open up the RPG's rules and just play.  It doesn't work.



Of course you can. I've done this to play reasonably successful sessions of In a Wicked Age and Cthulhu Dark. I've come close with The Dying Earth, but it's rules are longer and so (having read them years earlier) I brushed up on them on the train trip to the game.


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## Lanefan (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> True, but, the rules of a baseball game define the field to be used.  They tell you the distance to between the bases, the distance of the pitcher's mound, so on and so forth.  So, the rules of baseball very much do define the field.



Sure, but someone's still gotta flatten the ground and grow the grass and paint the lines before anyone can play on it, and build the bleachers before anyone can sit and cheer for the team.

Same in an RPG - the rules of any given one lay out what can and can't happen in play but someone's still gotta design the campaign and-or setting* before anyone can play in it.

* - with, obviously, much looser guidelines than building a baseball field; but there still needs to be enough backdrop for the players to work with.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> IOW, the rules of games define the start and end points of games.  RPG rules barely define the start points and do not define an end point at all.




Don't make me break out My Life With Master. Or for that matter The Great Pendragon Campaign, the Dragonlance AP modules, Montsegur 1944, Apocalypse World, or Blades in the Dark.

And this is another poblem. The boundaries of RPGs are fuzzy - and I expect for every rule we can think up there is at least one thing commonly called an RPG that breaks that rule. (RPGs use a randomiser - unless Amber Diceless, Nobilis, Montsegur 1244, or others).



FrogReaver said:


> Perhaps the issue is that there is no unbiased academic willing on the subject for everyone to rally behind - most attempts are plagued by explaining why you like one playstyle or games with certain traits - inevitably leaving the impression that the criticism is more a justification of a particular style than a valid criticism.




If you're looking for an unbiased academic you're going to be waiting a long time. All the academics I can think of that people have rallied behind have advanced ... contentious ... views at least in their lifetime. Frequently to push a point of view that was outside the mainstream.

That's not to say that there aren't people like Ron Edwards, Vincent Baker, and Robin Laws trying to publish theory - just that thigns are ... fragmentary.



> Personal investment makes criticism difficult IMO.
> ...
> The point is that at some point you will have to confront terms and language breaking down as new techniques are created that share elements of both of the previously defined things.



And this is all true in my experience.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 18, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 18, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> "A role-playing game is what is created in the interaction between players or between player(s) and gamemaster(s) within a specified diegetic framework."




Fiasco. Montsegur 1244. We're right at the ragged edge here - but GMless RPGs exist. As for that matter does a set of tables to replace the DM


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> True, but, the rules of a baseball game define the field to be used.  They tell you the distance to between the bases, the distance of the pitcher's mound, so on and so forth.  So, the rules of baseball very much do define the field.




The rules of baseball only define the infield, not the outfield, at least as far as measurements go. That's why there are parks as different as Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium, to pick two.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 18, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> "A role-playing game is what is created in the interaction between players or between player(s) and gamemaster(s) within a specified diegetic framework."
> 
> So many great comments! I've been mostly busy this weekend. but I wanted to drop in and add a few thoughts that I'm developing (either to continue this thread, or maybe at some point to make another long post). At this point, they are mostly inchoate. I apologize to anyone that responded to me or at'd me if I'm not directly responding to you.
> 
> ...




Good post.  

Couple thoughts:

1)  Like you said, I would call the "artificial/contrived" constraints of BitD's setting (Doskvol) "System Force" or perhaps "Premise Constraint."  There are also other aspects of the game that keep play bounded as well; the siloed "3-phase" and scene-based nature of play, the lower power curve of the PCs/Crew, and how the Heat mechanics force the players to always consider their profile.

2)  Relating directly to the above, consider how close this resembles Basic D&D vs Expert and Champion:

a)  Constrained setting of the dungeon in Basic with resolution mechanics that work precisely for that setting + a lower power curve of PCs + Wandering Monster/Exploration mechanics that force the players to consider their "Exploration/Resource" profile...

vs 

b)  Moving out into the wilderness and urban settings for E and C (which means more options for declared actions) + resolution mechanics that become less focused/fit for purpose + higher power curve of PCs (therefore more answers for obstacles and less pressure-points) + system machinery/clocks (Heat and Wandering Monsters) does less work to force players to consider their profile.

3)  Torchbearer mirrors Blades in all ways above (with difference in nuance).

4)  Games that have scene-based resolution and/or that have "Journey mechanics" do the same thing; they constrain in the way Doskvol does while they focus/distill/narrow action declarations toward the specific scene premise and resolution mechanics to achieve the scene's "win condition".



I think there is also another thing that happens when it comes to the "System Force" of things like the "premise/setting constraint" and Blade's Duskvol and Basic/Torchbearer's adventuring sites and Scene-Based-Resolution/Journey mechanics (D&D 4e, Cortex +, Dungeon World among others); things that constrain a GM away from Force.

Some players can feel somewhat annoyed in their OODA Loop because, due to the zoom/abstraction and level of constraint, they experience a kind of sense of "information loss" (that is the best way I can think to put it) which screws with their transition from Observe to Orient and then from Orient to Decide.

I don't experience this, but its clearly a thing and likely.  Some players ( probably @Nagol ) experience this only when their expectations of the game aren't met.  Nagol can happily play scene-based resolution games (Fate and probably Cortex+) but he doesn't want scene-based resolution in his D&D (hence he didn't like 4e D&D).

I guess what I'm saying is...freedom from Force can come with a price that may feel like a prison to certain players (I'm using "players" as a catch-all; so participants).


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## lowkey13 (Feb 18, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> "A role-playing game is what is created in the interaction between players or between player(s) and gamemaster(s) within a specified diegetic framework."



That's a generic enough definition that it should get most RPGs.  It also captures a lot of wargames, boardgames, and other things, though.  Take Gloomhaven -- RPG or boardgame?  Or Warhammer 40k, wargame or RPG with armies?

I'm not knocking the intent -- it's just a really hard thing to define RPGs. I've proposed definitions before that have fallen flat in the face of this or that example.  I think that the best path forward is to offer a definition that works for the majority of RPGs but doesn't grab other games too much.  IE, one that has grey areas of "shrug, maybe?" but doesn't get Monopoly involved.  And, that's not easy, either.


> So many great comments! I've been mostly busy this weekend. but I wanted to drop in and add a few thoughts that I'm developing (either to continue this thread, or maybe at some point to make another long post). At this point, they are mostly inchoate. I apologize to anyone that responded to me or at'd me if I'm not directly responding to you.
> 
> I have been thinking about Blades in the Dark a fair amount, @Ovinomancer given its prominence in these conversations. I was also thinking about my earlier comment re: how many things we don't think of as "force" or "railroading" because they occur either "with consent" or prior to the start of the game can still be considered as such, depending on how you look at it- see, for example, playing a module.
> 
> ...



Yes, of course games impose constraints.  This is a fundamental requirement of a game, which, all other things included, needs to have a conflict resolution mechanism (even if it's "Bob decides!") and constraints (ie, what's in or out of the game).  It's all the other things that get fuzzy about game definitions, but you cannot have a game without conflict resolution or constraints.  Name any game and these things exist.  Of course, they also exist for lots of things that aren't games, but that's why they're necessary but not sufficient to a definition for a game.  Oh, just had a thought**.  I add it at the end, but it's about your RPG definition above.

So, games must have constraints.  I don't think these constraints rise to Force, as they aren't overriding player choices but instead determining which player choices are allowed.  That's a distinct difference, at least to me.  There's a difference between a GM telling a player, 'No, you don't shoot the Duke with a laser pistol because those don't exist in this genre/game/setting," and a GM telling a player, "No, your Space Marine doesn't shoot the alien with your laser pistol because it would be cooler if the alien gets away right now."  Granted, pretty gross example of Force there, but the point isn't to explore subtle Force use but make distinct the difference between a constraint and Force.

The constraints of a system should be 1) transparent and 2) agreed to before play starts.  If either of these isn't true or don't exist, then something has gone wrong.  

I think your construction of yes, and/but can make for a very interesting game, and some games use this kind of construction already.  I think that "no" can have a place, even in Forceless games, and achieve the escalation of consequence and... you know, I thought your E&E had something to do with escalation consequence and some other e but when I just went back to make sure I had the right verbiage, I couldn't find any definition for your E&E.  :/  Maybe I'm blind.  Anyway, "no" has a place, at least in the theory of making hard moves against characters after a failure.  Thwarting the goal of the player action can make for good games whereas never thwarting, only complicating can... also make for good games.  Ha.  The long and short is that escalation can happen even in a game that has 'no' instead of yes, and/but, but it really needs to be a no, and rather than just no.  The key, I think, to the escalation cycle is the conjunction.  Never stop at yes or no.  (This is, I think, one of the reasons that D&D features Force so much -- it's resolution mechanics are geared for yes or no, not yes or not and and or but (<-- odd sentence).  You can do 'yes/no, and/but', but the system doesn't offer very much at all in the way of this (5e includes some discussion of success at cost and/or fail forward, but only as a sidebar, really, while also presenting the binary pass/fail more fully).  For escalation to occur in 5e, you either have to be diligent about reducing resources to get to escalating danger or you have to use Force. The former isn't easy, the latter is.  But, I'm rambling.

** So, it occurs to me that maybe your definition of RPGs is also necessary but not sufficient.  It would appear that the general "you have players and a shared fiction which is developed through interaction of the players" is good stuff and covers those RPGs I can think of, but it also gets other things, so it's not a sufficient definition -- it's not limiting enough.  But, it is necessary to RPGs to meet this definition?  I think so.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Today is when we remember the difference between a disjunction and a conjunction.
> 
> "A role-playing game is what is created in the interaction between players *or* between player(s) and gamemaster(s) within a specified diegetic framework."
> 
> ...



Heh, "or" is a conjunction in language, but a disjunction in logic.


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> That's a generic enough definition that it should get most RPGs.  It also captures a lot of wargames, boardgames, and other things, though.  Take Gloomhaven -- RPG or boardgame?  Or Warhammer 40k, wargame or RPG with armies?
> 
> I'm not knocking the intent -- it's just a really hard thing to define RPGs. I've proposed definitions before that have fallen flat in the face of this or that example.  I think that the best path forward is to offer a definition that works for the majority of RPGs but doesn't grab other games too much.  IE, one that has grey areas of "shrug, maybe?" but doesn't get Monopoly involved.  And, that's not easy, either.




What makes it tricky (or trickier) is that some games that really don't seem like RPGs (*TO ME*) are still at least toying with narrative/story telling. Gloomhaven comes to mind; my experience of it is a pure tactics game with lots of flavor, but apparently there are some people who think of it as an RPG, or at least there's discussion about whether it is one. FFG's various Lovecraftian cooperative games have gotten more and more story-ish, but they don't feel like RPGs (*TO ME*), and in fact the more story-ish they get the less I like them (because to the extent they feel like an RPG, they feel like an RPG with a bad GM). Anything that tries to get at narratives that emerge from play is going to leave out what has been termed a "choreographed novel" elsewhere, which might not be my preferred style of play but which I wouldn't say isn't an RPG.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> ** So, it occurs to me that maybe your definition of RPGs is also necessary but not sufficient.  It would appear that the general "you have players and a shared fiction which is developed through interaction of the players" is good stuff and covers those RPGs I can think of, but it also gets other things, so it's not a sufficient definition -- it's not limiting enough.  But, it is necessary to RPGs to meet this definition?  I think so.



That quote is right out of the Meilahti School, and you probably need to grant the surrounding theory once you're aware of the source rather than sticking to the narrow quote. It's a lot more nuanced and descriptive than you're giving credit for. Meilahti School


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

General question - are we all using the same definition of force? It seems like the definition here is roughly the GNS one, _The Technique of control over characters' thematically-significant decisions by anyone who is not the character's player. _If that's not the case for anyone in particular I'd love to know, mostly for curiosity's sake.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> That quote is right out of the Meilahti School, and you probably need to grant the surrounding theory once you're aware of the source rather than sticking to the narrow quote. It's a lot more nuanced and descriptive than you're giving credit for. Meilahti School



I know, I've seen it.  There's a bit of slight of hand in the definition if it's being attributed to the Meilahti school, because they require a GM to be an RPG.  The definition, presented outside of the Meilahti school, is better as it doesn't require a GM.  The key weakness to the Meilahti school, as I've read of it, is the focus on the GM as the lynchpin of an RPG.  The GM has final authority, the GM must exist (you have have more than one, but at least one), etc.  They allow for rotation of the GM duties, but that still doesn't capture games like Fiasco, which don't have any point where the Meilahti defined GM responsibilities all congregate in a single player.  It also has issues with player constraint of GM ability to narrate, which other games have, preventing the GM from having the sole authority to dictate what's in a scene and what's possible within a scene.  Take games that allow players to introduce content, for instance.  These immedately thwart the GM's authority to define what's in a scene or what's actions are allowed in a scene as the players have the authority to introduce content and change the scene after framing.

It's an interesting theory, and there's definitely some useful bits, but it's too focused around the GM authority to account for many of the current games that have such features -- FATE, PbtA, Burning Wheel, Mouseguard, etc.  Further, I think that if you modify the theory to include those games, it becomes muddy outside of the most generalizable statements.


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> General question - are we all using the same definition of force? It seems like the definition here is roughly the GNS one, _The Technique of control over characters' thematically-significant decisions by anyone who is not the character's player. _If that's not the case for anyone in particular I'd love to know, mostly for curiosity's sake.




I think we've been focusing more on GM Force, as opposed to Player Force (especially PvP, which seems more strongly implied), but this doesn't seem far off.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

@Ovinomancer - My main point was more that a broader reading takes care of some of your examples like 40K. 

I'd agree that Meilahti's insistence on a GM makes things a bit sticky. I don't think the theory addresses the extent to which the system can constrain things like the limits of power passed on to the players, which Meilahti has as the sole provenance of the GM, but games like FATE and the rest you mention have baked into the system. It is interesting though, for sure, especially set next to GNS, which I'm not a huge fan of in general, although that too has some very useful bits.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> @Ovinomancer - My main point was more that a broader reading takes care of some of your examples like 40K.



Sure, but I was taking on the definition without reference to the Meilahti school because it wasn't referenced as such.  I think that, cleaved from the school, it's valid on it's own as a necessary but insufficient definition of RPGs.

Amusingly, it occurred to me tgat while a friendly session of 40K may not qualify, a tournament would, as there are table judges and even, usually, a loose storyline in a 40k game day tourney.  Fun to ponder. 



> I'd agree that Meilahti's insistence on a GM makes things a bit sticky. I don't think the theory addresses the extent to which the system can constrain things like the limits of power passed on to the players, which Meilahti has as the sole provenance of the GM, but games like FATE and the rest you mention have baked into the system. It is interesting though, for sure, especially set next to GNS, which I'm not a huge fan of in general, although that too has some very useful bits.



Absulotely nothing to add to this!  Agreed.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 18, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Speaking of which, one more before I have to run (also to Manbearcat-
> 
> Imagine the following system:
> 
> ...




Is E&E "Explanation and Examples?"

That seems intuitive so I'm going to work off of that.

On the whole, the system you're describing sounds like 4e's Skill Challenges:

1)  "Yes, and <new danger/obstacle interposes itself between you and goal>" for successes with E&E

2)  "Yes, but <complication/escalation of present obstacle/adversity>" (fail forward) for failures with E&E

3)  The gamestate/situation needs to change dynamically after each micro-outcome 

4)  Win Con (this # of successes for "a story win that is cemented in the fiction") or Loss Con (3 successes for a "story loss or setback that is cemented in the fiction")

AW/Blades and Strike (!) basic resolution + Clocks/Conflict  has similar machinery.  Dogs and Cortex+ are each subtly different, but they have DNA overlap.

E&E is extremely helpful, but (a) it all being player-facing and (b) the central ethos of play (not just for the conflict resolution machinery) is also extremely helpful imo.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> Name any game and these things exist.




Calvinball.

But, more seriously, we cannot have a cogent discussion in which we admit that constraints exist, but also we arbitrarily push back on restriction on player agency as BadWrongFun.  And that latter happens.  A lot.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Calvinball.
> 
> But, more seriously, we cannot have a cogent discussion in which we admit that constraints exist, but also we arbitrarily push back on restriction on player agency as BadWrongFun.  And that latter happens.  A lot.



RPGs by their very nature contain some some elements that restrict player agency. People who refuse to admit that fact are hard to have cogent discussions with.


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## prabe (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> RPGs by their very nature contain some some elements that restrict player agency. People who refuse to admit that fact are hard to have cogent discussions with.




True. There may be things you cannot do because they are impossible (shooting an arrow into the Sun is an example I think I've seen used). There may be things you cannot do because they violate the conceits of the game (restrictions on choices in chargen maybe fall here?). Probably others. None of those things seem like real violations, provided the players know them going in.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

More broadly, RPGs run on the basis of a social contract and that contract generally serves to constrain both player and GM agency in an agreed on set of ways. Beyond that, the system being played also serves to define the limits of agency for everyone at the table. Personally, I try to add "not being an enormous dickweed" as something that should be a base level constraint on agency, but apparently not everyone agrees.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Calvinball.
> 
> But, more seriously, we cannot have a cogent discussion in which we admit that constraints exist, but also we arbitrarily push back on restriction on player agency as BadWrongFun.  And that latter happens.  A lot.



You recently taught me that responding to you is fraught.  As I cannot ignore you, please stop using me as your launching point to attack the discussion.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> RPGs by their very nature contain some some elements that restrict player agency. People who refuse to admit that fact are hard to have cogent discussions with.



Further, you can accept that constraints exist and still argue about the usefulness of a specific constraint.  We do this all the time IRL with laws -- generally accept that laws exist and yet argue very fine points of distinction as to the justness of a specific application.


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## Nagol (Feb 18, 2020)

Manbearcat said:


> Good post.
> 
> Couple thoughts:
> 
> ...




I like premise constraint more than force in the context of constraints previously agreed at the table.  I ran a D&D campaign until high level with the premise "all play will occur in this one city" once to show that it can be done decently well.   If a player decides to violate the original premise of the agreed campaign (by going to visit a relative in a different city for a RL example), they are the one attempting to apply force.  The GM or rest of the table may resist/refuse as the campaign premise is being violated.  The same resistance could happen if the GM decides to offer plot lines that leave the city environs as that would also be a violation of campaign premise.  If a person tries to break through a brick wall, the wall isn't the thing applying force.

It's not so much information loss in my case I don't think.  It's more premise violation.  Each game engine comes with expectations both implicit and explicit.  Some directly exist in the engine.  Others exist because of previous history with the game.

When I sit down to play D&D, I feel part of the implied premises is players will provide meaningful strategic planning including resource allocation/hoarding and a player will play a single character and wholly act within its capabilities.  In contrast, when I sit down to play FATE the expectations are the players will help build out the universe in areas where their characters are experts, the players are expected to hunt for advantage in circumstance and situation, and the players are expected to try and provide (or at least not fight) a more cinematic / narrative experience including setbacks, highlighted personal flaws, etc.  Dungeonworld (and every other discrete game system) comes with a different set of expectations.  Of the former, I prefer to play D&D editions with the aforementioned premises (or other games with similar expectations) as that best matches what I'm looking for as a player.  I'm happy to run any number of systems as my preferences as a GM vary dramatically depending on the table experience I'm attempting to achieve for any particular game.

The game I sit down to play is one whose expectations and premises match what I want to do in the game.  If a game revision drifts too far from its previous expectations and premise then it needs to get reevaluated as to whether it still belongs in the line up of games I'll use or if there is a game in my line up that better meets those expectations.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> Further, you can accept that constraints exist and still argue about the usefulness of a specific constraint.  We do this all the time IRL with laws -- generally accept that laws exist and yet argue very fine points of distinction as to the justness of a specific application.



Yup, and discussion this sort makes up a significant portion of threads on this board. The usefulness of constraint A, for me, is primarily about the extent to which it correctly or usefully indexes the social contract of the table and the expectations of the participants as to how the diegetic frame will be defined.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> They can.  Strangely the very notion that others can have unconscious biases is more often used as a justification for disregarding what they say than for reevaluating what we believe.




It isn't strange at all, when you note that the mind isn't a general use logical processor.  Neurologically - humans make judgements about their own actions, and other people's actions, using physically different parts of the brain.  The brain does nto do a check for consistency between these judgements.  So, yes, when someone else does a thing, and when you do a thing, you'll think of those things differently.



> As such it's possible that the whole focus on unconscious bias is actually a large contributor to remaining bias.




Yes, because there's no reliable _system_ for it, and there's no _testing_ of hypotheses.  A dude steps up, says X, Y, and Z, and you like it or you don't, and there's no real attempt to double check the posits against anything but anecdotal personal experience.  



> I think you underestimate the power of internet persuasion. While we rarely see an immediate change in someone - our words can have a profound impact on others beliefs.




The research I've read on it (which is relevant to my work) has said otherwise.  Or, I should say, yes, we can have a profound effect, but that effect is generally to make people entrench into their own preferred preconcieved notions.  



> I thought double blind was to eliminate 2 different issues.  A truly double blind test makes it impossible to cheat and also tests for the placebo effect.




Double blind works to eliminate bias arising from both the researcher and the subject.  



> Peer review primarily helps ensure accuracy of the work.  A small part of that may be control for bias but that's more a side effect than the purpose.




With respect, given that the point is that bias impacts accuracy... it isnt' a side effect.



> By the way, is it possible that most of this focus around unconscious bias is itself biased?




A couple of posts within 24 hours is a "focus" now?

I'll cop to the point coming from my own bias, if you'll cop to trying to lessen and reject and win points knocking it down as your bias.



> That said, I think the notion of unconscious bias is being overplayed these days.  It's not that it doesn't exist.  It's that people are more able to sit it aside than what we are being told IMO.




_Looks at the internet._
_Looks at this passage._
Sure.  By my own admission, handing you evidence to the contrary isn't likely to change your mind.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

prabe said:


> I think they were trying to define science, and science-adjacent fields and terms.




They were trying to understand how things work.  They were trying to seek clarity about the world around them.



> And those languages (or theories, I guess) were factually wrong. I'm not sure how the comparison is relevant to something I'm thinking of as more like literary theory, but I'm willing to be enlightened.




Literary theory tells us Faulkner, Melville, Dostoyevski and Joyce are awesome.  If you want similar results, by all means emulate literary theory.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

pemerton said:


> Philosophy of science has only pretty modest application to the study or practice of criticism.




Yes.  So, you seem to say that as if it is assumed to be a good thing, and that the resulting criticism is relevant to anyone other than those doing the criticizing.  I don't know if that's well-established....

Or, am I mistaken in assuming you want the criticism to actually be relevant?  If you don't really care if your critical framework to reflect what works for actual players, then sure, you don't need to borrow from science.

Meanwhile... D&D 5e went not to critics, but to statistically relevant numbers of people actually playing games, and came back with what seems to be the most popular game ever.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Yes.  So, you seem to say that as if it is assumed to be a good thing, and that the resulting criticism is relevant to anyone other than those doing the criticizing.  I don't know if that's well-established....



Well, RPG theory and criticism has impacted RPG design and many designers have a theoretical underpinning for their projects that's probably significantly different than what used to be the case. Is that a good thing? IDK for sure, but probably.


Umbran said:


> Or, am I mistaken in assuming you want the criticism to actually be relevant?  If you don't really care if your critical framework to reflect what works for actual players, then sure, you don't need to borrow from science.



 I'm not sure the extent to which RPG theory has borrowed from the philosophy of science. Does that have to be the case in order for it to be meaningful? I'm a bricolage man when it comes to theory and critical lens, and in terms of usefulness for both design and understanding I'd say current theory passes the usefulness and relevancy tests. YMMV of course.


Umbran said:


> Meanwhile... D&D 5e went not to critics, but to statistically relevant numbers of people actually playing games, and came back with what seems to be the most popular game ever.



I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about how theory may or may not have impacted the 5e design process. I don't think it somehow obvious that it didn't though, certainly not just because they also went _to statistically relevant numbers of people actually playing games._


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> I think where we are diverging @hawkeyefan is that I see the campaign, what the players and the DM actually play at the table, as the game.  The RPG rules are there to facilitate and guide that game, but, they aren't actually what's being played.  We play a campaign.  We don't play the DMG or the Greyhawk boxed set.  Those are just there to help us create our campaigns, which is what we actually play.
> 
> Now, in more indie style RPG's, sure, the creation of the campaign often gets spread around the table a bit more, and choices from the players might drive things a bit more than they might in more traditional games, but, the basic framework still exists.  You don't play Dread - you play a game that is created using the Dread rules.  You don't play Blades in the Dark, you play in a campaign that is created using the clocks of BitD.  So on and so forth.
> 
> You can't sit down, open up the RPG's rules and just play.  It doesn't work.




Sure you can. That's generally exactly what we do.

And even if it's not, the same could be said for baseball. You can't play without some basic understanding of the rules and processes. 

The rules describe the process of play. The GM establishes a scene, and then asks players "what do you do?" We can call this the pitch. The players then take turns describing what their characters do. Let's call each of these a swing. Sometimes, a player may declare an action for his character whose outcome is uncertain. Let's call this a hit. The GM calls for a check, and then narrates a response based on the result. We can call this fielding.

There's a procedure that games follow and that's what the books layout. That's the same as the rules for baseball or any other game or sport. 

Every RPG session (or near enough for this discussion, I'd say) consists of people taking turns and declaring actions for their character or characters, responding to the persistently established fiction that they're creating and sharing. The content that fiction will indeed be radically different from instance to instance. 

The same way that a box score will be different from baseball game to baseball game. This is because the results of the established processes of play will differ for both.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Well, RPG theory and criticism has impacted RPG design and many designers have a theoretical underpinning for their projects that's probably significantly different than what used to be the case. Is that a good thing? IDK for sure, but probably.




Sure.  

So, some questions that we don't know the answer to - How much theory was really involved in 5e?  How much theory was tossed out when empirical feedback contradicted theory?  

The next question is - Is continuing development of theory based on anecdote and personal opinions/preferences of sufficient value to justify the effort?  



> I'm not sure the extent to which RPG theory has borrowed from the philosophy of science. Does that have to be the case in order for it to be meaningful?




"Meaningful"?  I mean, if you have a good time doing it, and it leaves you feeling like you have accomplished something, it is meaningful to you.  I'm more concerned with _relevance_.  Theory developed by small groups disconnected from the empirical is unlikely to be relevant.



> I'm a bricolage man when it comes to theory and critical lens, and in terms of usefulness for both design and understanding I'd say current theory passes the usefulness and relevancy tests. YMMV of course.




Of course.  I'm looking back at The Forge, and thinking of how sure, there were a couple good ideas in there, but how most of it was a colossal waste of everyone's time, such that here and now folks feel a need to come up with a whole other set of terms and framework.  As you said, YMMV.

But, simply asked - how is this going to be different from The Forge?  Folks who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, right?

I'm not saying to not develop theory.  I'm trained as a theoretical physicist, for cryin' out loud, of course I value theory.  I'm trying to note that how you go about developing the theory has pretty sizable impact on whether your theory matches reality, and it very much pays to be consciously aware of how humans are part of the process, and take that into account.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Well, RPG theory and criticism has impacted RPG design and many designers have a theoretical underpinning for their projects that's probably significantly different than what used to be the case. Is that a good thing? IDK for sure, but probably.




I'd say categorically yes - in part because when a designer uses _any _theory, even if it's completely out of nowhere then the results are going to be interesting. And the more strongly the theory is adhered to the more likely something new and interesting rather than Yet Another Fantasy Heartbreaker is going to appear. And some of them (notably anything by Vincent Baker) are going to be worth playing.

5e almost does the opposite of pushing the limits like this and that works too. The goal was to be recognisably D&D - but not extreme in any direction. So people could all agree it was good enough for the job - I might not like McDonalds, but it's very successful and for good reason.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

@Umbran - There are enough people in this thread who are familiar with a range of critical RPG theory that it seems premature to dismiss the whole thread as based on personal anecdote and opinion. Some of it is, sure, but not all of it. If those people have a a willingness to engage, share, and modify their points of view then useful dialogue is the most likely outcome. We're not revolutionizing critical thought on RPGs here of course, but we're sharing ideas with people that we communicate somewhat regularly with, so I think there's some value in just getting granular about the ideas that underpin peoples opinions and preferences as well.

A lot of the theory that people seem to be familiar with was developed after the Forge, and in many cases as a response to it too, so I think right there we're a leg up. And it's always interesting to go back and forth about X using a couple of different critical lenses to see where the rough spots are - the places where theory breaks down, call them liminal spaces, are for me anyway, often the most interesting.

IMO the level that we're working at here is to talk about theory with the goal of understanding our own hobby better (and possibly each other better), not necessarily to develop _new_ theory.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Of course.  I'm looking back at The Forge, and thinking of how sure, there were a couple good ideas in there, but how most of it was a colossal waste of everyone's time, such that here and now folks feel a need to come up with a whole other set of terms and framework.  As you said, YMMV.




I'd still say that the Forge had more hits than almost anything else I can think of. GNS was a bit of a bust - but The Forge was the incubator for Fate (which more or less solved the implicit problem the Forge was set up to ask "We want to play the awesome games that the oWoD promises when reading the rulebooks, not the morass of rules we actually get - how can we have something focussed on character aspects and choices?"). It also gave us My Life With Master which answered the problem @innerdude set up a 20 page thread that's still open saying he couldn't get - how could you get actual character change and growth? It was where Vincent Baker cut his teeth. I think Burning Wheel and Luke Crane were The Forge - as was Prime Time Adventures.

To me when you have that many gems coming out of one set area that are not obviously riffs on each other that's fairly spectacular. I also think it burned out because they took their theories and approach as far as they could.



> But, simply asked - how is this going to be different from The Forge?  Folks who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, right?




If it is The Forge Mk2 with its own massive output even if three quarters of it is bunk I'll count it as a success.


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## Numidius (Feb 18, 2020)

pemerton said:


> The fact that - I think, judging from what they write - people like Ron Edwards and Vincent Baker would probably find my games rather shallow, even juvenile, isn't a problem.




No, sir. MY games are shallow.


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## Lanefan (Feb 18, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> RPGs by their very nature contain some some elements that restrict player agency. People who refuse to admit that fact are hard to have cogent discussions with.



True, but the player is ideally only constrained by the elements inherent to the system in use (including houserules), and not further constrained by arbitrary whims of the GM during play.

Telling me up front I can't play an Elf or shoot phasers in your campaign's setting is A-OK; if I sign on for that game I'm agreeing to that constraint.  Telling me during the same game that my Dwarf has, absent any control mechanics, just been swayed to an opinion by an NPC (or even another PC) is not OK at all.


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## Lanefan (Feb 18, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Meanwhile... D&D 5e went not to critics, but to statistically relevant numbers of people actually playing games, and came back with what seems to be the most popular game ever.



Star Wars is arguably the most popular movie of all time yet the critics rather savaged it when it first came out.

The Oscars routinely these days give awards to films relatively few people have actually seen, while largely or completely ignoring those which resonate with the paying-viewing public.

So yes, criticism - particularly when what's being criticized is still new - is often something to be taken with a great big grain of salt IMO.


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## aramis erak (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> I've yet to see a single RPG which would allow me to open the game, read the rules step by step and begin play in the way you could any other game.  EVERY RPG requires you to create material that is not governed by the rules of the RPG.



I've yet to see that level for sports in the laws of the sport.  Rulebooks for sports usually specify the field, and the numbers of players and their allowed range on the field, and then a whole raft of "don'ts"... The rules/laws for Rugby  don't tell you that you should be passing backward; they tell you you can't pass forward; that you need to pass back and (usually) outward evolves from play, as that's the negative space formed by the rules.

Moldvay shows the process of play with a nice extended example. And, unless you bought the naked book, it also has two adventures - one is the little keep in the back, and the other is (depending upon date of box) B1 or B2... It may leave one a little shaky on the process, and is unlikely to get deep characterization from total newbs, it's good enough that 2-3 teens can get the game going. 

The beginner boxes for FFG star wars will take the novice by the hand and walk them through. It will get them playing by having 2-4 friends, and a few hours.  Each also has a PDF follow on that continues the story, and helps the novice GM. I've met several people who figured out how to play RPGs from the FFG SW BB sets. Then they followed on with a core rulebook.

Likewise, Modiphius has a pretty good beginner box for STA.

Moldvay was excellent for its era, and it taught the game pretty well. It taught me the basic GMing skills. Modern beginner boxes are separate from the corebooks for the more successful games... Like 5E, Pathfinder, L5R5, Star Trek Adventures, FFG Star Wars....

It's no longer essential to learn the process by joining existing groups... I'll admit - moldvay was hit or miss... I was pretty much a wargame mode GM until I played with a story-mode GM in Traveller in 1983... and I still hybridize the modes often. 

I've had players who had only played with each other, having learned from Moldvay alone - they had the process down. 

It's also worth invalidating your campaign focus fixation. Looking the wargame roots, a campaign is merely a series of runs that combine to a single victory/loss overall. Not even always the same forces, nor continuing consequences. In RPG play, the moment you get to adventure #2 with the same characters, you're in campaign. Or send a new group of PCs into the dungeon and the DM doesn't fully reset after the previous TPK, continuing consequences equals campaign.

There are many kinds of campaign - you're fixated upon a slim section of the range. Look at the broader scope, and understand that your narrow view is part of the wider landscape, and that many styles of campaign don't need more than "Start each new adventure having spent what you're going to spend, and having full HP and spell slots."


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## Numidius (Feb 18, 2020)

Hussar said:


> True, but, the rules of a baseball game define the field to be used. They tell you the distance to between the bases, the distance of the pitcher's mound, so on and so forth. So, the rules of baseball very much do define the field.



Regarding the baseball metaphor, to me it best represents a single game, say, D&D. 

I started this hobby, back then, attending actual tournaments of D&D. 

Then we went home and played dnd/baseball in our basement/backyard, with houserules and homebrew campaigns/amateur tournaments, whatever. 

Rpgs in general look more like bat and ball games, as a methaphoric category. 

Yes baseball is mainstream, as is D&D. Nonetheless it is plentiful of different bat & ball games.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 18, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> True, but the player is ideally only constrained by the elements inherent to the system in use (including houserules), and not further constrained by arbitrary whims of the GM during play.
> 
> Telling me up front I can't play an Elf or shoot phasers in your campaign's setting is A-OK; if I sign on for that game I'm agreeing to that constraint.  Telling me during the same game that my Dwarf has, absent any control mechanics, just been swayed to an opinion by an NPC (or even another PC) is not OK at all.



Um, sure. Not at all what I was talking about, but yeah that would suck. We've moved way past the low hanging fruit of arbitrary GM whim here, but we can agree that it's a bad example of restricting agency.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 19, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Um, sure. Not at all what I was talking about, but yeah that would suck. We've moved way past the low hanging fruit of arbitrary GM whim here, but we can agree that it's a bad example of restricting agency.



Pretty sure, given the last time this came up, that "control mechanics" means magical mind control.  @Lanefan is not big at all at having a social contest end up with the PC having to accept a consequence of being swayed as a result of a hard failure as can happen in some games.  Lanefan is very much a traditional D&D player, where the PC is absolutely under the player's control absent magical mind control effects.  Why magical mind control effects are okay, not sure, I guess because they are in the rules?


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 19, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> Pretty sure, given the last time this came up, that "control mechanics" means magical mind control.  @Lanefan is not big at all at having a social contest end up with the PC having to accept a consequence of being swayed as a result of a hard failure as can happen in some games.  Lanefan is very much a traditional D&D player, where the PC is absolutely under the player's control absent magical mind control effects.  Why magical mind control effects are okay, not sure, I guess because they are in the rules?



To be fair, magical mind control (or not magical) without _some_ kind of mechanic or at least contractual consent is pretty egregious. The above is much more likely a system outcome of a system he would probably never play though, as I don't think even the forciest of force GMs would try and pull that shenanigans out of the blue by fiat.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2020)

pemerton said:


> Of course you can. I've done this to play reasonably successful sessions of In a Wicked Age and Cthulhu Dark. I've come close with The Dying Earth, but it's rules are longer and so (having read them years earlier) I brushed up on them on the train trip to the game.




So, the rules for Cthulhu Dark told you what your setting was (the play field)?  You did not create a single thing in that setting that was not defined by the rules?  Your scenario, whatever it was, was 100% defined by the rules of the game?  You could follow what was written down in the rulebook, step by step, minute by minute, and never created a single element in the game that wasn't defined by the rules?

I'd like to see that.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> Sure, but someone's still gotta flatten the ground and grow the grass and paint the lines before anyone can play on it, and build the bleachers before anyone can sit and cheer for the team.
> 
> Same in an RPG - the rules of any given one lay out what can and can't happen in play but someone's still gotta design the campaign and-or setting* before anyone can play in it.
> 
> * - with, obviously, much looser guidelines than building a baseball field; but there still needs to be enough backdrop for the players to work with.




It's more than that though. Not only is someone designing the campaign or setting before anyone can play, but, they continuously design the campaign and setting IN PLAY.  And none of the changes that are made have any rules basis.  They are completely in service to that campaign, but, the rules of the game are utterly silent on the issue.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 19, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> To be fair, magical mind control (or not magical) without _some_ kind of mechanic or at least contractual consent is pretty egregious. The above is much more likely a system outcome of a system he would probably never play though, as I don't think even the forciest of force GMs would try and pull that shenanigans out of the blue by fiat.



Oh, for sure, but it's definitely a risk in some systems where PCs aren't as inviolable as in D&D.  The outcome of a Duel of Wits in Burning Wheel, for example, can result in the PC being bound by the opposing argument.

When I run D&D, though, I avoid any stink of this like the plague.  I have plenty of power and authority but it doesn't run to controlling the PCs -- that's the player's sole bailiwick.  I even have issues and will rarely, if ever, deploy mind magic on PCs.  Again, I have infinite dragons, why do I need your PC?  When I do, rarely, use mind magics on PCs, it's thematic to moment (master vampires) and I try to use it in a way that places constraints rather than direct actions.

When I run Blades in the Dark, though, being possessed by a vengeful spirit is bad juju, and I'll do it in a heartbeat -- if the mechanics allow.  Similarly, losing a social contest will have binding results; likely not "you believe the NPC" but I'm not ruling that out as a valid hard move.  Completely different play aesthetic.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 19, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> Oh, for sure, but it's definitely a risk in some systems where PCs aren't as inviolable as in D&D.  The outcome of a Duel of Wits in Burning Wheel, for example, can result in the PC being bound by the opposing argument.
> 
> When I run D&D, though, I avoid any stink of this like the plague.  I have plenty of power and authority but it doesn't run to controlling the PCs -- that's the player's sole bailiwick.  I even have issues and will rarely, if ever, deploy mind magic on PCs.  Again, I have infinite dragons, why do I need your PC?  When I do, rarely, use mind magics on PCs, it's thematic to moment (master vampires) and I try to use it in a way that places constraints rather than direct actions.
> 
> When I run Blades in the Dark, though, being possessed by a vengeful spirit is bad juju, and I'll do it in a heartbeat -- if the mechanics allow.  Similarly, losing a social contest will have binding results; likely not "you believe the NPC" but I'm not ruling that out as a valid hard move.  Completely different play aesthetic.



Yeah, I agree. I have the same approach to D&D as opposed to other games. I think the main difference is that the social contract that governs the tables those other are played at allows for the 'force' in question. People who don't play those games are going to find the whole idea very foreign and upsetting. To which I say try it before you hate it, but not everyone needs to try every game.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2020)

Reading more of @lowkey13's points, and learning more about what diegetic means, I think that I'm largely in line, or at least nodding as I read, with what he's saying.  An RPG is:

"A role-playing game is what is created in the interaction between players or between player(s) and gamemaster(s) within a specified diegetic framework."​
Which is pretty much exactly what I've been trying to say.  An RPG isn't simply the rules of that game, but, the interaction of those rules and that specific group within their narrative framework.

Which does make discussion of theory somewhat more difficult.  Imagine trying to discuss a movie where the ending is different for every person that watches it.  Even with things like modules or canned adventures, my experience, your experience and her experience can be entirely different.  Which makes creating a discussion framework difficult because we share so little frame of reference.

Really, one has only to look at various "this is broken" style discussions.  How many times have you read one and thought, "Huh?  This isn't broken at all.  It works perfectly fine."  or, "What a tempest in a teacup.  This doesn't matter".   There are so many variables to account for, that I'm not sure any common common critical framework can be created.

I mean, put it this way.  What advice, other than the most surface level, could you give to me, who runs campaigns that last for months, that would equally apply to @Lanefan, whose campaigns run for decades?


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## Lanefan (Feb 19, 2020)

Hussar said:


> I mean, put it this way.  What advice, other than the most surface level, could you give to me, who runs campaigns that last for months, that would equally apply to @Lanefan, whose campaigns run for decades?



Never mind that your games, if I'm not mistaken, are all run online where mine are at an actual table (meaning the social interaction is liable to differ considerably between our two milieus)

I actually think there's quite a bit of advice that would apply to us both, only we'd use it differently.  For example, someone advising us to "put some consideration into your game's level-advance rate" would probably lead to you speeding it up and me slowing it down; but the root advice is still germane to both of us.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> Never mind that your games, if I'm not mistaken, are all run online where mine are at an actual table (meaning the social interaction is liable to differ considerably between our two milieus)
> 
> I actually think there's quite a bit of advice that would apply to us both, only we'd use it differently.  For example, someone advising us to "put some consideration into your game's level-advance rate" would probably lead to you speeding it up and me slowing it down; but the root advice is still germane to both of us.




Oh, totally.  And, please, I was only using you as an example, not intending any sort of snark at all.  We tend to be on the opposite ends of the campaign length spectrum is all.    But, yeah, I play online with people I have never and will never meet.  Before, I used to play with strangers almost entirely.  Until the last few years, the longest lasting group I'd ever had was maybe 2 years and probably less.  

Yet, we both play the same "game".  For a given value of game anyway.


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> It would appear that the general "you have players and a shared fiction which is developed through interaction of the players" is good stuff and covers those RPGs I can think of, but it also gets other things, so it's not a sufficient definition



This seems to get A Penny for My Thoughts, but that's not a RPG (contra Wikipedia, which I've just discovered classifies it as one). You might try and knock it out based on "shared fiction", but that's not going to be straightforward I don't think.

So I think your idea of going for core cases and then not fussing too much at the edges makes more sense (it's not like we're administering a RPG taxing statute, so precision isn't essential).

What distinguishes a RPG from a boardgame or boardgame-y wargame? That the fiction matters to resolution.

What distinguishes a RPG from a wargame in which the fiction _does_ matter to resolution? That the non-referee participants engage the fiction, and declare actions, via a particular character who is their mediator/entrance into the shared fiction. Ie those participants, unlike the referee, don't engage the fiction via a "bird's eye view". Or to put it another way, their perspective is not purely authorial.

This also helps distinguish RPGs fro A Penny for My Thoughts. I think the idea that for non-referee participants, their "moves" in a RPG are centrally connected to the characters that they "own" is pretty key. Move away from that and we seem to be heading into "joint story creation" territory rather than "I'm a protagonist in the unfolding story" territory which is characteristic of non-referee participation in RPGing.


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Yes.  So, you seem to say that as if it is assumed to be a good thing, and that the resulting criticism is relevant to anyone other than those doing the criticizing.  I don't know if that's well-established....
> 
> Or, am I mistaken in assuming you want the criticism to actually be relevant?  If you don't really care if your critical framework to reflect what works for actual players, then sure, you don't need to borrow from science.
> 
> Meanwhile... D&D 5e went not to critics, but to statistically relevant numbers of people actually playing games, and came back with what seems to be the most popular game ever.



Marketing is obviously an empirical endeavour (though not exclusively so - as well as being predictive, it also involves shaping market taste, and one could see WotC working on that during their 5e D&D roll out). But the fact that something is popular doesn't prove it's valuable. It may not even be relevant to its value!

I did recently read an article about how editors in commercial publishing houses are increasing their reliance on "big data" to guide their decisions about publication. I guess we could say that that will make publishing more "relevant". We may get less Ulysses or At Swim Two Birds, and more Harry Potter knock-offs.

If you want to run an argument that literature departments should all be replaced by marketing departments, go for it! But I'm pretty much taking it for granted that that's a flawed proposal - almost self-evidently so.


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2020)

Umbran said:


> I'm looking back at The Forge, and thinking of how sure, there were a couple good ideas in there, but how most of it was a colossal waste of everyone's time



Seriously?

Here's an excerpt from  p 288 of the Apocalypse World rulebook (in the acknowledgements section):

The entire game design follows from "Narrativism: Story Now" by Ron Edwards​
As everyone knows, there's an entire family of games - PbtA - that follows from Apocalypse World. A colossal waste of everyone's time?

Single posts by Ron Edwards an Paul Czege on various Forge threads have been more use for my RPGing than the entirety of everything ever published by WotC in relation to GMing advice and techniques. The best book about GMing I've ever read - Luke Crane's Adventure Burner - would be inconceivable without The Forge (as would his games Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard and Torchbearer).

The idea that these insights, and the games and gaming traditions they have generated, are "a colossal waste of everyone's time"  is frankly laughable.


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2020)

Hussar said:


> So, the rules for Cthulhu Dark told you what your setting was (the play field)?  You did not create a single thing in that setting that was not defined by the rules?  Your scenario, whatever it was, was 100% defined by the rules of the game?  You could follow what was written down in the rulebook, step by step, minute by minute, and never created a single element in the game that wasn't defined by the rules?
> 
> I'd like to see that.



I don't get this. The rules of baseball don't tell you where to hit the ball, or how hard. Nor (I assume - I know cricket but not baseball) where to place all the fielders. Nor where to throw the ball if there are two players running. Those are all creative/tactical decisions made by the players. That's what makes it a game rather than a ritual. (Though even many rituals allow for adaptation or interpretation to some degree at least.)

I can tell you that I read out the rules - 2 A4 sides - while one of the other group members got us some food. Then I said "How about Boston c 1930" and the others said that was fine. Then the players chose their PCs - that's a name, a job and a description. Then I described a starting situation - given that one of the PCs was a law-firm secretary, one a journalist and one a longshoreman I decided that that was the secretary having to deliver some documents to the docks, where we went on collectively to establish that the journalist happened to be investigating issues about a freight company while the longshoreman was arguing with his superior. (Or something like that - it's a while ago now.)

How is that not reading the rules and then playing the game?

EDIT:


Hussar said:


> Not only is someone designing the campaign or setting before anyone can play, but, they continuously design the campaign and setting IN PLAY.  And none of the changes that are made have any rules basis.  They are completely in service to that campaign, but, the rules of the game are utterly silent on the issue.



No one designed a campaign/setting before we played Cthulhu Dark. Nor In a Wicked Age - as per the rules of the game, we consulted The Oracles to find out what was happening in our Wicked Age.

When we started our Classic Traveller game I rolled up a starting world after the players rolled up their PCs, and then rolled on the random patron table. The rules aren't silent on these matters - they support both the processes I just described.

When we started our first Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy games, I had written up 5 pregen PCs following the directions in the Marvel Heroic RP rulebook as influenced by the Cortex+ Hacker's Guide. I deliberately wrote them to suit either Vikings or Samurai. The players voted Vikings, and so we started and worked out what was happening in their village such that they got sent on a mission to the north.

Once we had agreed the PCs were heading north, I describe some stuff, including a giant wooden steading. There were Scene Distinctions specified. That's what the rules tell the GM to do. It's part of playing the game. It's not some weird thing where we do some precursor to play while playing.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2020)

pemerton said:


> /snip
> 
> I can tell you that I read out the rules - 2 A4 sides - while one of the other group members got us some food. Then I said "How about Boston c 1930" and the others said that was fine. Then the players chose their PCs - that's a name, a job and a description. Then I described a starting situation - given that one of the PCs was a law-firm secretary, one a journalist and one a longshoreman I decided that that was the secretary having to deliver some documents to the docks, where we went on collectively to establish that the journalist happened to be investigating issues about a freight company while the longshoreman was arguing with his superior. (Or something like that - it's a while ago now.)[
> 
> How is that not reading the rules and then playing the game?




Really?  The rules defined Boston c 1930?  The rules had any say in that choice?  Your players never added any concepts?  You followed EXACTLY the steps on those two A4 pages and EVERYTHING in your game was present?  

I don't bloody think so.



> EDIT:
> No one designed a campaign/setting before we played Cthulhu Dark. Nor In a Wicked Age - as per the rules of the game, we consulted The Oracles to find out what was happening in our Wicked Age.




Please stop being obtuse.  I did state, repeatedly, that campaign creation can be done during play.



> When we started our Classic Traveller game I rolled up a starting world after the players rolled up their PCs, and then rolled on the random patron table. The rules aren't silent on these matters - they support both the processes I just described.
> 
> When we started our first Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy games, I had written up 5 pregen PCs following the directions in the Marvel Heroic RP rulebook as influenced by the Cortex+ Hacker's Guide. I deliberately wrote them to suit either Vikings or Samurai. The players voted Vikings, and so we started and worked out what was happening in their village such that they got sent on a mission to the north.
> 
> Once we had agreed the PCs were heading north, I describe some stuff, including a giant wooden steading. There were Scene Distinctions specified. That's what the rules tell the GM to do. It's part of playing the game. It's not some weird thing where we do some precursor to play while playing.




Sent on a mission?  Who created that mission?  What rules did you use to inject that mission into the game?  You are seriously going to tell me that EVERY SINGLE ELEMENT in those games, all those games you played, were EXPLICITLY listed in the game systems you were using?  

Because if they weren't, that means that YOU (or you+your group) created that stuff and that's what you played.  

Or, put it another way.  Could I read those same 2 A4 pieces of paper and play your Boston c1930 game?

Why not? After all, EVERYTHING in the game was included in those two A4 pieces of paper. So, I should be able to easily recreate your game at my table using the same 2 A4 pieces of paper. What's the problem? Why can't I recreate your game using the rules you were using?


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## Numidius (Feb 19, 2020)

Could you read the rules for baseball and recreate a historical match of the Past?


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## Numidius (Feb 19, 2020)

I am actually running the Adventure Present in the Core book of Trail of cthulhu so Yes I believe I Can Play an RPG Simply as Written on the manual

Edit: of course there are instructions on how to create your own adventures.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 19, 2020)

pemerton said:


> This seems to get A Penny for My Thoughts, but that's not a RPG (contra Wikipedia, which I've just discovered classifies it as one). You might try and knock it out based on "shared fiction", but that's not going to be straightforward I don't think.
> 
> So I think your idea of going for core cases and then not fussing too much at the edges makes more sense (it's not like we're administering a RPG taxing statute, so precision isn't essential).
> 
> ...



I think this misses Fiasco.  I'd like a definition that includes games like Fiasco that are clearly roleplaying and clearly games.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 19, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2020)

Numidius said:


> Could you read the rules for baseball and recreate a historical match of the Past?




Sigh. I must not be explaining my point well enough.

ANYONE can pick up the rules for baseball, follow the steps listed in the rules, and play baseball.  For that version of baseball, every single step will be identical in every single game.  One side will pitch until there are three outs, then the other side will pitch.  This will alternate nine times (again, I'm presuming a certain form of baseball, there are variations) and, barring a tied outcome, the game will end.  

Every time.  Without fail.  Everything you need to play that game of baseball is specifically elucidated in those rules.  You will not need to create a single thing.  At no point will the batting team take to the field and run interference.  At no point will the catcher decide to leave the field in the middle of play.  Nothing that any player is allowed to do during that game is not covered by the rules of that game.  No player may change any rule during play.  The umpire cannot suddenly decide that the game should end in the 5th inning because, well, he's tired and it's a good place to stop.

EVERY game of baseball (again, with allowances for variants) will be played IDENTICALLY.

This is not true of any RPG.  Following the rules of that RPG will NOT create a campaign.  The players at the table create that.  The players at the table PLAY THAT campaign,  the one the players at that table created and which cannot be created using the rules of the RPG at another table.  

The second you decide on your setting - Boston c 1930 - you are going beyond the rules.  The rules don't tell you to choose that setting.  The rules tell you what you should do when things are in doubt. But, beyond that, the rules of an RPG don't tell you much at all.  

It is the confluence of the rules of the RPG PLUS the players at that table that create the game that is played.  And that game is always idiosyncratic to that table.  Two tables could be using the exact same RPG rules and yet the two games share virtually nothing in common.  Heck they might not even share genre - that's what the d20 ruleset is all about after all.


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## Numidius (Feb 19, 2020)

@Hussar I get your point, but it is always tricky with metaphors. 
Say "the game" is not actually baseball, which could be Just a metaphor for the combat rules in dnd , instead, and the real game is owning & managing a team. 
Now you have perfect procedures for combat/matches, but no one tells how to manage your team. 

Does it make sense?


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## lowkey13 (Feb 19, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## prabe (Feb 19, 2020)

Numidius said:


> @Hussar I get your point, but it is always tricky with metaphors.
> Say "the game" is not actually baseball, which could be Just a metaphor for the combat rules in dnd , instead, and the real game is owning & managing a team.
> Now you have perfect procedures for combat/matches, but no one tells how to manage your team.
> 
> Does it make sense?




This is perhaps where the evolution of team strategies (front office/team-building) and tactics (on-field decisions) come in. There is a passage quoted at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY, about Walter Johnson in the first quarter of the 20th century winning (I think) three consecutive games in New York, pitching complete games all three times. Modern starting pitchers start every fifth game, and are doing well if they go six of the nine innings of the game. The way the game is played has evolved, but the written rules are very much the same (there are some differences; the pitching mounds were lowered in 1969, for instance).

I would be inclined to call the differences between how tables play the same game (and I think to be fair it would need to be the same edition; there'd be less value in comparing my 5E games to the 1E games @Lanefan runs (if I understand correctly)) more like the differences in how different teams play the game of baseball (since that's the comparison we've been going with for a few pages, now).

Upthread, there was a question about whether one could re-create a game from the past. In baseball print reporting, there's a thing called a line score, which in concert with the rules allows you to just about do that. I'm not sure how that relates to RPGs, but there you are.


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## Numidius (Feb 19, 2020)

Moreover, in a videogame a Player does manage a team, in all its minutia. 
The match itself could be resolved by actually playing it, or just skipping to results by the AI.


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2020)

@Hussar, I don't understand what you're arguing. I can't speak to baseball, but the rules of cricket don't define spin vs fast bowling, nor when to use one or the other. They allude to "leg theory" (bodyline) only obliquely, via the rules around dangerous bowling and field placement. They don't say anything about the difference between a player who is good at batting, one who is good at bowling, and an all-rounder.

Yet cricket teams manage to arrange batting orders, choose bowlers, make decisions about spin vs fast based on player skill, condition of the pitch, condition of the ball, etc. Making those decisions is part of what it is to play cricket. The rules for Classic Traveller have tables to roll on for patron encounters and say that it's the referee's job to decide what the patron wants. The rules for Burning Wheel say _choose a setting and situation _and give some advice on how the participants should go about this. The rules for Cthulhu Dark imply that something similar needs to be done; choosing Boston c 1930 as the setting is part of what it is to play Cthulhu Dark. Just like a cricket team needs to choose who to send in to bat, who should bowl each over, etc. I think most games require participants to make choices, and those choices affect the way the game unfolds and produces its results.

Now maybe every game of baseball is near enough to identical to every other - I don't know, it's not a sport I know very much about. But not every game of cricket is the same. From the rules of cricket you can't reproduce any given match. That would depend on the particular players, their choices, plus external factors like weather, pitch condition, etc. The same thing is true, mutatis mutandis, for Australian football (the only other field sport I know much about). And it's true for RPGs also.

I don't really see how any of this is controversial.


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## prabe (Feb 19, 2020)

pemerton said:


> @Hussar, I don't understand what you're arguing. I can't speak to baseball, but the rules of cricket don't define spin vs fast bowling, nor when to use one or the other. They allude to "leg theory" (bodyline) only obliquely, via the rules around dangerous bowling and field placement. They don't say anything about the difference between a player who is good at batting, one who is good at bowling, and an all-rounder.
> 
> Yet cricket teams manage to arrange batting orders, choose bowlers, make decisions about spin vs fast based on player skill, condition of the pitch, condition of the ball, etc. Making those decisions is part of what it is to play cricket. The rules for Classic Traveller have tables to roll on for patron encounters and say that it's the referee's job to decide what the patron wants. The rules for Burning Wheel say _choose a setting and situation _and give some advice on how the participants should go about this. The rules for Cthulhu Dark imply that something similar needs to be done; choosing Boston c 1930 as the setting is part of what it is to play Cthulhu Dark. Just like a cricket team needs to choose who to send in to bat, who should bowl each over, etc. I think most games require participants to make choices, and those choices affect the way the game unfolds and produces its results.
> 
> ...




Baseball is similar, in that there are enough random (or, more probably, mathematically chaotic) events that literal re-creation is (I would think) practically impossible. As I mentioned above, one can gather a lot of information about sequence of events from a line score, but that's not the same thing as what I think people are talking about, which would be literally getting two teams together to play a game and literally re-creating, say, a game from the 1927 World Series.


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Pemerton, on the other hand, believes that RPG theory helped him, and is essential to good game design, and believes that the theories promulgated on the Forge (since they helped him and have been incorporated, either with recognition, _sub silentio, _or unknowingly for editions prior to the theory such as Moldvay) are universally helpful and provide the basic language (or jargon) to discuss games.



Seriously?

I believe it's contrary to board rules to engage in this sort of imputation. In any case I think it's pretty cheap.

Here's an actual quote, from my first post in this thread:



pemerton said:


> Here's a passage from The Traveller Book (1982, p 123); it is found in a description of types of adventures, and has no equivalent in the 1977 version of Classic Traveller:
> 
> The _choreographed novel_ [my emphasis] involves a setting already thought out by the referee and presented to the players; it may be any of the above settings [ship, location or world], but contains predetermined elements. As such, the referee has already developed characters and setting which bear on the group's activities, and they are guided gently to the proper locations. Properly done, the players never know that the referee has manipulated them to a fore-ordained goal​
> For RPGers who want to use the approach describe in this passage, The Forge has nothing to offer and I don't know of any alternative useful body of criticism. Probably the main reason The Forge has nothing to offer is that The Forge places a great premium on transparency of technique and resolution, whereas the approach set out in the passage just quoted emphasises "gentle guidance" and "manipulation" that the players don't know about. (The Forge calls this _illusionism_.)



I don't think any elaboration is necessary.


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2020)

Ovinomancer said:


> I think this misses Fiasco.  I'd like a definition that includes games like Fiasco that are clearly roleplaying and clearly games.



I don't know Fiasco except as a name, and that it is GM-less. (Or has the participants sharing the GM role?) So it's no surprise that I haven't picked it up!

There's no guarantee you're going to get a descriptive characterisation that will capture all and only what you want - you might have to point to core instances, and then identify their key identifying processes and functions, and then extrapolate from there. Even then you'll still probably get borderline cases (my chemistry is a bit weak, but maybe _is hydrogen a metal_ or something like that might be the analogue).


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Sigh. I must not be explaining my point well enough.
> 
> ANYONE can pick up the rules for baseball, follow the steps listed in the rules, and play baseball.
> 
> ...



Your claim about _being played identically _is true only at a certain level of abstraction. For instance, the number of pitches thrown, or strikes struck, etc will all vary. (In cricket the variations would be in respect of _number of balls bowled _- can vary based on no balls etc, _number of overs bowled_ - can vary based on how long it takes to get the other side out, _number of balls struck_ - will obviously vary based on the skill of the batting team relative to the bowlers, etc.)

Every game of Cthulhu Dark will also be played identically at the appropriate level of abstraction.

This is not true of any RPG.  Following the rules of that RPG will NOT create a campaign.  The players at the table create that.  The players at the table PLAY THAT campaign,  the one the players at that table created and which cannot be created using the rules of the RPG at another table. 



Hussar said:


> The second you decide on your setting - Boston c 1930 - you are going beyond the rules.  The rules don't tell you to choose that setting.



The rules state, or imply, that a setting is to be chosen. They don't say what it is. The rules of cricket state that ball is to be bowled. They don't state whether it should be fast, or slow, or play the leg side or the on side, or aim at bowling out or generating a catch or just wearing down the stamina of the opponent being bowled to.

It doesn't cease to be a game because it demands decision-making by the participants.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 19, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## Umbran (Feb 19, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Umbran does not appreciate theory as applied to RPGs at all; among other reasons, he believes that it does not promote good gaming and does promote unnecessary divisiveness (flame wars, editions wars, and so on).




Incorrect, but I can see how you got there.

I don't appreciate theory developed in isolation, based on anecdotal support and personal opinions of a small group of people, especially when they are dominated by one or two strong personalities.  

I also recognize that you cannot develop a lexicon of terms without an implicit theory underneath it - a lexicon of terms is created when you've found concepts important enough that you've referred to them several times over, and want a shorthand for them.  The discussion of their being relevant to theory has thus already happened before you need to name it.

There are certainly ways to formulate good theory.  They have not, historically, been much present in the RPG space.  We have less theory, and more "personal visions" of RPGs, imho.


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## Umbran (Feb 19, 2020)

prabe said:


> I think we just are hoping we can find a way to talk about RPGs in a way that is generous and helpful and clear.




I want to go back to this, because it is a fine ideal...

But you do not get to "generous and helpful and clear" in the middle of disputes for dominance in the discussion, or fights over being "right".  If the basic response to a point being challenged is annoyance... your result won't be generous, helpful, and clear.


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## prabe (Feb 19, 2020)

Umbran said:


> I want to go back to this, because it is a fine ideal...
> 
> But you do not get to "generous and helpful and clear" in the middle of disputes for dominance in the discussion, or fights over being "right".  If the basic response to a point being challenged is annoyance... your result won't be generous, helpful, and clear.




While I don't mind being quoted as the ideal, here, I'd like to think I've managed to keep any irritation I've felt out of my posts in this thread, at least mostly.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 19, 2020)

prabe said:


> While I don't mind being quoted as the ideal, here, I'd like to think I've managed to keep any irritation I've felt out of my posts in this thread, at least mostly.




Sure.  Though, honestly, the best collaboration comes when there's a level of trust such that you don't end up feeling much irritation at all.  

There's an issue that traditionally messageboard conversations are largely based on the _competition of ideas_, and, because humans are humans, a competition between speakers - the ideas are their proxies. This is not, by its nature, a "generous and helpful" process.  It is based on trying to exclude ideas that are wrong, rather than find ways to include.

In a place where we must acknowledge that we don't have the resources for 5e-playtest style empiricism, approach to good theory would better be more "Yes, and..." and less, "No, you are wrong."


----------



## prabe (Feb 19, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Sure.  Though, honestly, the best collaboration comes when there's a level of trust such that you don't end up feeling much irritation at all.
> 
> There's an issue that traditionally messageboard conversations are largely based on the _competition of ideas_, and, because humans are humans, a competition between speakers - the ideas are their proxies. This is not, by its nature, a "generous and helpful" process.  It is based on trying to exclude ideas that are wrong, rather than find ways to include.
> 
> In a place where we must acknowledge that we don't have the resources for 5e-playtest style empiricism, approach to good theory would better be more "Yes, and..." and less, "No, you are wrong."




I don't *think* I've *been* irritated by or with the conversations in this thread, but I can see how others might have been. I also am aware that irritation is one of my frequent responses to life, and that I might have been irritated at something else and had that bleed into here.

Trust is definitely important. I don't think TRPGs work without it, so I don't think there's any way trying to work out group thoughts about TRPGs can work without it. I don't necessarily think that _trusting someone_ means _never being irritated by someone_, but see my above comments about irritation and life. It's plausible that messageboards aren't the best place for this sort of thinking group thoughts work; it's plausible this can work; I don't see how saying "This can't work" can help this work.

No, we don't have the resources to generate the sort of statistical power that WotC's playtests did. On the other hand, maybe we can refine our personal understandings. Upthread, you seemed to be dismissive of "personal vision," but I think I might prefer something that was a personal vision (or a small group's vision) to something that was so sanded smooth by empiricism that I couldn't get a handle on it. (Note that I like 5E a lot, so it's also possible I might really like a heavily-playtested game.)


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 19, 2020)

The only reason I need to post back and forth about TTRPG design theory is that I enjoy it. I'm not here with a set of preconceived theoretical apparati that I want to sell, or an agenda of any kind. I like hearing other people's points of view and what knobs dials and buttons they think are important.  Even people who's opinions I strongly disagree with are helping me shape what I think and decide what I think is important.

Some of the best games are ones shaped by a strong personal or small group vision anyway. I enjoy D&D, and I play it regularly, but if I didn't have 30+ years of love for the game I really don't think I'd pull it off a shelf and start playing it now. The games I've read more recently that have really grabbed me by the balls and shouted _PLAY ME! _have been different games, stuff like BitD, the Dresden RPG, Burning Wheel and Houses of the Blooded. Those games have a much firmer theoretical underpinning, and I like being able to parse that out and figure out what makes them tick, and which ticks I like enough to file away for my own bag of tricks.


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## Umbran (Feb 19, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Even people who's opinions I strongly disagree with are helping me shape what I think and decide what I think is important.




That's as it should be.  Rare, however, is the public admission of that - "I don't agree fully, but I will shift my thoughts in this way," is almost never seen, as opposed to, 'No, you are wrong, and I will die on this hill."



> Some of the best games are ones shaped by a strong personal or small group vision anyway.




A game is not the same beast as a theory of games.  Do not confuse them.  I am talking about theory development, not dame design.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 19, 2020)

Umbran said:


> That's as it should be.  Rare, however, is the public admission of that - "I don't agree fully, but I will shift my thoughts in this way," is almost never seen, as opposed to, 'No, you are wrong, and I will die on this hill."



In this case I'm fine with it. I'm probably too sarcastic to make it a habit though.  



Umbran said:


> A game is not the same beast as a theory of games.  Do not confuse them.  I am talking about theory development, not game design.



You can do both at once, PbtA is a good example, but yes dad, I know the difference between a game a game design theory. Even theory more broadly needs to start somewhere though, which is why they tend to be named after people or schools. Whether or not they survive the fiery cauldron of public scrutiny is something else of course. Either way, I'm more concerned with _my_ theory, rather than developing a theory that I think other people should adhere to or that needs to be generally descriptive. That first part is something I can quite comfortably manage, at least in part, doing what I'm doing in this thread.


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## practicalm (Feb 19, 2020)

I haven't been able to make comments on this thread until now, but I see the point here is the same that video game designers have been trying to make, a language to discuss games.  This was very big after game designers looked at Christopher Alexanders "A Pattern Language" (1977) and there were some big attempts to build a language where video games would get the same treatment as architecture.

One project is A Pattern Language for Game Design

The idea that Tabletop roleplaying would have a similar pattern language is valid.  There are enough similarities in RPGs that would allow for a pattern language to be created. The key is the abstraction level.  
Just as "A Pattern Language" discusses architecture from planning a building to planning a city, any pattern language for RPGs would also have multiple levels of abstraction and games would be similar at the high level but bifurcate as more detail or lower abstraction was discussed.  

A campaign has a trajectory of behavior from campaign creation, to player creation, to player group formation, to first adventure, through to the nth adventure.  Some campaigns end and have a narrative path and others keep going with multiple narrative paths.

A game session has trajectory of behavior as well, players arriving, recap, continuation of the adventure, back and forth between players and/or GM, to end of session. Players and GM make things happen, players and GM respond, record keeping happens, and characters live or die depending on the what the players and GM do.

There is a pattern language for RPGs and each game will only use some part of that language. Creating it would be a good book.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 20, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> That said, I realize that you have difficulties understanding different perspectives than yours, and as such I unreservedly retract my comment that apparently mischaracterized your opinions as follows:
> 1. RPG theory helped you;
> 2. RPG theory is essential to good game design; and
> 3. You believe in the theories promulgated on the Forge.




I'm going to advance a related position to the one you claim @pemerton holds

1: RPG theory has helped a _lot _of people including me.
2: RPG theory is essential to good game design; designing something without a plan is always going to end up with a mess
3: There is no one true RPG design theory any more than there is one true car design theory. A Tesla roadster, a Volvo estate, a flatbed pickup, and a Formula 1 or Indy 500 car have very different designs and the theory as to what makes a _good_ car (as opposed to the laws of physics they work with) is extremely different. And none of them would be good replacements to for the others.

In the case of the Forge you can more or less split Forge theory into three categories:
1: RPG theory that is right about RPGs as a whole
2: RPG that is wrong about RPGs as a whole
3: RPG theory _that is talking about the types of games that most of the people at The Forge wanted to play_ and not always generally applicable.

To me the success of the Forge (and unlike @Umbran I see it as an overwhelming success) is down to part 3. The Forge coalesced around people who were looking for a couple of specific game styles and were not well served by existing RPGs. Most of them had come from a 90s White Wolf background, having rejected D&D out of hand for not promising to be what they wanted and been completely disappointed by White Wolf games for promising and not delivering (a big part of the thrust of the Gamism part of GNS theory is "Hey guys, what those D&D players are doing is actually pretty cool even if it isn't what we want to do")

And the successes of the Forge have been in two categories, both promised by Vampire and not delivered. Games for narrative change (the sort @innerdude says he doesn't think happen, but Fate does to an extent and Apocalypse World is good at; My Life With Master was the first to do this) and games pushing directly for emotional investment by clean rules prioritising your relationships (Fate does this of course, but so does anything Powered by the Apocalypse, and many of the more famous and infamous games like Bliss Stage).

Essentially The Forge worked because it was looking for chunky pasta sauce in a world with just smooth and spicy - and they knew they were looking for something like chunky pasta sauce. But part of the point of chunky pasta sauce is that it's not what everyone wants; some want smooth and some want spicy.

If we want a new Forge the question is "What do people want from RPGs that is not being delivered well"?


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 20, 2020)

I wasn't online discussing RPGs in the days when the Forge was an active thing, and I've only come to know about it years after the fact. I'm sure a lot of time there was spent in circular arguments and debate, and that very often the process was frustrating and cumbersome and seemingly pointless. 

But, knowing what I know now, and even not being a huge fan of all the theories that came out of the Forge, dismissing its importance seems odd.


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## prabe (Feb 20, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> I wasn't online discussing RPGs in the days when the Forge was an active thing, and I've only come to know about it years after the fact. I'm sure a lot of time there was spent in circular arguments and debate, and that very often the process was frustrating and cumbersome and seemingly pointless.
> 
> But, knowing what I know now, and even not being a huge fan of all the theories that came out of the Forge, dismissing its importance seems odd.




Same here on the timing of my attention. And I agree: Even if you think the Forge was somewhere between misdirected and wrong, it seems difficult to deny its importance.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 20, 2020)

I might not ascribe to Forge theory generally (it's a bit of mess taken as a whole), but there's no denying the enormous impact it had on RPG design. For example, PbtA might not be a product of Forge theory, but it came out of a design process that started with Forge theory and ended up somewhere else.


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## Aldarc (Feb 20, 2020)

The actual theoretical output for the Forge is definitely questionable. But that is ALWAYS the case when it comes to theoretical frameworks for abstract things. How many hundreds of years did people in human history apple the theoretical frameworks of Aristotle and Plato despite evidence to the contrary? 

However, discussion surrounding and in the Forge did generate a lot of innovations to RPGs. Some of the most influential games have come out of this Think Tank. These may not have been the games that the most players were playing, but they were often games that other designers were taking note of. Likewise, those who often felt the recipients of the Forge's scorn (e.g., certain types of D&D players) were unquestionably influenced by the Forge. IMHO, part of the success of the Old School Renaissance movement came from taking the criticism of the Forge seriously and responding in kind to the validity (or lack thereof) of those criticisms. It spurred the OSR to find the language to talk about its game philosophy and the intentionality of its game design. 

I don't exactly think it's some sort of coincidence that there is actually a lot of design, brain-power, and play overlap between the indie story games and the indie OSR movement, a point that probably people in the latter category would likely not want to admit. This is one reason why I am attracted to a number of OSR and OSR-inspired games as well as the story/character-focused indie games (e.g., Fate, Dungeon World/PbtA, Blades in the Dark, etc.). These games often have much a clearer design focus regarding their intended play experience than many mainstream games (e.g., 5e D&D). 

If the Forge succeeded at nothing else, it pushed us to think about how we talk about TTRPG design and play.


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## Umbran (Feb 20, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> But, knowing what I know now, and even not being a huge fan of all the theories that came out of the Forge, dismissing its importance seems odd.




Slightly glib, but demonstrative of the position...

The mullet was an incredibly important hairstyle in its day - it influenced jewelry design, clothing style - all things fashion were influenced by the mullet.

"Importance" is not an unambiguous measure of quality.

Or maybe I should use The Great Depression as an example.  Incredibly important moment in history.  Some excellent things (say, in the world of music) came out of it.  It shaped the world, and does to this day.  That does not mean it was a good thing that we'd want to do.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 20, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Slightly glib, but demonstrative of the position...
> 
> The mullet was an incredibly important hairstyle in its day - it influenced jewelry design, clothing style - all things fashion were influenced by the mullet.
> 
> "Importance" is not an unambiguous measure of quality.




Fair enough. 

Now imagine that someone back in the day walked around to salons and said "I don't see the point in trying new styles and in talking about style choice." 

We might never have had the mullet.


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## Aldarc (Feb 20, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Slightly glib, but demonstrative of the position...
> 
> "Importance" is not an unambiguous measure of quality.



So like D&D?


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## Umbran (Feb 20, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> Now imagine that someone back in the day walked around to salons and said "I don't see the point in trying new styles and in talking about style choice."




Okay.  I'm imagining that.  Now, who is saying something analogous to that here?  Maybe I missed it in the morass.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 20, 2020)

D&D is the mullet of roleplaying. I like it.


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## Umbran (Feb 20, 2020)

Aldarc said:


> So like D&D?




To an extent, yes.


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## TwoSix (Feb 20, 2020)

Quality and importance aren't really correlated.

Plenty of models throughout history have been both the best work possible for the current time period and yet turned out to be wrong, or at least incomplete.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 20, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Okay.  I'm imagining that.  Now, who is saying something analogous to that here?  Maybe I missed it in the morass.




You kind of did by saying that the Forge wasn't very important, and that theory is rarely useful since it gets mired in morass.

But it was mostly just messing with you. Because who can imagine a world without the mullet?


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## Umbran (Feb 20, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> You kind of did by saying that the Forge wasn't very important...




Can you quote me on that?

I believe I referred to it as a, "colossal waste of time".  I don't recall describing it as unimportant.


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## prabe (Feb 20, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Can you quote me on that?
> 
> I believe I referred to it as a, "colossal waste of time".  I don't recall describing it as unimportant.




Can you understand how someone might *think* "colossal waste of time" and "unimportant" meant the same thing?


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 20, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Can you quote me on that?
> 
> I believe I referred to it as a, "colossal waste of time".  I don't recall describing it as unimportant.




I stand corrected!


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## Umbran (Feb 20, 2020)

prabe said:


> Can you understand how someone might *think* "colossal waste of time" and "unimportant" meant the same thing?




Can you understand how, in a thread about why discussing RPG theory is difficult, scrupulously keeping your comments to what someone else actually said should be a thing?


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## lowkey13 (Feb 20, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## Umbran (Feb 20, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> I stand corrected!




And that's fine.  It is okay to come away with the idea that I am thoroughly unimpressed with The Forge in some way, because that's accurate.  But substituting language is a recipe for trouble in any discussion of opposing thoughts.  

The internet is rife with strawmen, some intentional, some not.  Not a single one of them makes the discussion better.


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## prabe (Feb 20, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Can you understand how, in a thread about why discussing RPG theory is difficult, scrupulously keeping your comments to what someone else actually said should be a thing?




That's fair. They might feel equally dismissive, but they need not be literally equivalent.


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## Hussar (Feb 20, 2020)

The issue I'm having here is that people are mistaking minutia with the larger issues.

It doesn't matter that in a game of baseball, this pitch or that play might be different.  The point is, following the rules of baseball will give you pretty much the same results every time.  One side, then the other will take turns fielding or batting for a set number of times until a winner is declared.  Same, I think, as cricket.  

At no point can there be any deviation from that.

And, frankly, it's a bit disingenuous to bring in managing.  Who actually thinks, "Hey, I'm played baseball last weekend" means "Hey, I managed a baseball team"?  

OTOH, my Cthulhu game might start in Boston c1930, run for 10 hours of play time and finish.  Or, it might start in the Antarctic in 2020 a la John Carpenter's The Thing, run for 100 hours of play time and finish.  Or it might start in the year 2837 on a space station, a la Sarah Monette and run for 10 years of play time.  All with the same ruleset.  

And those are laughably called the same games?


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## prabe (Feb 20, 2020)

Hussar said:


> The issue I'm having here is that people are mistaking minutia with the larger issues.
> 
> It doesn't matter that in a game of baseball, this pitch or that play might be different.  The point is, following the rules of baseball will give you pretty much the same results every time.  One side, then the other will take turns fielding or batting for a set number of times until a winner is declared.  Same, I think, as cricket.
> 
> ...




The specific differences might matter in discussion, but it sounds as though they're following the same ruleset, so I'd be inclined to say all those groups were playing the same game. I have a hard time seeing how any other way of talking about it wouldn't make communication harder.


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## Nagol (Feb 20, 2020)

Hussar said:


> The issue I'm having here is that people are mistaking minutia with the larger issues.
> 
> It doesn't matter that in a game of baseball, this pitch or that play might be different.  The point is, following the rules of baseball will give you pretty much the same results every time.  One side, then the other will take turns fielding or batting for a set number of times until a winner is declared.  Same, I think, as cricket.
> 
> ...




In those hypotheticals, the players show in the same room, eat the same snacks, roll the same dice, and have the same "gm describe--> player act-->assign consequence-->gm describe" loop of play.

The cosmetics of play (genre, setting, power level) differ, some details (like episodic vs. continuity and length of campaign) change, but the game remains the same.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 20, 2020)

Umbran said:


> And that's fine.  It is okay to come away with the idea that I am thoroughly unimpressed with The Forge in some way, because that's accurate.  But substituting language is a recipe for trouble in any discussion of opposing thoughts.
> 
> The internet is rife with strawmen, some intentional, some not.  Not a single one of them makes the discussion better.




This is fine, and I respect that opinion. I'm not a huge fan of The Forge myself, although I do like some games whose creation it led to, and so I don't tend to think of it as a waste of time. It helps that my time was not ever spent there. 

I don't feel that me taking your comment of being "a colossal waste of time" as being synonymous with "unimportant" is unscrupulous. That seems a bit of an unfair categorization.

I don't want to further prove your point by getting into a semantic quibble. Suffice it to say I get your opinion, I respect it, and I hope you realize that I in no way meant to miscategorize your stance. I tend toward natural language and generally am happy to use terms with those who've presented them and defined their use, and not worry as much about a consensus.


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## pemerton (Feb 20, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> PbtA might not be a product of Forge theory



Vincent Baker says the opposite of this in the Apocalypse World rulebook.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 20, 2020)

pemerton said:


> Vincent Baker says the opposite of this in the Apocalypse World rulebook.



Actually he said precisely that in his blog post on the design of AW. I might as well have been quoting him.


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## pemerton (Feb 20, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Actually he said precisely that in his blog post on the design of AW. I might as well have been quoting him.



Well then, he contradicts himself!


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## prabe (Feb 20, 2020)

pemerton said:


> Well then, he contradicts himself!




He contains multitudes?


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 20, 2020)

pemerton said:


> Well then, he contradicts himself!



Here's the quote and the link.

"Not pictured is the Forge approach, which appears in several of my games pre-Apocalypse World: a more-or-less specified situation of conflict, freeform character traits, and a universal conflict resolution system.

PbtA represents an approach to RPG design as broad as any of these. Choose two given PbtA games, and you shouldn’t expect them to be any more similar than two point-buy games or two Forge games."
Link


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## pemerton (Feb 20, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Here's the quote and the link.
> 
> "Not pictured is the Forge approach, which appears in several of my games pre-Apocalypse World: a more-or-less specified situation of conflict, freeform character traits, and a universal conflict resolution system.
> 
> ...



Sorry, that doesn't say anything about the influence of Forge theory. _You shouldn't expect them to be any more similar than any two Forge games_ can't entail _not influence by Forge theory_, given that, presumably, any two Forge games _are _influenced by Forge theory.

All it says is that PbtA doesn't involve the specificity of situation found in (say) DitV, In a Wicked Age or Poison'd; doesn't involve a universal resolution system; and doesn't involve freeform traits. In that particular sense it's not a game that exemplifies the "Forge approach". Neither is Burning Wheel - but given the huge acknowledgements given in BW Revised and Gold to Forge games and Forge designers, it would be silly to deny the importance of the Forge to BW.

Here's the quote from AW, p 288: _The entire game design follows from “Narrativism: Story Now” by Ron Edwards. _Taking that at face value, it is clearly not consistent with the claim that AW is independent of Forge theory about RPGing.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 20, 2020)

Who said independent from? I didn't. I said separate but following from. Here's the rest of my post that you snipped:

_but it came out of a design process that started with Forge theory and ended up somewhere else_

Ahh, the perils of post snipping. Baker obviously has a debt to Forge, and obviously thinks PbtA is a different thing. I thought I'd said that pretty clearly. Anyway, not independent, no.


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## Numidius (Feb 21, 2020)

It is fascinating the convoluted, shifting, refining process of game design by Baker, looking at his games in chronological order


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## lowkey13 (Feb 21, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## Hussar (Feb 21, 2020)

Nagol said:


> In those hypotheticals, the players show in the same room, eat the same snacks, roll the same dice, and have the same "gm describe--> player act-->assign consequence-->gm describe" loop of play.
> 
> The cosmetics of play (genre, setting, power level) differ, some details (like episodic vs. continuity and length of campaign) change, but the game remains the same.




Really?

So, in one game, we're playing a really high RP game with tons of intrigue and mystery, and virtually no combat, and in the other game, we're pretty much doing nothing but combat with a bit of talky bits interspersed, and those are the same game?  

A game which lasts 10 hours of play, for the same campaign, has all the same elements as a game that lasts 1000 hours of play, across multiple players?  Those are the same games?  

See, no matter what, in a normal game, the end point is pre-defined.  When you reach point X, the game ends.  But, in an RPG, that simply isn't true.  RPG's don't define the parameters of the end of the game.  At least, not typically.  Granted, there are exceptions - Dread comes to mind - but, those are exceptions, not generally the rule.  

Like all genre definitions, we define by the commonalities, not by the edges.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 21, 2020)

Writing a novel comes to mind, @Hussar . They can be about wildly different things, from “Little Women” to “Perdido Street Station”. They can be just about any length. And so on.

But their crafting is a process. It requires imagination and then the actual work of writing, and related things like editing. No writers will follow all the same processes or use exactly the same tools, but the bones are the same.

In the end, they’ve written a novel. “Little Women” is nothing at all like “Perdido Street Station”, but yet they are both novels.


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## Nagol (Feb 21, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Really?
> 
> So, in one game, we're playing a really high RP game with tons of intrigue and mystery, and virtually no combat, and in the other game, we're pretty much doing nothing but combat with a bit of talky bits interspersed, and those are the same game?
> 
> ...




Yeah, pretty much.  The trappings are different, sure.  The individual challenges differ from moment to moment, but it's the same game under the hood.

"Heroes who defend their home from external threats" can describe a group protecting Earth from Galactus level threats just as easily as a group of knights defending a isolated manor house in Arthurian times.  It can describe politicians just as well and warriors.  The cosmetics change, but the play stays the same.

The end point for open-ended RPGS is "when the game ends by consensus or TPK".  Much like tennis the end point is defined by a relative measure and can go on and on and on.

The other way I've seen it measured is "We won because we get to continue." A game is won at the end of every session that allow continuation.  There are just a lot of potential matches.


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## Lanefan (Feb 21, 2020)

Neonchameleon said:


> If we want a new Forge the question is "What do people want from RPGs that is not being delivered well"?



What about "What do we want from RPGs that *is* being delivered well"?


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## Lanefan (Feb 21, 2020)

Such exposure as I've had to the Forge and some of the key people involved leads me mostly toward thinking their main contribution was (and still is?) to add a thick and entirely unnecessary layer of ivory-tower pretention and maybe even arrogance to a field of study and discussion - that being RPG theory and design - much better conducted in the pub with a bunch of gaming friends over numerous beers; with the results of said study and discussion never intended to influence anything or anyone beyond those present and their immediate circle.


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## prabe (Feb 21, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> What about "What do we want from RPGs that *is* being delivered well"?




That hardly seems like the sort of question someone dedicated to revolutionizing TRPGs would ask. ;-)


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## Lanefan (Feb 21, 2020)

prabe said:


> That hardly seems like the sort of question someone dedicated to revolutionizing TRPGs would ask. ;-)



Seems simpler somehow to fisrt determine what doesn't need messing with before moving on to that which (maybe) does.


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## prabe (Feb 21, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> Seems simpler somehow to fisrt determine what doesn't need messing with before moving on to that which (maybe) does.




That's reasonable, and in some ways obvious, in the only fix what's broken say. I was thinking more that the Forge, from what very little I've read about it, seems to have been motivated by dissatisfaction (mostly with some specific games they didn't feel had played in ways that kept the promises in the cover copy). In addition to some flippancy, I was gesturing at the fact that people satisfied with what they have may be less likely to examine why they're satisfied with it. It's actually worthwhile to explore that, I think.


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## FrogReaver (Feb 21, 2020)

Hussar said:


> And, frankly, it's a bit disingenuous to bring in managing.  Who actually thinks, "Hey, I'm played baseball last weekend" means "Hey, I managed a baseball team"?




Probably the manger of said baseball team


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## FrogReaver (Feb 21, 2020)

Hussar said:


> OTOH, my Cthulhu game might start in Boston c1930, run for 10 hours of play time and finish.  Or, it might start in the Antarctic in 2020 a la John Carpenter's The Thing, run for 100 hours of play time and finish.  Or it might start in the year 2837 on a space station, a la Sarah Monette and run for 10 years of play time.  All with the same ruleset.
> 
> And those are laughably called the same games?




Kind of sounds like minutia except to the well versed sports fan or rpg fan...


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## Arilyn (Feb 21, 2020)

I like reading and listening to discussions on game theory, from the "pretentious, high brow" Forge contributors to down to earth players jawing over beer and pizza. 

I like looking at games from different perspectives, and trying some new ideas for my own table. My creativity is stretched and my skills honed through differing techniques. 

Therefore, I believe these kinds of discussions and efforts to hammer out a common language and definition of terms are worthwhile. The debates are worthwhile, even if arguments do get heated. I know we joke about "nerd rage," but have you seen the fights over early human fossils?  We could be worse.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 21, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> Seems simpler somehow to fisrt determine what doesn't need messing with before moving on to that which (maybe) does.




Different people want different things from games, so determining what doesn’t need messing with isn’t going to be any more definitive. 

You and I both play D&D, but from our discussions, we seem to want and expect different things from it. Which is absolutely fine, of course, but any discussion about what D&D does well is going to have that difference baked in.

To then go further with it and look for what RPGs do well, and it would likely be an even further divide.


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## Hussar (Feb 21, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> Writing a novel comes to mind, @Hussar . They can be about wildly different things, from “Little Women” to “Perdido Street Station”. They can be just about any length. And so on.
> 
> But their crafting is a process. It requires imagination and then the actual work of writing, and related things like editing. No writers will follow all the same processes or use exactly the same tools, but the bones are the same.
> 
> In the end, they’ve written a novel. “Little Women” is nothing at all like “Perdido Street Station”, but yet they are both novels.




But, there is a difference here.  We can look at the novel, point to similarities in structure and fairly easily discuss the difference between the novel form, and say, short story or sonnet.  Now, fair enough, at what point does a novelette become a novel is a bit of semantic navel gazing that serves very little purpose.  But, as an art form, we can fairly confidently state that X is a novel.  At least, we can do so for the stuff that falls in the middle of the form.  Around the edges, things get a bit fuzzier, but, that's fine.

So, no, novels cannot be "of any length".  And, since novels generally follow similar narrative structures, we can fairly often point to this or that work and call it a novel.

But, apparently, something that has no mechanically mandated end point is identical in form to something that ALWAYS has a mechanically mandated end point.    Something where the players are given a (probably fairly short) list of rules approved actions at every given point of the game is no different than something where the players have the option of taking any action and the rules consist of a series of if/then resolutions.  In a standard game, the rules tell me, at every point in that game, what I can and cannot do.  Sure, I can choose to throw hard or soft, but, at no point can I choose NOT to throw in Cricket.  I cannot walk down to the other end, past the batter, and kick over the wicket, can I?  If I'm the pitcher (bowler?), I MUST throw the ball, down that line.  I have no other options.  

There are very, very few points of must in an RPG.  At any point in time, the player can choose pretty much any action imaginable, and the rules will simply tell you how to adjudicate that action.  Yes, there is that loop of play - RPG's ARE games after all.  No one is denying that RPG's are games.  And, all games share that - turn taking of some manner.  But, where the difference, for me anyway, lies is that the rules in an RPG don't tell you what to do.  They tell you how to adjudicate, but, that's about it.  It would be like a game of baseball where there are no rules whatsoever, except the strike zone rule.  Everything else the two (or more) teams make up on the spot.  And what these two teams make up will be idiosyncratic to those two teams and virtually impossible to recreate by any other two teams.  Even the size of the teams might vary.  Number of bases are up to the two teams.  Distances, size of ball, size and type of bat, etc.  All would be created by the players.  The only point of similarity between two different games is the adjudication of the strike zone.

THAT'S what RPG's are.  A list of adjudications without any prescriptive rules that the players then use to create a shared narrative.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 21, 2020)

Hussar said:


> There are very, very few points of must in an RPG.  At any point in time, the player can choose pretty much any action imaginable, and the rules will simply tell you how to adjudicate that action.  Yes, there is that loop of play - RPG's ARE games after all.  No one is denying that RPG's are games.  And, all games share that - turn taking of some manner.  But, where the difference, for me anyway, lies is that the rules in an RPG don't tell you what to do.  They tell you how to adjudicate, but, that's about it.




But they do tell you what to do. And no, a player can't choose any action imaginable. The rules say the player will declare what his or her character does on his or her turn. 

The player describes the characters action. That's what the rules say, and that's what happens at the table. Every single player's turn is to declare the action they want their character to take. 

The characters may have many more options to them.....constrained only by fictional positioning, and perhaps a handful of other rules. The characters are not limited by the rules (or not as limited, at least) but the players are.



Hussar said:


> THAT'S what RPG's are.  A list of adjudications without any prescriptive rules that the players then use to create a shared narrative.




Despite not really agreeing with your "creation engine" theory, I don't think I disagree with this summary. Although I think there are prescriptive elements in most RPGs....but they vary by game, certainly.


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## Umbran (Feb 21, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> You and I both play D&D, but from our discussions, we seem to want and expect different things from it. Which is absolutely fine, of course, but any discussion about what D&D does well is going to have that difference baked in.




Yes, but it is probably necessary.  And.. I betcha that the space of commonality is far larger than many of us think. 

Also... folks should think outside their own preferences a little bit.  There is, "I like this," and there's "This is not my bag, but I can see how this would serve other people well."  If you cannot accept serving the needs of people who aren't exactly like you... the market for your theory or other creations will be _exceedingly_ small.


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## Nagol (Feb 21, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> What about "What do we want from RPGs that *is* being delivered well"?




Ah!  The whole "let's define the baby we keep it as we lose the bathwater" approach! The usual downside is no one agrees where the baby ends (maybe it's peeing?).


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 21, 2020)

Hussar said:


> THAT'S what RPG's are.  A list of adjudications without any prescriptive rules that the players then use to create a shared narrative.



I think we can afford to be more nuanced than simply that, although I don't strongly disagree with that definition. Here's something with a few more knobs and dials that I think works pretty well:

These are the three rules:

1) Role-playing is an interactive process of defining and re-defining the state, properties and contents of an imaginary game world. 

2) The power to define the game world is allocated to participants of the game. The participants recognize the existence of this power hierarchy. 

3) Player-participants define the game world through personified character constructs, conforming to the state, properties and contents of the game world. 

There are also four descriptors that are helpful but not always true:

i) Typically the decisive power to define the decisions made by a free-willed character construct is given to the player of the character. 

ii) The decisive defining power that is not restricted by character constructs is often given to people participating in game master roles. 

iii) The defining process is often governed by a quantitative game ruleset. 

iv) The information regarding the state of the game world is often disseminated hierarchically, in a fashion corresponding with the power structure of the game. 

From this article by Markus Montola.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 21, 2020)

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## Fenris-77 (Feb 21, 2020)

Scandinavia in general seems to be a hotspot for well written RPG theory. I'd recommend reading that whole article for anyone who's interested in the thread topic and hasn't already read it.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 21, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Yes, but it is probably necessary.  And.. I betcha that the space of commonality is far larger than many of us think.




Oh for sure. I wasn't meaning to imply we can't discuss similarities across games.....I think we absolutely should. I just think that "what D&D does well" is still going to result in a lot of difference of opinion. And that's not a problem, just an observation.



Umbran said:


> Also... folks should think outside their own preferences a little bit.  There is, "I like this," and there's "This is not my bag, but I can see how this would serve other people well."  If you cannot accept serving the needs of people who aren't exactly like you... the market for your theory or other creations will be _exceedingly_ small.




Sure. I like all kinds of games, myself, but I know my exposure to games is not as great as many folks here. I simply don't have the time. Fate, for instance, is a prominent game that I have no personal experience with at this point. I plan on picking up a copy and reading it just for greater understanding when people discuss it here, but the need isn't as great knowing it's likely not going to be played at my table any time soon.....we have a queue of games we're waiting to play. 

I can say this, I absolutely have benefited from discussion here in that it has led me to look at more games, and to examine what works for a game and why. It's something I feel has impacted my RPGing in a positive way, and I would recommend more folks do it.


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## Aldarc (Feb 21, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> Fate, for instance, is a prominent game that I have no personal experience with at this point. I plan on picking up a copy and reading it just for greater understanding when people discuss it here, but the need isn't as great knowing it's likely not going to be played at my table any time soon.....we have a queue of games we're waiting to play.



FYI, Fate Core (and Fate Accelerated) is Pay What You Want on DriveThruRPG and you can also find most of the contents for these two games plus a handful of their other works on the Fate SRD.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 21, 2020)

Aldarc said:


> FYI, Fate Core (and Fate Accelerated) is Pay What You Want on DriveThruRPG and you can also find most of the contents for these two games plus a handful of their other works on the Fate SRD.




And now I have Fate. Thanks for the heads up, Aldarc!


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## lowkey13 (Feb 21, 2020)

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## hawkeyefan (Feb 21, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Good critical theory (or good _criticism_ in general) can focus on what works (@Lanefan ) as well as what doesn't work.
> 
> When you apply it to what you're doing, often forcing yourself to consider, "Why does this game feel right to me," or "Why do I not like this mechanic in that game?" you are starting the process of interrogation that should lead to a better play experience.
> 
> ...




Yes, I agree with a lot of this. I certainly didn't mean for my comment to @Lanefan about how he and I enjoy D&D in different ways to imply there are not also some ways in which we both like it. But that seems to be what's happened. He and I have talked a good amount on the boards, and although we often disagree, there are also plenty of points on which we do agree. 

I think the only thing I disagree with in your post above is that I don't think most folks are trying to universalize a preference. I think that what happens is that people state their preference, sometimes very strongly so, and that can rub others the wrong way, and so they get defensive. 

There's a weird phenomenon where if something is offered as a negative in a contextual way, fans of that thing will deny that it is true. But if the same element is mentioned in a positive way, fans will agree.

It comes from both sides of the discussion, honestly. Folks need to be able to state their preference without making it seem like it's the only possible way, and they also need to be able to hear the opinions of others without feeling like their own is being maligned or put down in some way.


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## Aldarc (Feb 21, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Good critical theory (or good _criticism_ in general) can focus on what works (@Lanefan ) as well as what doesn't work.
> 
> The only issue that I sometimes see is the attempt to _universalize a preference_, which fails to account for the observable phenomenon that other people are not you, and may have different preferences.



My preference for any RPG theory would be one that's descriptive rather than any theoretical model is prescriptive or that imposes a sense of normativity on games. This was arguably one of the problems with the Forge, in that others felt that its criticisms were arguing for a normative perspective on what game should be, which you even touch upon this in the Is/Ought section (#4) of your original post. (Though this normative sense of what games should be is not exclusive to the Forge, but also found in a number of other TTRPG communities: e.g., OSR, story/narrative games, etc.).


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## pemerton (Feb 21, 2020)

Hussar said:


> at no point can I choose NOT to throw in Cricket.  I cannot walk down to the other end, past the batter, and kick over the wicket, can I?  If I'm the pitcher (bowler?), I MUST throw the ball, down that line.  I have no other options.



Actually, if you throw that's a no ball. And you're a "chucker" (do Americans have the slang "to chuck" meaning "to throw"?)

Bowling has strict rules about how straight the arm must be throughout the delivery (not utterly, but very).


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## lowkey13 (Feb 21, 2020)

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## hawkeyefan (Feb 21, 2020)

@lowkey13 That's a good way to put it, and I think I agree. People do tend to approach topics from their preference. I suppose what I mean is that their excitement or joy with something can sometimes come across the wrong way, and that those same people would likely be the first to say "oh, yeah, of course" when someone reminds them that there are other opinions. 

I don't know if the intent is always to imply "my way is best" so much as the fact that "I dig my way" makes it easy to mistake my intent. If that's at all clear


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## lowkey13 (Feb 21, 2020)

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## darkbard (Feb 21, 2020)

pemerton said:


> (do Americans have the slang "to chuck" meaning "to throw"?)




Yes. Yes, we do. It gets used all the time in American football slang, but I rarely hear it used when describing baseball, despite its closer similarities to cricket. Which isn't to say it doesn't get used when describing baseball but that one usually hears terms like "hurl" or "throw[er]" to connotate power over finesse rather than "chuck."

/linguistic tangent


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## Hussar (Feb 21, 2020)

Yeet?


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## pemerton (Feb 22, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Baker obviously has a debt to Forge, and obviously thinks PbtA is a different thing. I thought I'd said that pretty clearly. Anyway, not independent, no.



Not only _not independent _but _follows from_. It's right there in the rulebook - it follows from Edwards's "Story Now" essay. Unless you think that Baker was wrong when he wrote that.

In the blog you link Baker outlines what he calls the _Forge approach_ to design: "a more-or-less specified situation of conflict, freeform character traits, and a universal conflict resolution system". AW is not that, but that approach is not the only thing that can follow from Forge theory. What's the basis for this claim? Besides the fact that it's almost self-evident, that neither AW nor BW is an instance of such an approach, yet both are clearly derived from thinking at the Forge about (what is called) "narrativist design".


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## pemerton (Feb 22, 2020)

hawkeyefan said:


> It helps that my time was not ever spent there.



I wonder how many people posting in this thread, or those who assert that The Forge is a waste of time, ever actually posted there?

I never did. I read a number of essays, and some threads that looked interesting and useful.


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## Arilyn (Feb 22, 2020)

pemerton said:


> I wonder how many people posting in this thread, or those who assert that The Forge is a waste of time, ever actually posted there?
> 
> I never did. I read a number of essays, and some threads that looked interesting and useful.



I never posted either, but have also enjoyed the writing and posts on The Forge. Sure, Edwards can be abrasive but he contributed a lot to getting the indie movement up and running. I have the annotated edition of Sorcerer, which has great insights into the design of the game. Troll Babe is a marvel of a streamlined rpg. 

The Forge was originally set up as an aid for designers to self publish. Edwards shut it down when he felt that goal was reached. And yes, it became a repository of indie theory and discussion. But that was pretty cool. Definitely not a waste of space or time.


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## Numidius (Feb 22, 2020)

Arilyn said:


> I have the annotated edition of Sorcerer, which has great insights into the design of the game. Troll Babe is a marvel of a streamlined rpg.




I'm gonna point out also Elfs, from
Edwards, with its humourous take on actor/author stances right in the stats on char sheets of those little, pranky elfs.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 22, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Well, on this I would add a caveat. I think people do universalize preferences. Not just in RPGs, but in general. It's part of human condition.




I think this is true a lot of the time. 

Recently I've begun to think that the reason these discussions are so difficult to have is actually the medium of forums and social media. I've noticed a tendency in myself and others, when posting in a discussion like this one, to see it more as a debate than a discussion. And it is almost like a game where a person posts something and you have to post a response that has the aim of moving you towards a win condition. However, when I talk with the same people face to face (say on Skype or in person) it is always more of a conversation, and there is more mutual empathy and understanding. Additionally there is less of a tendency for people to box themselves into strange stances. I've also noticed if you go to a person's youtube channel, instead of reading what they post on a blog or in a forum, the effect is completely different. Not saying we shouldn't have these discussions on forums. But lately I've been getting a lot more out of live conversations with people than from forum threads.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 22, 2020)

pemerton said:


> Not only _not independent _but _follows from_. It's right there in the rulebook - it follows from Edwards's "Story Now" essay. Unless you think that Baker was wrong when he wrote that.
> 
> In the blog you link Baker outlines what he calls the _Forge approach_ to design: "a more-or-less specified situation of conflict, freeform character traits, and a universal conflict resolution system". AW is not that, but that approach is not the only thing that can follow from Forge theory. What's the basis for this claim? Besides the fact that it's almost self-evident, that neither AW nor BW is an instance of such an approach, yet both are clearly derived from thinking at the Forge about (what is called) "narrativist design".



The blog post makes it pretty clear that over here you have Forge games and then over here is PbtA, which is a different thing according to Baker. The fact that Baker might owe a debt to Narrativist design theory at some point in his development as a designer doesn't mean that Baker is always and forever forced to make 'Forge' games. He thinks it's different enough to make a point of it, but apparently you want to read something else into that? I don't get it. 

He took some ideas first examined in Forge theory and then did his own thing with them. Forge theory identified Narrativist as an idea, but doesn't have a monopoly on it. Perhaps I'm missing something about your argument, but I read it and it sounds like you're saying Jaques Derrida's Deconstruction should be read entirely in light of the debt he owes to Lacan, or Heidegger, or whomever. I'm not trying to directly equate RPGs with literature, but that was the comparison that jumped to mind first.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 24, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## aramis erak (Feb 25, 2020)

In Re AW and the Forge...

Having tried several "Forge Games" and read many more....

It's a reaction to the forge overall... but it also walks away from the Forge's overall evolution.

The Forge wasn't bad early on. The examination provided by the GSN model in the early days is, in point of fact, brilliant. Three different approaches, all of which

_Narrativism: Story Now _is also an excellent diatribe on how to get that particular type of play laser focused.

The problem with the Forge wasn't the attempt to create a theory...
Nor was it that it didn't get good results for a subset of games...

It was ignoring that the theory wasn't a good fit for many outsider the Forge's community. It was an ever-tightening spiral of self-selection of yes-men rejecting evidence that didn't support their current theory.

Any theorizing that rejects evidence to the contrary is bad theorizing. And, I can say from personal experience, Ron refused to accept points of view that didn't fit his big theory. To the point of telling me I didn't know what I liked, when a game designer had invited me to participate in a playtest which was hosted at the Forge. I knew very well what I did and didn't like about the game in playtest, but Ron felt obliged to accuse me of deceit and ignorance _of my own mind_.  And of falsifying data from my players.

I've never been back to the Forge Forums since that day. I sent my later reports direct, via email, to the designer.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 25, 2020)

aramis erak said:


> _Narrativism: Story Now _is also an excellent diatribe on how to get that particular type of play laser focused.
> 
> The problem with the Forge wasn't the attempt to create a theory...
> Nor was it that it didn't get good results for a subset of games...
> ...




On the other hand it is literally mathematically proven that any theory big enough to contain arithmetic has propositions we can't know whether  are true or false. And human nature or even the subset used in roleplaying is far messier and more complex as well as less rigidly grounded than that.

The first thing that GNS theory does very right is in saying "there are multiple different reasons to do things. What the gamists over there are doing is pretty cool even if it's not what we want to do." And if you're trying to create something less bland than apple sauce you should always be aware that not everyone is the target audience. Any theorizing that claims to cover absolutely everyone or all circumstances is either incredible theorizing or more normally very bad theorizing.

That said any theorizing that claims to cover absolutely everyone or all circumstances is normally bad theorizing. Giving feedback of the sort you received is both impolite and pretty clearly putting the cart before the horse in terms of theory.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 25, 2020)

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## Neonchameleon (Feb 25, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Dude. You can't apply Gödel's incompleteness theorems to RPG theory. That's .... yeah, that doesn't work.
> 
> Any stoned undergraduate can read Gödel, Escher, Bach; but it takes a sober postgraduate to understand that the application is limited to formal axiomatic systems.




Dude. You can if you know what you are doing. Or more accurately you can show that even if certain approaches were tried and every single other reason for not trying them was ignored they'd still end up not doing what people want them to. It's a good "Dead end" marker in a whole lot of places.

Any half-stoned first year undergraduate can say "not the right field" - but there will always be people who think they can make a formal axiomatic system where one just isn't meant to go. The use of Godel is that it deals with such approaches by accepting the premise and then showing that that still won't take things where people want to go. Meanwhile just arguing about the premise  gets in an argument about the premise, and that seldom produces more than an argument.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 25, 2020)

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## Aldarc (Feb 25, 2020)

I kinda think of GNS Theory much as I would the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It’s fun to think about but no one should treat it seriously, especially as an actual theory for games. And like MBTI, people have a tendency to weaponize it against others and as a shield for their preferences. “Oh, that is such a INFJ thing to say.” or “ESTPs are the worst!” There are other psychological models that are worth pursuing, much as there are likely better TTRPG models worth pursuing.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 25, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> No. You can’t.
> 
> This is complete gobbledygook. RPG theory is not a formal axiomatic system. It’s these types of category errors, boldly (and baldly) asserted that I strongly disagree with, and why I specifically avoided the issue of this particular theory in the OP.
> 
> .... not that it did any good.




RPG theory is not a formal axiomatic system - but a good way of nailing certain arguments completely closed is to say "Even if it was everything you want it to be and more it still wouldn't do what you want"


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 25, 2020)

Neonchameleon said:


> RPG theory is not a formal axiomatic system - but a good way of nailing certain arguments completely closed is to say "Even if it was everything you want it to be and more it still wouldn't do what you want"



That's... not it.  Incompleteness theory essentially says that it's impossible for a formal, logical system to justify itself.  Not that it can't be justified, but that it cannot be justified from within the construct.  *If *you could apply it to RPG theory, what it would say is that you cannot prove RPG theory from within RPG theory using RPG theory.  RPG theory would be incomplete in that it could not justify itself.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 25, 2020)

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## Nagol (Feb 25, 2020)

Neonchameleon said:


> RPG theory is not a formal axiomatic system - but a good way of nailing certain arguments completely closed is to say "Even if it was everything you want it to be and more it still wouldn't do what you want"



The incompleteness theorem doesn't do that though.  It states, roughly, a system will have truths that the system itself cannot prove to be true and one of those truths is whether the system is actually mathematically consistent. It gives no indication what other truths will be outside the realm of the premises and the model can still be proved consistent so long as one can use external tools to do so.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 25, 2020)

Well, I thought I was winning because I used the fewest words, but it turns out I just used smaller words, as @Nagol and I are tied at 72 words a piece. (No, I didn't count them manually, there's internet for that.)


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## Lanefan (Feb 26, 2020)

This is starting to sound like the type of conversation I have at the pub after seven beers.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 26, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> This is starting to sound like the type of conversation I have at the pub after seven beers.



And you, as a DM, earned every one of those seven beers. I got next..


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## lowkey13 (Feb 26, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## prabe (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> You call yourselves optimizers? Seven beers?
> 
> Wild Turkey 101, intravaneously.
> 
> Gobble gobble.




If those seven beers were Spaten Optimators, I'd expect someone to be optimizing the floor ...


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## Beleriphon (Feb 26, 2020)

I have a question, having not read 7 pages of back and forth. RPGs are ultimately games right? They aren't passive entertainment like movies or TV, nor are they non-interactive entertainment like books. D&D and its ilk are much more like videogames than books in so far as the users are active participants in the action.

Why aren't we using the terminology of formal games theory and study? I know that game theory is generally about mathematics not design/function of how games actually work, but there are studies about designing games and why people want to play them, how they play them, and what the outcomes are and how judge those outcomes.

For example, Settlers of Catan has more in common with D&D as a game more than_ Lord of the Rings_ ever could. I could compare the two games in terms of inputs and outputs and judge how effective they are at achieving the stated outputs versus say the actual outputs.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 26, 2020)

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## Aldarc (Feb 26, 2020)

Beleriphon said:


> I have a question, having not read 7 pages of back and forth. RPGs are ultimately games right? They aren't passive entertainment like movies or TV, nor are they non-interactive entertainment like books. D&D and its ilk are much more like videogames than books in so far as the users are active participants in the action.
> 
> Why aren't we using the terminology of formal games theory and study? I know that game theory is generally about mathematics not design/function of how games actually work, but there are studies about designing games and why people want to play them, how they play them, and what the outcomes are and how judge those outcomes.
> 
> For example, Settlers of Catan has more in common with D&D as a game more than_ Lord of the Rings_ ever could. I could compare the two games in terms of inputs and outputs and judge how effective they are at achieving the stated outputs versus say the actual outputs.



Probably because some RPG fans don't like being reminded that Roleplaying Games are games and not some form of high art, particularly those who view them as either a stage for their thespian accolades or GMs who are novel-writing-by-proxy.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 26, 2020)

Beleriphon said:


> For example, Settlers of Catan has more in common with D&D as a game more than_ Lord of the Rings_ ever could. I could compare the two games in terms of inputs and outputs and judge how effective they are at achieving the stated outputs versus say the actual outputs.






lowkey13 said:


> No. I would dispute that. Settlers of Catan is a board game; a slightly complicated one, one that involves strategy and is not "perfect information" nor "deterministic" (very specific terms), but is still very different than the heuristics and critical theory one would apply to an RPG.




I've quoted @Beleriphon above for reference. I find it interesting that you'd disagree that D&D has more in common with Catan than with Lord of the Rings. I agree that a board game and a RPG will have different processes, but so would reading a novel and playing a RPG.

I'm curious if you feel that D&D has more in common with a novel than with another type of game, or if you were just disagreeing with the comparison of D&D and Catan.

Although not a perfect comparison by any means, I'd lean more toward lumping D&D and Catan together than I would D&D and LotR. Even just the description indicates a pretty big alignment.....you play a boardgame, you play a RPG, you read a novel.



lowkey13 said:


> Finally, while there are basic approaches to videogames (say, which are much closer matches than boardgames), even these are necessarily restricted within specific areas; comparing the examples of Journey, Candy Crush, Binding of Isaac, Call of Duty: MW, Civ V, Ghost of Tsushima, the Return of Obra Din, God of War, and Tetris Effect should indicate pretty quickly that the qualities that are necessary in one game are not necessary (or sufficient) in another.
> 
> What works for a LARP may not work for D&D may not work for BiTD may not work for another RPG.




Would you say that RPGs have a broader range of categories than video games? 

I agree that different approaches may work for one type of game over another, but I don't know if that means there is no useful way to compare them. Or that there isn't enough mutual ground to apply some of the same analysis.


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## Beleriphon (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Game theory (as a term) is specific to a branch of math, not to critical theory about games. There is a burgeoning field of videogame critical theory, however.




While game theory is certain a math derivative, the concepts could apply. Particular quantum game theory. Mind you that's a whole thing that is just getting started.

Remember, that game theory is also about decision making and logic, both things that can apply to an RPG. That said, I don't think its the best existing theory to look at for inspiration.



> No. I would dispute that. Settlers of Catan is a board game; a slightly complicated one, one that involves strategy and is not "perfect information" nor "deterministic" (very specific terms), but is still very different than the heuristics and critical theory one would apply to an RPG.
> 
> Finally, while there are basic approaches to videogames (say, which are much closer matches than boardgames), even these are necessarily restricted within specific areas; comparing the examples of Journey, Candy Crush, Binding of Isaac, Call of Duty: MW, Civ V, Ghost of Tsushima, the Return of Obra Din, God of War, and Tetris Effect should indicate pretty quickly that the qualities that are necessary in one game are not necessary (or sufficient) in another.
> 
> What works for a LARP may not work for D&D may not work for BiTD may not work for another RPG.




Yes Catan is a board game, but it is still a game, played as a group at a table. At its very core is the idea of a group activity governed by rules easy enough to be expressed in a shortish book. Like and RPG, now that isn't to say they are the same, because they aren't, but my point was that two games have more in common than a game and a novel, even if one of those games emulates the genre of novel. I recognize that Catan isn't chess any more than D&D is chess.

I do agree that for the reasons why RPGs are played at all video games have some critical thought on that topic already, and since they're interactive the categories tend to work well. The Angry GM has a pretty good break down of the categories and how they apply to RPGs vis-a-vis video games.

To clear though, you mean deterministic in the way one could in theory play the same game of chess over and over as the are only so may prescribed moves, and using the same ones every time will end in the same result. And perfect information in that the players of chess can see every move and know what their opponent can do and has done at every turn. Compared to Catan where there are hidden cards, and randomness via dice. At their core RPGs are stochastic games with imperfect information. In a lot of ways RPGs are Assymetrical-Super-Poker-on-Steroids. The game is one of stochastic perfect information for a GM (where one exists) and stochastic imperfect information for the players.

In the end my point is ultimately that in the G part of RPG part is the most important part (either the game or grenade, take your pick). In fact, I learned something about terms for categories of games without talking about RPGs directly, since they're still games and fall into broader categories which have specific terms that can apply.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 26, 2020)

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## lowkey13 (Feb 26, 2020)

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## Aldarc (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> But RPGs are not, at their core, "stochastic games with imperfect information" for the simple reason that RPGs, unlike board games, require adjudication that must be *determined by either an authority (GM) or in some cases, by other players, and cannot be determined solely by reference to rules.*



So Iron Sworn is not a TTRPG by this metric?


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## Beleriphon (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> There are many people that would disagree with that; again, it is great that it works for you, but others might not believe that this is about rpGs, and prefer to discuss RPgs.
> 
> Or, put another way, some people like Gygax, some like Arneson, Some like D&D 3e, some like Amber diceless. Heck, some people prefer LARPing and some use RPGs for therapeutic purposes ... in fact, regardless of anything else, most people would note that the biggest issue in explaining D&D in the early days was trying to explain a game without a "win" condition.




I'd argue regardless of why a player chooses to engage with a game, it is still game. In fact, one of the essential components of RPGs is that they are games, with rules. In fact _Who's Line is it Anyways_ (the improv TV show) is a form of RPG, there is specific scenario laid out (usually absurd) and some pretty basic rules about how the scenario will be either resolved or what the actors need to do in the scenario. That is clearly heavy on the RP part, but it isn't just playing a role, it is still has some rules regardless of how flimsy.

I'm not suggesting that the RP part of RPG isn't important, is it (in both the D&D and grenade sense again); however, without it being a game we're evaluating the RP on the same merits I'd use to evaluate a play or a movie, since we're back to not worrying about a game. If we want to have a RPG theory and critique in the way we can evaluate film then the very notion of RPGs being a type of game is really, really important.

Looking at the types of games that are available and expanding on that is necessary, since there is already a whole field of study into the types of games that exist. There are already asymmetrical games, RPGs tend to be an example of them. Same way I said it was stochatisc and imperfect knowledge, except the odd RPG that isn't. Amber Diceless for example would be deterministic and imperfect knowledge (IIRC the way challenges are resolved).

I supposed my point is thus: in evaluating and discussing a board game is it more important to focus on the qualities of the board a board, or should we discuss it terms of a game and how the board informs the game qualities? Do people engage with a board game because it has a board, or because it is a game? RPGs work the same way, players are playing a game, the particulars of why are important and worth discussing but they're still playing a game at the end of the day.

If we spin that thought out, does the qualify of Wrigley Field have any impact on baseball as a game? We can discuss how Wrigley Field affects the way baseball is played there, but does that specific park affect how baseball as a game is played in principle?


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> ...and you play golf, too. Doesn't mean that I think that golf has a lot in common with Catan, other than they are both the answer to the question, "What provides you an excuse to drink?"
> 
> I think RPGs are a poor match for a lot of other things that we currently have; if they were a great match, then we wouldn't have arguments about it! But ... elements of acting, of improv, of literary sensibility, or games, of interactivity, of decision/making processes, and even art can play a role in RPGs to a greater or lesser extent.
> 
> ...




First, off....I do not play golf. 

But I do think that even sports will have some commonalities with other games that can be used for the kind of analysis we're talking about. There will be differences, as well, and areas of one that are too different to be of much use for comparison. But these things change and shift over time. Who would have thought that the advent of e-sports would create a parallel between video games and sports? And now, with RPG streams on the rise, they're also comparable in that area.



lowkey13 said:


> ....mmmmmmm. Given the current limits on computer games, and that RPGs are only theoretically limited by imagination, yes. But ... theoretically, no.




I'd almost reverse it. The content of RPGs is unlimited in the sense that it's all occurring in the participants' collective imagination. But there are limits in how the game is played, and in the approach to the game. 

I can think of many categories for video games....puzzle games, first person shooters, MOBAs, RTS, platformers, MMORPGs....and so on. 

I don't know if the same breadth of categories exist for RPGs. Or maybe it's a case that such classifications haven't been formalized? I mean, I know we have (oft-disputed) categories like traditional games, story games, narrative games, and the like.....but their application is not nearly as easy or accepted as those of video games. 




lowkey13 said:


> Yeah, no. I think that this desire to universalize gets people into trouble, Whether its literature, film, videogames, or anything, really. There should be common terms, but not common analysis. Again, to borrow from videogame, what makes Tetris Effect (or even Candy Crush) compelling and/or effective is not necessarily the same things that work for Journey.




I'm not trying to universalize the analysis; certainly each type of game will have elements unique to it that require specific analysis. But there are still going to be common ones that allow such comparison.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 26, 2020)

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## Fenris-77 (Feb 26, 2020)

I think the differences between TTRPGs is a lot more nuanced than the difference between types of video games. That's not a knock on video games either, that's just how the market works. Also, people play any one given TTRPG in different ways and for different reasons in, I think, more variety than people who just bough a new shooter, or puzzle game might. TTRPGs are very difficult to categorize IMO. Broad categories of rules systems are doable, but once you take into account how they actually get played I think things start to get a little fuzzy. Not impossible, but requiring significant theory and vocabulary, neither of which we (pretty obviously) agree on with any ease.


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## doctorbadwolf (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Since I have been at enworld, I have seen numerous discussions about TTRPG (hereafter shortened to RPG for brevity) theory. And while I have found most of the conversations to be interesting, and filled with knowledgeable people (for are we all not knowledgable gamers?), I have also found them almost completely unsatisfying. At best, they provide some interesting observations. But at worse (and they always, always end up to the "at worse" state) conversations about RPG theory devolve ... or perhaps ... degenerate (ahem) into attempts to elevate one playing style or variety of RPG over another. So after seeing this happen yet again, I thought I'd create a thread based explaining why this happens, and why RPG Theory and Criticism can be so very hard and contentious.
> 
> As these posts that I've written can tend to the long winded, I thought I'd start with a general thesis statement in *bold* and _italics _for those who like the upfront summary!
> 
> ...



This is a really good set of points laying out the issue.

I will say that *4 *has a sub header in practice, that is, 
*4a*. The perception of normative, when descriptive is intended, or vise versa, which is often made worse by memories of those battles mentioned above.

eg, if I talk about how good opera is, and what makes it good, someone will always take it as me telling them that things that aren’t opera are bad and wrong.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 26, 2020)

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## lowkey13 (Feb 26, 2020)

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## Umbran (Feb 26, 2020)

Beleriphon said:


> I have a question, having not read 7 pages of back and forth. RPGs are ultimately games right?




I'm going to give a weird answer:  Yes and no.

For one thing a "game" is a "structured form of play" - beyond that... well, wikipedia has no fewer than 10 different definitions of what a game is.  



> Why aren't we using the terminology of formal games theory and study? I know that game theory is generally about mathematics not design/function of how games actually work, but there are studies about designing games and why people want to play them, how they play them, and what the outcomes are and how judge those outcomes.




A typical RPG can probably be considered to contain several separate sub-games, all in a wrapper that is a game in the same sense that kids running around in the backyard are playing a game of cops and robbers, in which there is a structure, but it is possibly more honored in the violation than in the adherence.

This is a large part why talking about mathematical game theory is not broadly relevant - mathematical game theory is about odds, information, and rational decision making.  The Prisoner's Dillemma is a classic example of mathematical game theory at work.  You can perhaps apply that to various scenarios within a sub-game, but not to the RPG as a whole.

The same goes for other frameworks for design of games - each of them may apply to a _part_ of an overall RPG, but not the entire aggregate.



> For example, Settlers of Catan has more in common with D&D as a game more than_ Lord of the Rings_ ever could. I could compare the two games in terms of inputs and outputs and judge how effective they are at achieving the stated outputs versus say the actual outputs.




You could do that, for, say, the tactical combat minigame, and compare it to any other wargame around, sure.

But when some of the commonly desired and expected outputs are "spotlight", and "narrative flow and beats" you may run into issues by leaning to Catan rather than LotR.


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## Beleriphon (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Yeah, no. I think that this desire to universalize gets people into trouble, Whether its literature, film, videogames, or anything, really. There should be common terms, but not common analysis. Again, to borrow from videogame, what makes Tetris Effect (or even Candy Crush) compelling and/or effective is not necessarily the same things that work for Journey.






hawkeyefan said:


> I'm not trying to universalize the analysis; certainly each type of game will have elements unique to it that require specific analysis. But there are still going to be common ones that allow such comparison.




For video games the reason that Tetris and Candy Crush work as games is very similar, and can be spun out to more complex games. In fact I think using the MDA paper The Angry GM used is very helpful. Here's a direct link. In MDA Tetris and Candy Crush are mostly challenge and submission, because they present a challenge for the sake of being over come and submission in that they are played as kind of "mindless" fun.

As a quick summary of MDA: M is Mechanics, that is to say the base level of a videogame (ie. the actual programing code and rules) up through how you design a level; D is the Dynamics of a player interacting in the run time (ie. playing the game); A is Aesthetics which determines the emotional response we want the player to have, or the emotional reason that players play specific types of games. For example I find the Civilization series dull as dirt, but other like them a lot



Fenris-77 said:


> I think the differences between TTRPGs is a lot more nuanced than the difference between types of video games. That's not a knock on video games either, that's just how the market works. Also, people play any one given TTRPG in different ways and for different reasons in, I think, more variety than people who just bough a new shooter, or puzzle game might. TTRPGs are very difficult to categorize IMO. Broad categories of rules systems are doable, but once you take into account how they actually get played I think things start to get a little fuzzy. Not impossible, but requiring significant theory and vocabulary, neither of which we (pretty obviously) agree on with any ease.




I actually do think it is possible to break games into relatively broad categories, and then break individual aspects of play down from there. For example how much player agency does a game provide? Does a particular rule facilitate role play or hinder it? Defining those terms is applicable to most RPGs.

This why I think the MDA theory is helpful because it actually starts from basic principles of design. It starts off with the idea that we're design a video game. As a designer I need to bake in particular aspects from the core code if I want players looking for specific responses to actually get those responses. The most interesting part however is the aesthetics section, specifically why players engage with a game.

From the paper:

1. Sensation  Game as sense-pleasure
2. Fantasy  Game as make-believe
3. Narrative    Game as drama
4. Challenge  Game as obstacle course
5. Fellowship  Game as social framework
6. Discovery  Game as uncharted territory
7. Expression  Game as self-discovery
8. Submission  Game as pastime

What is important is that a game can be all or some of these to varying degrees at any given time. There is no secret sauce combination that is right, it is simply a very basic taxonomy of how to describe responses and goals.

On @lowkey13 referring to win conditions, RPGs still have them, they just don't end the game, simply the scenario the group is engaging with immediately. When my party all dies in a fight, we've lost the scenario, but the game doesn't end. So, that is a fairly unique mechanic in games.

Any way, I think my prevous assertion about RPGs being primarily games got lost somewhere in that since RPGs are games (it's right in the name!) using existing discussion of games and types of games might be a salient place to start since RPGs have more in common with other games than they do with something like a movie, at least in so far as the way one interacts with the game.

I think it might helpful to break down the essential components of an RPG. And I mean super, super basic break down here and include stuff that should be obvious but often gets over looked becasue it is such a basic premise.

Think of a as the most basic check list you need to play and RPG.

For example:

we need players
Characters the players use
rules of some kind
At the absolute most basic (that I can think of) that is an RPG.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 26, 2020)

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## Beleriphon (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> I am quite familiar with that particular Angry DM rant, and I think you might have missed the most important part of it .... it's at the beginning and repeated several times:
> 
> _*First, you know all those RPGs you own? *Dungeons and Dragons? Pathfinder? Savage Worlds? Dungeon World? Numanuma? FATE Accelerated Armored Core Advanced? Star Wars: West Edge of the Saga? OSR and Castles and Sorcery? *Guess what. Those aren’t games.* And they weren’t designed by game designers. Why? Because YOU (if you are a GM) are the game designer. *Every GM is a game designer*._
> 
> ...




I didn't miss that part, it's super important. Since if we're going to discussing game philosophy and design, it probably helps to have language that discusses games from a design and intent standpoint. And if we can start as square one of the most basic design of the rules then we can build from there.

For example what is the actual intent of FATE or Munchhausen? What did the people who wrote those rules actually want you as a player to have your game be like? What does your game actually look like in play, does it match the original writer's intent? Why, why not? Does the intent not actually work in context of the rules, if so why not? Are there assumed premises in the rules you as a player aren't following?



> Again, I think we have a failure to communicate, which I can point out by noting:
> 
> 1. A TPK may, or may not, be a failure condition in D&D (think "heroic last stand and sacrifice").
> 2. D&D is not all RPGs.
> ...




Which is true, but this is why I've suggest delineating the most basic components of an RPG. I mean at the core you need a group of players, and agreed up on set of rules, and some characters to role play. 

While I agree the game as a whole doesn't have win/loss conditions in the sense that one side loses and the other wins in some kind of zero sum sense the players can experience wins and losses within the game that don't necessarily end the game.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 26, 2020)

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## Beleriphon (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Okay, so someone recently (and I'd give credit, but I can't remember the thread or the person right now) pointed out that a difficulty with these types of forum conversations is that, far too often, it becomes more of a "debate" instead of a useful conversation or collaboration.
> 
> (big breath)
> 
> ...




That was always my point. I think. I don't htink I personally lost it along the way, but anything is possible these days. I'm not a young as I used to be by any means.



> On this, I think we will have to agree to disagree. One salient feature of many RPGs is that even within the game, two characters might experience the exact same situation, and one can perceive it as a "good thing" (or win) and another as a "bad thing" (or loss) solely based on factors that are external to the game rules and created by the players.
> 
> To make this concrete-
> Imagine you have a Warlock whose patron is the positive energy plane (UA Undying Light). His long-term goal, written down by the character, is to join with his patron.
> ...




I agree with with you for sure. I just think it would be helpful to define winning or losing in context of an RPG. It definitely isn't the same as chess, or Catan, or even WoW (maybe closer to WoW, but not the same). That said, perhaps success and failure are better terms, since neither imply an actual end of the process, merely that it will continue on a different track. Different RPGs tend to define success differently, for example FATE getting knocked out of a fight via compels could be a success, despite the character not beating up the bad guys, while D&D would generally consider your character being fiated out of a fight by the GM a loss (and against the informal rules of the game).

If it helps when I'm talking about RPGs I generally do so from player perspective. I view the character in the same way as a baseball player views a bat: a necessary tool to participate, but the bat doesn't decide how the game is played, only the player can do that. It's the reason I really, really hate rationalizing being arse as "my character would do that." My only response is "No you did that, because you chose to do that you jerk" Nobody would suggest the bat made the player whomp the pitcher would they? I'd like to have seen A-Rod try that though now that I think about it.

Another though, inspired by The Angry GM, and one that both @lowkey13 and I have both referred is the rules aren't the game. However, the rules influence how the game is played. For example, the rules for making a D&D character results in mechanical process that are largely defined by the abilities to kill things in a fight. This encourages the players to use those abilities to kill fictional monsters. I think that kind of feedback loop is important to define, but I'm not really sure how to express it an way that lets us talk about things other than to refer to a feedback loop, since killing things in D&D makes your character better at killing things. I'm sure other rules systems have similar loops.


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## Umbran (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> On @lowkey13 referring to win conditions, RPGs still have them, they just don't end the game, simply the scenario the group is engaging with immediately. When my party all dies in a fight, we've lost the scenario, but the game doesn't end. So, that is a fairly unique mechanic in games.




Sometimes RPG have win conditions within their sub-games.  Sometimes, though, it isn't "win/lose" or even "win/lose/tie".  It is... "this is how it develops".


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 26, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Fundamentally, sports and games tend to have some type of "win condition" and feature opposition (of individuals, of teams), not collaboration. I think that is a major, and salient, different between RPGs and other games.




I don't know how meaningful that may be. While sports do have a competitive element absent in most RPGs, I wouldn't say that RPGs lack competition. It's just not usually direct competition. But there are win states, typically, and there is success and failure. They're not as clearly defined as they are in sports, but I do think they're present.

Also, sports are incredibly collaborative. I mean, maybe not golf, so much, but even there the caddy usually offers some advice when needed. But team sports can often require incredibly deep and intense collaboration, among players and also coaches and other participants.

A group of people working together to overcome obstacles and achieve a mutual goal.



lowkey13 said:


> Yes, but at this point, computer games are still limited by the programming. Technically, a DM is completely unlimited - you can even hop from one game to another.
> 
> Computers lack that ability, at this time. While you can encounter glitches and bugs, you cannot run into something that is both surprising and planned (exceeds the limits of the programming by design). The closest is procedurally generated content, a la No Man's Sky, or Rogue-type games.




Sure, I get the restriction based on what technology can achieve versus what the imagination can achieve...but that wasn't really my point.



lowkey13 said:


> Sure. I mean, Lord of the Rings (film) and Parasite and  the Forbidden Room and Koyaanisquatsi are all films, and we can use common film terms to describe them, but you run into trouble when you are using comparative terms. IMO.




Comparison may not be perfect because different films may be using different techniques and/or trying to produce a different response from the audience. But they're still created using the same group of methods and the audience still engaged in the same way.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 26, 2020)

'Win State' as a term is pretty specific to the games industry, usually referring to a condition within a game or level of successfully completing a predetermined task or goal. The definition does not carry with it the idea that the game ends, necessarily, when a win-state exists. This reflects both computer games and RPGs nicely, but gets sticky when you bring in sports and the idea of win-state does mean the game ends. One of the very different things about RPGs is the complete lack of 'game over' in most of them, separating them even from computer games. It doesn't end, in most cases except by mutual decision. From a terms and definitions standpoint I'm not sure how important this is, but it does need to be accounted for when we bring in other games, especially if we want to use the term win-state. 

Another interesting output from using win-state, is that it also usually refers to predetermined goals, and there are lots of examples of games that are definitely TTRPGs but don't even have predetermined goals except those that arise spontaneously during play.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 27, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> 'Win State' as a term is pretty specific to the games industry, usually referring to a condition within a game or level of successfully completing a predetermined task or goal. The definition does not carry with it the idea that the game ends, necessarily, when a win-state exists. This reflects both computer games and RPGs nicely, but gets sticky when you bring in sports and the idea of win-state does mean the game ends. One of the very different things about RPGs is the complete lack of 'game over' in most of them, separating them even from computer games. It doesn't end, in most cases except by mutual decision. From a terms and definitions standpoint I'm not sure how important this is, but it does need to be accounted for when we bring in other games, especially if we want to use the term win-state.
> 
> Another interesting output from using win-state, is that it also usually refers to predetermined goals, and there are lots of examples of games that are definitely TTRPGs but don't even have predetermined goals except those that arise spontaneously during play.




I absolutely agree that what win state can mean for different games can vary significantly, but I still think it helps when talking about the goals of play. 

They'll be very different things from game to game and will mean different things for the game.


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## Lanefan (Feb 27, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Again, I think we have a failure to communicate, which I can point out by noting:
> 
> 1. A TPK may, or may not, be a failure condition in D&D (think "heroic last stand and sacrifice").



A TPK is always, objectively, a failure or "loss" condition regardless how it was arrived at.

Note that this is different from a 'moral victory' where one takes a loss and spins it in a positive manner.

Same thing as getting checkmated in chess.  You could have pulled off some of the best moves of your life trying to defend your king but, objectively and even though you can claim a moral victory by your fine late-game play, in the end you still lost.


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## Lanefan (Feb 27, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> To make this concrete-
> Imagine you have a Warlock whose patron is the positive energy plane (UA Undying Light). His long-term goal, written down by the character, is to join with his patron.
> He is adventuring with another character. We will call him Fred.
> 
> ...



That the two players react to it differently doesn't change the fact that when looked at objectively they both achieved a defined "loss" condition: the (one must assume in this case permanent) death of their PCs.


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## generic (Feb 27, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> That the two players react to it differently doesn't change the fact that when looked at objectively they both achieved a defined "loss" condition: the (one must assume in this case permanent) death of their PCs.



But, I mean, what if dying isn't a loss condition?  Either in that the character intended to die or in that you gained satisfaction/enjoyment even though the character died, there is the possibility that dying is not a loss condition.  I don't see how this is absolute or objective.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 27, 2020)

Aebir-Toril said:


> But, I mean, what if dying isn't a loss condition?  Either in that the character intended to die or gained satisfaction/enjoyment even though the character died, there is the possibility that dying is not a loss condition.  I don't see how this is absolute or objective.



I can easily envision cases where permanent character death wouldn't be a loss condition for me. Sometimes a good death can be one of the most satisfying things a TTRPG has to offer.


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## Lanefan (Feb 27, 2020)

Aebir-Toril said:
			
		

> But, I mean, what if dying isn't a loss condition?  Either in that the character intended to die or in that you gained satisfaction/enjoyment even though the character died, there is the possibility that dying is not a loss condition.  I don't see how this is absolute or objective.





Fenris-77 said:


> I can easily envision cases where permanent character death wouldn't be a loss condition for me. Sometimes a good death can be one of the most satisfying things a TTRPG has to offer.



Those are moral victories, not actual ones.

I could play the best game of chess in my life and feel really great afterwards about how I played, but if I end up getting checkmated I still achieve a loss condition.

Same thing in an RPG: I could set up for the best death ever, and pull it off spectacularly.  I could be completely giddy about it afterwards.  Doesn't change the fact of my achieving a loss condition.

There's various loss conditions in most RPGs; and to be sure, some are more wishy-washy in their definitions than others.  Character death, however, is perhaps the most clearly defined of all, other than TPK.


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## lowkey13 (Feb 27, 2020)

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## Fenris-77 (Feb 27, 2020)

Are you telling me what my victory is? That's not very generous of you.   If, just to make up an example, I was playing a Paladin who sacrificed himself to defeat a great evil, that would be an actual victory, not a moral victory. Character death is not always a loss condition any more than character survival is always a win condition. Mostly, sure, but the exceptions are significant and important. This is one place where you need to differentiate between player victory and character victory. It's the former that's important to the aesthetic appreciation of RPGs, not the latter, although the latter can certainly lead to the former.


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## Umbran (Feb 27, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> A role-playing game is what is created in the interaction between players or between player(s) and gamemaster(s) within a specified diegetic framework.




And again, I respond yes... and no.

Because, yes, we can totally talk about the GM as game designer. 

But we can (and should be able to) _ALSO_ talk about the theory and design of the things we buy off the shelves, that we also happen to call RPGs.  If we call them both RPGs, we are going to be hopelessly confused.


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## Umbran (Feb 27, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> Those are moral victories, not actual ones.




With respect, that's prescriptive, and maybe not for you to say single-handedly.  I mean, you can _say_ it.. but I think you'll need to do a whole lot of work to prove that to folks.

You cannot really speak about win conditions without speaking about the goals of play.  And the goal of play may not be directly tied to the RPG sub-game you are considering at any given moment.


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## Lanefan (Feb 27, 2020)

Umbran said:


> With respect, that's prescriptive, and maybe not for you to say single-handedly.  I mean, you can _say_ it.. but I think you'll need to do a whole lot of work to prove that to folks.
> 
> You cannot really speak about win conditions without speaking about the goals of play.  And the goal of play may not be directly tied to the RPG sub-game you are considering at any given moment.



I would think it would be a given that the first goal of play is for one's PC to survive. (or, in the case of systems like CoC, survive and remain functional for as long as possible)

In games where PC death is off the table then either other loss conditions will replace it (loss of wealth, or status, or health, or whatever) or the game will be in win-only mode - and given the definitions we've seen so far, would win-only mode even still count as a 'game'?


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## Li Shenron (Feb 27, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> So after seeing this happen yet again, I thought I'd create a thread based explaining why this happens, and why RPG Theory and Criticism can be so very hard and contentious.




Loved your article. But now I have a theory (and some criticism) about why you wrote your theory and criticism over general RPG theory and criticism...


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## Aldarc (Feb 27, 2020)

Aebir-Toril said:


> But, I mean, what if dying isn't a loss condition?  Either in that the character intended to die or in that you gained satisfaction/enjoyment even though the character died, there is the possibility that dying is not a loss condition.  I don't see how this is absolute or objective.



Sure, but that isn't exactly unique to TTRPGs. Maybe a player of a board or card game is satisfied that although they lost, they still took down another player in the process, or that they helped the other players reach the end-goal of the game by their sacrifice.


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## Sadras (Feb 27, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> I would think it would be a given that the first goal of play is for one's PC to survive.




Maybe initially yes, but goals may change in value of importance during a course of a game as happened within an In Nomine game I played where my character's life (initial primary goal) became less important than saving the arch-angel Michael (later primary goal).


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 27, 2020)

Umbran said:


> But we can (and should be able to) _ALSO_ talk about the theory and design of the things we buy off the shelves, that we also happen to call RPGs.  If we call them both RPGs, we are going to be hopelessly confused.



I agree, we just need to be specific about what we're talking about. The game off the shelf, the text, if you will, is the rules and a bunch of expectations about and/or suggestions about how they could or should be used at the table. That's more than enough to start working out a vocabulary and some theory.

The three part definition I quoted much earlier in this thread has three main components:

1) Role-playing is an interactive process of defining and re-defining the state, properties and contents of an imaginary game world. 
2) The power to define the game world is allocated to participants of the game. The participants recognize the existence of this power hierarchy. 
3) Player-participants define the game world through personified character constructs, conforming to the state, properties and contents of the game world. 

The text defines what mechanics and conventions govern 1, the nature of the allocation in 2, and the rules for creating 3. What the text doesn't cover is the people and the table. So if we confine ourselves to mechanics and expectations when it comes to the text we should be fine.


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## Umbran (Feb 27, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> In games where PC death is off the table then either other loss conditions will replace it (loss of wealth, or status, or health, or whatever) or the game will be in win-only mode - and given the definitions we've seen so far, would win-only mode even still count as a 'game'?




I already noted that if you look around you'll quickly find a great many definitions of "game".  And, I'll bet that most of them were created before RPGs, or were created by people who were not considering RPGs.  Or, they were actively trying to exclude certain kinds of activity from the "game" category.

And, I think moving forward with a concept of "game" that is not generally inclusive of a lot of RPG activity... is going to end up in tribal argument - like trying to tell people that any particular edition of the game was "not D&D."

Aside from all that being rude, annoying, and kind of jerkish... I think that in so doing you _lose huge amounts of wisdom about play_. As a result, in terms of having language to discuss what we do.. our language would be incredibly lacking.

And, maybe therein lies a major thought - if we are looking for a discussion of RPG theory, a discussion of "game" in the classic sense of the term... is perhaps missing the literal central bit:  the Playing.  I was askign bout the goal of play, not the goal of the (sub)game.

So, then, I think you are being remarkably limiting in thinking of play only in terms of win/loss.  If we think of the game as structured play (which may or may not have other attributes, but I suspect we can agree on structured play), then winning and losing are really only one of a wide range of considerations.

Upthread, Belerophon listed some 8 different kinds of games from an essay.  In only one of the 8 (the Challenge Game) is determining win/loss necessarily a primary goal of play.  In many of the others, who wins or loses may be irrelevant to the players, or even contrary to the basic goal of play, insofar as determining win/loss ends the play, which may not be the desired outcome.


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## Beleriphon (Feb 27, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> The text defines what mechanics and conventions govern 1, the nature of the allocation in 2, and the rules for creating 3. What the text doesn't cover is the people and the table. So if we confine ourselves to mechanics and expectations when it comes to the text we should be fine.




I think its possible to discuss at table play in broad terms. There are academic studies of all kinds of games, no reason we can't apply the same principles here. There will always be outliers, but the nature of RPGs I think can be broken down into relatively broad categories. I think we've seen that here a few times relating to the nature of how skills are used in other discussions. There seems to be two broad categories of how folks use them for example.

Maybe, if we get super ambitious, we'll end up with the RPG equivalent of a DSM V.

This part of the reason why I think it is extremely important to work on the most basic level of what an RPG is and define the most basic terms to start with. I helps establish a base from which to work. Per my previous three point list we need rules, a group, and player avatars (characters).

If anybody is interested there's a paper about using RPGs (from context it is TTRPGs, not a CRPG) to simulate Multi-Agent Systems in a Senegal River Valley. It is actually fascinating read, but I'm not sure what the context of a multi agent system is here. I know what those words mean but in context I'm lost. That said, I think this paper has some interesting examples of the kind sof things we want to discuss.


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## generic (Feb 27, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> Those are moral victories, not actual ones.
> 
> I could play the best game of chess in my life and feel really great afterwards about how I played, but if I end up getting checkmated I still achieve a loss condition.
> 
> ...



It's not a loss condition though, because you don't "lose the game".  This is because RPGs don't have rules, they have guidelines.  Generally, when you lose a game, you leave the table to eat some fish and chips with your mates while everyone else finishes up.  In an RPG, you roll up a new character, and begin playing again.  You haven't _lost_, per se, because the game delineates no loss condition.

If you can show me a clearly defined loss condition in a popular RPG like D&D, then I would be surprised.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 27, 2020)

Woah there champ, slow your roll. RPGs do indeed have rules, that's part of what puts the G in RPG. They don't have game ending loss conditions though. Those two facts aren't related.


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## generic (Feb 27, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Woah there champ, slow your roll. RPGs do indeed have rules, that's part of what puts the G in RPG. They don't have game ending loss conditions though. Those two facts aren't related.



Rules?  Hmm... given the fact that I am a powergamer, I would like to agree.  However, the DM/GM is free to alter any and all rules.  Therefore, the rules in the book are only guidelines.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 27, 2020)

Ahh, well yes and no. The GM can monkey around with things all he likes prior to a campaign, and has a limited amount of agency to change minor things at the table _sometimes_, and only then by table fiat. He does _not_ have the authority to use or ignore rules as he sees fit during play. Once you start playing the rules harden from suggestions into, you know, rules.


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## generic (Feb 27, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Ahh, well yes and no. The GM can monkey around with things all he likes prior to a campaign, and has a limited amount of agency to change minor things at the table _sometimes_, and only then by table fiat. He does _not_ have the authority to use or ignore rules as he sees fit during play. Once you start playing the rules harden from suggestions into, you know, rules.



Well, I mean, unless they don't.  At my table, I obey the 'rules', but you don't have to.  At what point are you no longer playing D&D?


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 28, 2020)

Aebir-Toril said:


> Well, I mean, unless they don't.  At my table, I obey the 'rules', but you don't have to.  At what point are you no longer playing D&D?



When you're playing BitD and get to sit at the back of the bus with the cool kids?


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## practicalm (Feb 28, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> I would think it would be a given that the first goal of play is for one's PC to survive. (or, in the case of systems like CoC, survive and remain functional for as long as possible)
> 
> In games where PC death is off the table then either other loss conditions will replace it (loss of wealth, or status, or health, or whatever) or the game will be in win-only mode - and given the definitions we've seen so far, would win-only mode even still count as a 'game'?




I think it is very narrow focused to say PCs first goal is to survive.  There are many cases where it makes good character narrative sense to have the character die to further a cause.  Heck that's even a real life win condition for some people. 
The player's goal is to have fun and maybe tell a story. Character death may be part of both of those as win conditions for the player.


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## Umbran (Feb 28, 2020)

Aebir-Toril said:


> However, the DM/GM is free to alter any and all rules.  Therefore, the rules in the book are only guidelines.




And, here sits a reason to stick with "structured play".  The difference between "rule" and "guideline" is a semantic difference we may not have to worry about for the moment.  So long as the play is still, by and large, structured, we're okay to call it a game, for now.



Fenris-77 said:


> Once you start playing the rules harden from suggestions into, you know, rules.




That's a matter for the social contract of the table.  Exactly how much freedom the GM has to change things depends on how much of that alteration the players will accept.


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## Aldarc (Feb 28, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> Woah there champ, slow your roll. RPGs do indeed have rules, that's part of what puts the G in RPG. They don't have game ending loss conditions though. Those two facts aren't related.



I believe that several TTRPGs, such as Band of Blades, does have a game-ending loss condition.


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## Fenris-77 (Feb 28, 2020)

Umbran said:


> That's a matter for the social contract of the table.  Exactly how much freedom the GM has to change things depends on how much of that alteration the players will accept.



The freedom provided by the social contract at the table generally doesn't include significant rules changes during play. I'm talking about core rules stuff here, like the way AC works or whatever. With smaller stuff, or changing stuff related to plot and whatnot it's a different story. Your point is valid though, whatever the players will accept is how it is.


Aldarc said:


> I believe that several TTRPGs, such as Band of Blades, does have a game-ending loss condition.



Some do, sure, but TTRPGs generally do not, which was my point.


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## Beleriphon (Feb 29, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> The freedom provided by the social contract at the table generally doesn't include significant rules changes during play. I'm talking about core rules stuff here, like the way AC works or whatever. With smaller stuff, or changing stuff related to plot and whatnot it's a different story. Your point is valid though, whatever the players will accept is how it is.




I'd agree here. Even if one assumes a game group changes the rules of a specific set theying using (say AC to damage reduction for D&D) then they're using a stable rule, even if it is different than the one original ruleset provides. If it doesn't work then it gets changed again and becomes stable into whatever it is changed to.

The specific definitions provided by a written ruleset in a published book don't preclude group making changes to how they use those rules, ignoring them, or changing them. However, I would suggest the generally applicable concept here that rules are stable until the group decides they don't like the status quo provided and make a change.

I think there's an interesting process here. How do you define how stable a rule is in an RPG? Does the referee player chnage it on a whim, it is as a group, is it present and then accept by the whole?


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## Lanefan (Feb 29, 2020)

Beleriphon said:


> I think there's an interesting process here. How do you define how stable a rule is in an RPG? Does the referee player chnage it on a whim, it is as a group, is it present and then accept by the whole?



I'm not sure there's a blanket answer for that; it'd depend greatly on the magnitude of the rule(s) in question.  It'd also depend on whether the to-be-changed rule had already affected play in some way.

For example: there's currently no PCs in my game higher than 10th level.  If I-as-DM decide one day that I'm not happy with the level progression from 12th upwards and tweak the tables, chances are nobody's going to care. (in fact, chances are nobody's going to notice unless I point it out).

Minor changes e.g. changing the range on a spell from 15' per level to 10' (or 20') per level are usually no problem; and often such changes are reacting to some loophole or error discovered during play anyway.

The other extreme is when one wants to change something big that's already embedded in the game.  My current example is Nature Clerics (Druids, close enough) who in my system have proven to have too much going for them at higher levels.  I want to rein them in but there's no way in hell that those players who have Nature Cleric PCs are going to agree; couple that with the introduction of significant inconsistency and the end result is I'm stuck with what I've got for this campaign.

Major overhauls to basic stuff always and only happen between campaigns.  Example: next campaign break I want to re-do armour from top to bottom.  No way I can do this mid-flight in an existing campaign.


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## Beleriphon (Feb 29, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> I'm not sure there's a blanket answer for that; it'd depend greatly on the magnitude of the rule(s) in question.  It'd also depend on whether the to-be-changed rule had already affected play in some way.




Nor do i, but I think there are ways to describe in broad terms what is going on with each of the below examples you provide.



> For example: there's currently no PCs in my game higher than 10th level.  If I-as-DM decide one day that I'm not happy with the level progression from 12th upwards and tweak the tables, chances are nobody's going to care. (in fact, chances are nobody's going to notice unless I point it out).
> 
> Minor changes e.g. changing the range on a spell from 15' per level to 10' (or 20') per level are usually no problem; and often such changes are reacting to some loophole or error discovered during play anyway.
> 
> ...




I think you've got a minor change in the first two, because they are largely immaterial to the way the game is playing, other than having to rejigger expectations going foward since they are usually reactionary.

The second example is an impossible change, it invalidates how a player is playing the game altogether.

The last one I would consider a core change, it affects the expectations such that you have to start the game the change in effect otherwise nobody will remember how it works.


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## Hussar (Mar 1, 2020)

You would consider a fairly minor change to the range of a spell to be an impossible change?


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## hawkeyefan (Mar 1, 2020)

Beleriphon said:


> I think there's an interesting process here. How do you define how stable a rule is in an RPG? Does the referee player change it on a whim, it is as a group, is it present and then accept by the whole?




I think this is an important aspect of game design. Just looking at how much constraint is placed on the GM and at what points in the game is going to give you a clear idea of how the game will play.


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## Maxperson (Mar 1, 2020)

Hussar said:


> But, the thing is, if you play baseball, you follow the rules as instructions.  The rules straight up tell you, these players play these positions.  This person pitches, these people, on the other team, bat.  You can follow the steps exactly as written down and EVERY game of baseball (presuming they are playing from the same rulebook) will follow exactly the same steps.
> 
> There are no steps inherent in most RPG's.  When you play an RPG, for example, what's the first step?  Character creation?  Campaign creation?  Something else?  Note, those can both be true - some games start with chargen and then proceed, others start with campaign creation and then proceed.  Neither is more correct than the other.
> 
> ...



Pinch hitters.  Some pro-games allow them and others don't.  All pro games of baseball are not the same.  You get more and more rules changes as you go down towards little league.



> True, but, the rules of a baseball game define the field to be used. They tell you the distance to between the bases, the distance of the pitcher's mound, so on and so forth. So, the rules of baseball very much do define the field.




Major league fields vary in size.

What's more, there are many different offensive and defensive strategies, methods for hitting, etc. that are not bound by the rules, but which do drastically influence how the games play.  A baseball game is much more than just the rules.


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## Lanefan (Mar 1, 2020)

Hussar said:


> You would consider a fairly minor change to the range of a spell to be an impossible change?



I think @Beleriphon miscounted; there's four examples - s/he mentions the first two are minor then says "the second...is impossible" when probably meaning the third, before referencing the last.


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## Hussar (Mar 1, 2020)

Maxperson said:


> Pinch hitters.  Some pro-games allow them and others don't.  All pro games of baseball are not the same.  You get more and more rules changes as you go down towards little league.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Ok, this is swimming a bit far upfield.  And, against my better judgement, I'll try this out.

Note, in the quote you quoted, there is the following line:

"You can follow the steps exactly as written down and EVERY game of baseball *(presuming they are playing from the same rulebook*) will follow exactly the same steps."

Now, all your examples of different games playing differently because they have different rule books is pretty much moot because, well, I already account for that.  

And, you are still missing the point.  In order to play a baseball game, or nearly any game, all you do is follow the rules.  Start at rule 1, end at rule X and play until the pre-defined win conditions are met. EVERY SINGLE GAME will play the same so long as you are using the same rules.  Yes, this team or that team will win.  Fair enough.  But, the start point and end point will always, always be the same.  

At no point in a baseball game can I remove second base.  Or choose not to pitch.  Or, in fact, do anything not specifically allowed by the rules of the game.  The rules of the game are *prescriptive*.  

The rules in an RPG are not prescriptive.  They are descriptive.  They tell you how to resolve certain actions from the players, but, are certainly not meant as an exhaustive list of every action the player can take.  In fact, the rules of an RPG specifically state that they cannot provide an exhaustive list, and thus, are meant as guidelines for the players to use in determining the outcomes of actions.  

Put it this way.  There are no rules for jumping in AD&D 1e.  None.  The rules are 100% silent on how far or high a character may jump.  Now, in a non-rpg this would mean that jumping was not allowed.  You cannot jump in Monopoly.  You cannot jump in Catan.  While you can jump in baseball, you can only do so at certain times - you cannot jump while pitching for example.  But, despite not having any rules for jumping in AD&D, characters most certainly can jump and are often expected to do so.  

Thus, we get a range of possible adjudications for jumping in AD&D 1e.  From "You jump this far" to "Make a save vs X to jump this far".  to whatever else people come up with.

You cannot sit down, read the rule books of an RPG and just start playing.  It doesn't work.  You need to do a fair bit more work first - choose/create a setting (which is not defined by the rules), choose characters (partially defined by the rules), choose what you are going to do in that setting (certainly not defined by the rules).

Does this make it clearer?


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## Maxperson (Mar 1, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Ok, this is swimming a bit far upfield.  And, against my better judgement, I'll try this out.
> 
> Note, in the quote you quoted, there is the following line:
> 
> ...



Yes and no.  Let me switch sports for a moment to make what I am saying clearer.

Football also has prescriptive rules.  You get 4 downs.  If you break the rules you are penalized.  You can throw the ball, but some throws are illegal.  And so on.

However, despite all the prescriptive rules, there are things outside the rules that have a tremendous impact on HOW the game is played, not just whether there is a winner and a loser.  When to play a prevent defense as opposed to a 3-4 defense or a 4-3 or a 3-4 Eagle defense, when to double team a player, key on the run, rush the defenders' weak side, etc.  

The number of things outside the rules that you can attempt may not be as large as an RPG, but they exist in games and have an impact. Hell, even in Monopoly I can buy every single property I land on, mortgaging my properties to amass more, or don't do that and keep all my properties unmortgaged to get more income.  I can trade or have a philosophy of no trade.  These are things that even in a simple game like Monopoly are outside the rules and have an impact on how the game is played.


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## Beleriphon (Mar 1, 2020)

Hussar said:


> You would consider a fairly minor change to the range of a spell to be an impossible change?




No, sorry that was as @Oofta noted combined with the change to the way levels progress after level 12 when nobody in the group has a character after level 12.


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## Hussar (Mar 2, 2020)

Maxperson said:


> Yes and no.  Let me switch sports for a moment to make what I am saying clearer.
> 
> Football also has prescriptive rules.  You get 4 downs.  If you break the rules you are penalized.  You can throw the ball, but some throws are illegal.  And so on.
> 
> ...




However, none of those things actually impact the rules of the game, or the game itself.  That you choose this or that defense has ZERO impact on the rules.  Nor, will it change the outcome of the game - at the end of the 4th quarter, one team will be declared winner (or we go into overtime rules).  That's what the rules say will happen.  And it will happen every single time you play NFL football (note, CFL only has 3 downs and plays on a slightly different field, but, that's neither here nor there).  The rules tell you exactly how the game will start and be played.  Heck, in NFL, certain defenses and offenses are illegal by the rules.  

But, that's my point.  The rules tell you where to start and where to finish.  They tell you what is going to happen at every point in the game.  

RPG's don't work this way.  They can't because RPG rules don't tell you where to start or where to finish.

Or, put it another way, what are the rules mandated win conditions for an RPG?  Every other kind of game has them.  So, where are they for an RPG?


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## Maxperson (Mar 2, 2020)

Hussar said:


> However, none of those things actually impact the rules of the game, or the game itself.




That's false.  It doesn't impact the rules, but it does impact the game itself.



> That you choose this or that defense has ZERO impact on the rules.




True.



> Nor, will it change the outcome of the game - at the end of the 4th quarter, one team will be declared winner (or we go into overtime rules).




False.  It does change the outcome.  Picking the correct offenses and defenses drastically alters the outcome.  Instead of losing(outcome), you win(changed outcome).



> That's what the rules say will happen.




The rules do not pick which team will win.



> But, that's my point.  The rules tell you where to start and where to finish.  They tell you what is going to happen at every point in the game.



That's false.  Football rules do not tell you when an End Around will happen, or when a team will rush instead of pass, or when a team will go for it on 4th.  So no, they do not tell you what is going to happen at every point in the game.

Which brings you to this.....  You're missing OUR point.  

The only difference between an RPG and Football is that the rules of Football limit the length of the game.  That's it.  You can still do things not prescribed by the rules in both games, as I have shown.  In fact, in both games doing things outside of the rules that is unbalanced will result in rules changes.  In Football the owners get together and vote on a fix.  In D&D the game designers decide on a fix and put out errata.  



> They can't because RPG rules don't tell you where to start or where to finish.




This is the only real difference other than type of game.



> Or, put it another way, what are the rules mandated win conditions for an RPG?  Every other kind of game has them.  So, where are they for an RPG?



It doesn't matter.  Not having a win condition doesn't mean that during a football game, things outside the rules that affect the outcome aren't happening.  They are.  I've proven that.

But, since you asked...

Page 5 of the PHB:

"The group might fail to complete an adventure successfully, but if everyone had a good time and created a memorable story, *they all win*."


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## Umbran (Mar 2, 2020)

Hussar said:


> But, that's my point.  The rules tell you where to start and where to finish.  They tell you what is going to happen at every point in the game.




While I'm not a fan of Maxperson's tone, I have to back him up here - this is incorrect.

The rules tell you whether a given action in play is _legal_.  But the rules do not determine what actions will be taken, and so don't say what it going to happen at every point in the game.  Football players _have choices_. Will the team run or pass the ball?  That's what is happening in the game, but which they do is not determined by the rules.

The other way to think of this - Note that football is a game with an end condition that is typically separate from its win condition.  A football game typically ends after a specified amount of time of play has passed.  Only in the case of a tie does the game end become entwined with the win/loss condition.

Play a one-shot D&D session with a maximum length in time (we only have the game store space until 10 PM!), and we have the same "where to start and where to finish".  But clearly, D&D doesn't tell us what is going to happen in between start and end... and neither does football.

Don't mistake "rules constrain actions" with "rules _determine_ actions".


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## lowkey13 (Mar 2, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## aramis erak (Mar 2, 2020)

Beleriphon said:


> Which is true, but this is why I've suggest delineating the most basic components of an RPG. I mean at the core you need a group of players, and agreed up on set of rules, and some characters to role play.



Some RPG groups don't have rulesets, leaving it all to the GM instead of rulesets. 
One of the oddest I've played, you play a corporation, not a person.

And I've got a couple games that I've only played solo, and several more where most of my play was solo. And I'm not counting the ones that ONLY have mechanics for solitaire play. Runeslayers I've only played solo, for example — there's a solitaire module in the core — but I've never gotten it to table with players. Most of my play of TFT has been solitaire; in hours, probably 10:1; if we break out group RPG play from tactical battles, S:G:B::302. Same for T&T, tho the ratio is much closer to S:G:1. 

Each of your minimums is able to be individually falsified.


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## Umbran (Mar 2, 2020)

Beleriphon said:


> Which is true, but this is why I've suggest delineating the most basic components of an RPG. I mean at the core you need a group of players, and agreed up on set of rules, and some characters to role play.




In several games I have played, characters are created as part of the process of play, so those are not _necessary_ for play to start.

As for the "agreed upon set of rules..." my first game of D&D, ever, I played blind.  I didn't have a character sheet.  I had not read the rulebook.  I agreed on the rules in the sense that I trusted my older brother to implement all rules in the background where I didn't see them.

So.. you need a group of people - and the size of the group may be 1.


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## Hussar (Mar 3, 2020)

Umbran said:


> While I'm not a fan of Maxperson's tone, I have to back him up here - this is incorrect.
> 
> The rules tell you whether a given action in play is _legal_.  But the rules do not determine what actions will be taken, and so don't say what it going to happen at every point in the game.  Football players _have choices_. Will the team run or pass the ball?  That's what is happening in the game, but which they do is not determined by the rules.
> 
> ...




But, right there, you have created a one shot D&D game.  That is a DIFFERENT game than a campaign.  The rules of the game do not tell you how long a campaign should be.  There are no real end conditions within the rules.  

I'm not confusing constraint with determine.  Not at all.  In games, the rules CONSTRAIN actions.  Your choice of actions is determined by the rules at every single point in time during a game.  You cannot opt for a forward pass in football if you are on defense.  What actions are taken at any given time don't affect the rules at all.  Sure, players have choices during the game, but, as far as the GAME itself is concerned, every single one of those choices is constrained by the game itself.  

RPG's don't work like that though.  In a game, the rules tell you how to set up for play.  You follow the steps of the game, A to B to C until the game concludes.  The individual choices within A, B and C don't really matter as far as the game is concerned.  The game doesn't care who wins or loses.  The game simply progresses until the proscribed end point.  But RPG's don't have steps to follow.  They don't have an initial set up, nor do they have a concluding end point.  Not within the rules.  Setting up a one shot is adding rules to the game that aren't contained within the rules themselves.  Which has been my point all along.  You CANNOT play an RPG as it is written the way you can play EVERY other game.  In EVERY other game, you follow the steps that the rules tell you to follow.  RPG's do not have any proscribed steps.  So, one group plays and never rolls a die, the other group plays and barely says anything more complicated than a grunt while repeatedly throwing dice.

Yet, we consider them to be playing the same game.  

You are the ones who keep zooming in on the individual choices.  They aren't really that important as far as the game is concerned.  Whether you blitz or play zone matters to YOU, the player, but, the game?  The game proceeds exactly as predicted - ball is snapped, play continues until the runner is stopped, start again.


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## lowkey13 (Mar 3, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## Sadras (Mar 3, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Sports have a campaign. It's called a season.




Is that considered purely player-driven or does it sometimes incorporate illusionism?


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## lowkey13 (Mar 3, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## Sadras (Mar 3, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Even purely amateur sports usually have some sort of season (or series of events). While there are one-offs in many sports, the idea that some sort of longer sample size is required is a long-standing one.
> 
> Heck, even your local rec-league bowling doesn't crown a champion every night.




Krikey! 0-2 loss for me   
I was only wondering if the games were such that spectators were watching to find out what was written in the coaches'/owners'/bookies' notes or if these games were player driven?


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## lowkey13 (Mar 3, 2020)

*Deleted by user*


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## prabe (Mar 3, 2020)

@Sadras 

Are you asking if the outcome of a given sporting event (or maybe season) is in doubt? Or if there's a difference in schemes between Team A and Team B that might be a different difference than the players on the field?

The former should always be yes, in any fair game/sport. There are reasons why professional sports leagues (at least in the US) have strong rules about players and coaches gambling on their own sports, and even stronger rules about their betting on their own games.

The latter might be yes, depending on the sport. There's a bigger difference in schemes (game plans) in American football than there is in baseball. I know (or at least knew) people who enjoyed watching football as much to see the coaches play a mental game as to watch the players be athletes.

Maybe I'm answering questions that aren't what you're asking?


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## Umbran (Mar 3, 2020)

Sadras said:


> I was only wondering if the games were such that spectators were watching to find out what was written in the coaches'/owners'/bookies' notes or if these games were player driven?




In professional tournament play, the playbook - the coach's notes - become rather dominant.  In more casual play, the game is more player-driven.  

In pro football, if the QB calls a play, darned straight the players get knocked for not following the playbook exactly.  In backyard football, there is no book - there's a quick discussion in the huddle, and the QB will hope to find you somewhere around where you said you'd be, but that's just a vague hope.

And that difference, still under the same ruleset.


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## Beleriphon (Mar 3, 2020)

aramis erak said:


> Some RPG groups don't have rulesets, leaving it all to the GM instead of rulesets.
> One of the oddest I've played, you play a corporation, not a person.
> 
> And I've got a couple games that I've only played solo, and several more where most of my play was solo. And I'm not counting the ones that ONLY have mechanics for solitaire play. Runeslayers I've only played solo, for example — there's a solitaire module in the core — but I've never gotten it to table with players. Most of my play of TFT has been solitaire; in hours, probably 10:1; if we break out group RPG play from tactical battles, S:G:B::302. Same for T&T, tho the ratio is much closer to S:G:1.
> ...





Umbran said:


> In several games I have played, characters are created as part of the process of play, so those are not _necessary_ for play to start.
> 
> As for the "agreed upon set of rules..." my first game of D&D, ever, I played blind.  I didn't have a character sheet.  I had not read the rulebook.  I agreed on the rules in the sense that I trusted my older brother to implement all rules in the background where I didn't see them.
> 
> So.. you need a group of people - and the size of the group may be 1.




I would suggest that a new player may not know the rules, but they implicitly agreed to abide by them, even if the rules are the GM makes them up as they go along. That's still a ruleset, just one that is opaque to one side of the play group.

One player can still be a group, and you still need a character of some kind to play an RPG. Sheets and other ephemera aren't inherently necessary despite how useful they are to facilitating play.

Thus, I still assert a group, a characters, and rules needed to play an RPG. The specifics of each of those can and do change substantially depending on what kind of game is being played and the general expectations that changing each one produces.


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## Umbran (Mar 3, 2020)

Beleriphon said:


> I would suggest that a new player may not know the rules, but they implicitly agreed to abide by them, even if the rules are the GM makes them up as they go along. That's still a ruleset, just one that is opaque to one side of the play group.




Well, my point was to note that "agreed upon set of rules" does not necessarily mean what you'd expect.

Though, I don't see as one can agree to abide by rules when those rules are opaque - you cannot choose to obey or disobey rules when you don't know them.  You instead accept that what the GM says goes - whether they are using a set of rules is not relevant or provable.



> One player can still be a group, and you still need a character of some kind to play an RPG.




I will reiterate that some games can begin play without the character.  Some Fate games, for example, begin play with worldbilding.  Others begin with character generation as an explicit step of play.  YOu just don't get far without getting teh character to some operable stage of creation.


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## Beleriphon (Mar 3, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Well, my point was to note that "agreed upon set of rules" does not necessarily mean what you'd expect.
> 
> Though, I don't see as one can agree to abide by rules when those rules are opaque - you cannot choose to obey or disobey rules when you don't know them.  You instead accept that what the GM says goes - whether they are using a set of rules is not relevant or provable.




The rule is the GM is right. Its a pretty straightforward rule, not one I personally like, but it is a rule. There are other rules as well, from tone to genre conventions. For example I don't get to play as the Second Last Son of Krypton in Lord of the Rings.

If you aren't willing to accept the GM knows the rules and you don't then you can't play that game. Thus, you abide by the rules.



> I will reiterate that some games can begin play without the character.  Some Fate games, for example, begin play with world building.  Others begin with character generation as an explicit step of play.  You just don't get far without getting the character to some operable stage of creation.




Sure, there are games that make character generation and world building something the whole group does together rather than separating the tasks. In the end though everybody that needs a character has one. Generation of the character can occur through several processes and stages, but in general if somebody doesn't have character by the end of whatever the generation process is being used that person can't play (assuming they aren't a GM type position).


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## Lanefan (Mar 4, 2020)

Umbran said:


> In backyard football, there is no book - there's a quick discussion in the huddle, and the QB will hope to find you somewhere around where you said you'd be, but that's just a vague hope.



And if the QB doesn't find me where he thinks I should be, he might want to instead look down in the pub; as it ironclad guaranteed that given a choice between playing gridiron football and having a beer in the pub, the pub will win all day long.

No matter what ruleset is in use.


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## Hussar (Mar 4, 2020)

lowkey13 said:


> Hussar,
> 
> I know you feel passionate about this due to the use of all-caps, but I don't think you're understanding why people don't agree with you. It's a definitional thing. It's a hot dog / sandwich thing.
> 
> ...




Now, would anyone consider one on one in the driveway and an NBA game to actually BE the same game?  Because, well, fair enough.  If you (the plural you, not you specifically) do, then, well, yeah, this is a total failure to communicate.  To me, you just listed several completely different games that happen to share a common root.  Euchre and Bridge share a common root, but, does anyone consider them to be the same game?


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## Hussar (Mar 4, 2020)

Ok, look at it this way.

If I tell you that there is an NFL game on tomorrow, we can make a number of factual predictions about what will happen:


Two teams will alternate between offense and defense.
They will play for four quarters (unless there is a tie)
At the end time, one team will be declared a winner (or a tie potentially)
During play, the offense team will attempt 4 times to move the ball 10 yards forward.
During play, the defensive team will attempt to stop forward motion.
There will only be 10 people per team allowed on the field during play.
I'm sure there are others but, you get the point
.

Now, if I tell you that I'm playing a game of D&D tomorrow, what factual predictions can you make?  We roll dice and we talk?  That's because the rules of D&D (or any RPG) don't actually define what happens during play.  Play is defined by the individual group and is idiosyncratic to that specific group.  No two groups play the same.  Even in something as rigid as Adventurers League play, there is a huge variation from table to table.  And AL play is generally seen as a very idiosyncratic thing in itself with rules specific to that style of play that are outside the rules of the game and generally not acknowledged by the wider range of players.

But, yeah, if people are insisting on focusing on individual plays, or comparing play between different games, then sure, what I'm saying isn't going to make a lot of sense.


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## Umbran (Mar 4, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Play is defined by the individual group and is idiosyncratic to that specific group.  No two groups play the same.




I know that there's a lot of variation.  But... I think we are also at risk of overselling it.  I've been playing for decades, with groups and people from diverse areas of the country and age groups...  and _never_ have I had any problem just sitting down and playing D&D with others.  

Has anyone really had the issue come up where they sat down with D&D players... and didn't know what the bloody blue blazes was going on at their table?  

I suspect we are far more similar than we are different - and that we nuance a lot of flavor and style out of what are really _small_ differences in play.


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## Hussar (Mar 4, 2020)

Umbran said:


> I know that there's a lot of variation.  But... I think we are also at risk of overselling it.  I've been playing for decades, with groups and people from diverse areas of the country and age groups...  and _never_ have I had any problem just sitting down and playing D&D with others.
> 
> Has anyone really had the issue come up where they sat down with D&D players... and didn't know what the bloody blue blazes was going on at their table?
> 
> I suspect we are far more similar than we are different - and that we nuance a lot of flavor and style out of what are really _small_ differences in play.




Well, let's put it this way.  I've been told you can't tell who is going to win in a sports game.  I disagree.  There's an entire industry devoted to predicting the outcome of sports.  And, you know what?  They're pretty good at it.  Not perfect, true.  But, pretty good.  Right more often than wrong.

Now, predict what my next D&D game looks like.  Heck, can you even predict your next session?  

Again, if I tell you I'm playing D&D, or any RPG for that matter, tomorrow, you have pretty much no idea what's happening tomorrow.  Other than the most vague of notions - some dice will be rolled, some people will talk.  Telling someone, "Hey, let's play D&D" doesn't really tell them anything at all.  If I ask you to play 2 on 2 basketball, or Monopoly, or NFL football, you have a very, very good idea what's going to happen.  Sure, some of the specifics (as in who wins) will be undetermined.  It is a game after all.  But, the process from start to finish will be pretty predictable.

There is no real "order of play" in an RPG.


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## Lanefan (Mar 4, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Has anyone really had the issue come up where they sat down with D&D players... and didn't know what the bloody blue blazes was going on at their table?



Yes, but that was mostly because the DM had, I think, a minor speech impediment on top of a very thick (southern US?) accent such that I couldn't understand a bloody word he said. 



> I suspect we are far more similar than we are different - and that we nuance a lot of flavor and style out of what are really _small_ differences in play.



In general, this is true.


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## Lanefan (Mar 4, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Now, predict what my next D&D game looks like.  Heck, can you even predict your next session?



Can't speak to yours, other than I know computers will be involved. 

Mine?  Yeah, this time I can more or less predict it: they'll spend half the session dividing a small treasury, do a bit of shopping (there's not much available in the town they're in), some characters will finish training into new levels, and with any luck they'll get back into the field on their next adventure the goal and vague location of which they already know.

Oh, and a few dice will be rolled, many notes will (I hope!) be taken on character sheets regarding treasury shares, many non-game-related things will be said, food will be its usual distraction for some, and beer will flow like it should. (the last three are perpetuals)


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## Aldarc (Mar 4, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Well, let's put it this way.  I've been told you can't tell who is going to win in a sports game.  I disagree.  There's an entire industry devoted to predicting the outcome of sports.  And, you know what?  They're pretty good at it.  Not perfect, true.  But, pretty good.  Right more often than wrong.



It's competitive play, Hussar. If there was any money in betting about whether the party at the table could make it in and out of the dungeon, then that would be a thing in D&D too. Or bet about which character will make it based upon the play expertise of the player. And the same could be said for board games too. Will the group win at Pandemic tonight? Who knows. Or how about Settlers of Catan? But you could probably bet on these things too and attempt to predict the outcome. The problem is that the gambling industry doesn't care about applying their efforts in these matters. 

I think that you are trying to force this D&D exceptionalism a little too hard and are in the unfortunate position of being stuck scrambling to defend a sinking argument full of lots of holes. But when so little people find your argument compelling or sustainable, at what point do you abandon the ship? 



> If I ask you to play 2 on 2 basketball, or Monopoly, or NFL football, you have a very, very good idea what's going to happen.  Sure, some of the specifics (as in who wins) will be undetermined.  It is a game after all.  But, the process from start to finish will be pretty predictable.
> 
> There is no real "order of play" in an RPG.



Actually I don't know what is going to happen if you ask me to play 2 on 2 basketball. Are we playing for a set time? Are we playing to a certain win condition? Are we playing full court or half-court? Do we take the ball back to half-court and bounce the ball back into play? What constitutes a foul? How are fouls adjudicated and enforced? How high is the goalpost? How much time do we get in offense? Is there a shot clock? What are we playing for? What does a victory achieve? Am I doing this as a work out? Do I enjoy basketball? How competitive are you going to take this? 

Likewise with Monopoly, Parker Bros. discovered through in-house research, much to their own surprise, that people rarely played Monopoly per the rules. It was only when they realized this that they essentially started printing common house rules in the instructions. Even then, I feel that everytime that I sit down to a game of Monopoly, the players frequently have to negotiate the rules and the agreed upon terms of play. 

Saying that we're playing NFL Football is more akin to saying, "Hey we're running an Adventurer's League game of Tomb of Annihilation." And there will be more procedures in place here than in a standard "pick-up-game" of D&D.


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## Sadras (Mar 4, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> ...(snip)... they'll spend half the session dividing a small treasury, do a bit of shopping (there's not much available in the town they're in), some characters will finish training into new levels, and with any luck they'll get back into the field on their next adventure the goal and vague location of which they already know.




Funny enough we also have an admin session coming up next - evaluating and sharing some treasure taken from a dragon's lair, library/sage research, making some necessary contacts within the city, commissioning items to be made, restocking equipment. And the very next session is made up of an extended sociopolitical scene with much decision making.


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## Hussar (Mar 4, 2020)

Aldarc said:


> It's competitive play, Hussar. If there was any money in betting about whether the party at the table could make it in and out of the dungeon, then that would be a thing in D&D too. Or bet about which character will make it based upon the play expertise of the player. /snip




How do you know there is a dungeon to be found anywhere in a given D&D campaign?  Might be, might not be.  

As far as you basketball example goes, let's be honest, you know that if we're going to play 2 on 2, while there are some variations (as you say, half court, full court), you do know that we will have a basketball, and at least one hoop.  We know that we're not going to play with racquets.  You can be pretty sure that no one is going to be allowed to kick the ball at any time.  

Terming it as "exceptionalism" is bringing in pretty loaded language.  Can we not distinguish between an RPG an other kinds of games?  I was told recently that Clue is not an RPG.  Why not?  Why is Clue, or Monopoly, or Baseball not an RPG?


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## Umbran (Mar 4, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Now, predict what my next D&D game looks like.  Heck, can you even predict your next session?




With respect, that's not the appropriate question - we aren't talking about _results_ of play, or the content of play.  We are talking about general _process_ of play. We don't need to be able to predict what happens in the session, so much as be able to understand how you go about playing.

The question is, can a new player sit down at the table and join in the action with minimal discombobulation?  Or are you like, resolving social encounters by doing the Hokey-Pokey such that everyone stands up and starts dancing with no explanation?


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## Fenris-77 (Mar 4, 2020)

Umbran said:


> With respect, that's not the appropriate question - we aren't talking about _results_ of play, or the content of play.  We are talking about general _process_ of play. We don't need to be able to predict what happens in the session, so much as be able to understand how you go about playing.
> 
> The question is, can a new player sit down at the table and join in the action with minimal discombobulation?  Or are you like, resolving social encounters by doing the Hokey-Pokey such that everyone stands up and starts dancing with no explanation?



I think the answer is generally yes, and that yes is why despite differences that specific games of D&D can still be called 'D&D' without involving too much suspension of disbelief. I think the interesting meat of this topic is in finding some vocabulary and ways to talk about how play is actualized, and maybe identifying some decision points where games start to diverge a little in what they look like at the table.


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## Umbran (Mar 4, 2020)

Fenris-77 said:


> I think the interesting meat of this topic is in finding some vocabulary and ways to talk about how play is actualized, and maybe identifying some decision points where games start to diverge a little in what they look like at the table.




I largely agree.  I note this mostly because,if we are talking mostly about small differences in play, focusing a lot of vocabulary on the large bits won't hurt, but may also not actually get you very far into the meat, as they are discussions about stuff most of us are doing the same.


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## Fenris-77 (Mar 4, 2020)

Umbran said:


> I largely agree.  I note this mostly because,if we are talking mostly about small differences in play, focusing a lot of vocabulary on the large bits won't hurt, but may also not actually get you very far into the meat, as they are discussions about stuff most of us are doing the same.



I wasn't talking about the same-y bits. I do think we could use some common vocabulary for those bits though, that would let be more sure what bits we're talking about. The 'actualization of play at the table' is what each group does with those same-y bits, and where the differences start creeping in. That not the only place, but it's one of them.


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## Aldarc (Mar 4, 2020)

Hussar said:


> How do you know there is a dungeon to be found anywhere in a given D&D campaign?  Might be, might not be.



(1) @Umbran's criticism is apt here. 



> Terming it as "exceptionalism" is bringing in pretty loaded language.  Can we not distinguish between an RPG an other kinds of games?  I was told recently that Clue is not an RPG.  Why not?  Why is Clue, or Monopoly, or Baseball not an RPG?



(2) IMO, you are approaching this the wrong way, even apart from Umbran's excellent point. 

I get the impression that you are looking for some sort of rule, law, or key identifier for what constitutes an RPGs or makes them special where there is none. Instead, probably the best way is by gathering a set of typical features found in things that are recognized as RPGs. Don't focus on what isn't present in RPGs vs. sports, board games, or improv comedy class; only focus on what is commonly found in RPGs. Trying to argue from a position of exceptionalism only leads to people shooting cannonballs in your argument.


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## Umbran (Mar 4, 2020)

Hussar said:


> Can we not distinguish between an RPG an other kinds of games?




Sure we can, but we do so by inclusion, rather than exclusion. 

RPGs are a genre of game.  And you decide whether a thing fits in the genre by deciding if it has enough of the genre tropes and traits - if you have enough, you are in, and if you don't, you are out.  Genre determination typically doesn't care about other things you might include - If you have a sci-fi space opera, and the main character wears a ten gallon hat, that's not a point _against_ it being a sci-fi space opera.



> I was told recently that Clue is not an RPG.  Why not?  Why is Clue, or Monopoly, or Baseball not an RPG?




We might use some of @Celebrim 's language here - in Monopoly, for example, the player never gets to make a proposition.  The player merely responds to events and opportunities given by the game mechanics, typically by responding to a yes/no choice.  You move some spaces as given by the dice, and you buy or not.  You bid at auction or you do not.  

Baseball seems to allow a player to make propositions ("I propose I get to run around all the bases!"), and a mechanic for determining success, but it is not a role playing game because it lacks a fictional narrative. You can tell the story of the game, but it is non-fiction, as those events actually happened in the real world.


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## Celebrim (Mar 4, 2020)

@Hussar: So, you make a good point.  If we take a game like soccer or baseball, and if we read the rule book, we'll find that the overwhelming majority of the rules are actually defining the equipment that the game is played with and the field that it is played on.   If you read the rules of Major League Baseball for the first time, you might be surprised to discover that only a tiny fraction of the rule book has anything to do with the process of playing baseball.   In fact, most of the rule book is devoted to describing the circumstances in which play is to take place - as if you picked up an RPG rule book and it spent 30 pages on who should bring snacks and what sort they should bring.

RPG rule books for the most part give no exacting guidance about the field of play or even the type of play that is to take place in the session, so you are right that we can't expect a dungeon or a dragon in a game of D&D the way we can expect a diamond in baseball. In point of fact, the field of play is left entirely up to the imagination of the participants, and could be literally anything.

So what then can we expect? How do we know if someone is playing D&D? Well, for that we have to look at what the rules do describe.

Well, first, there will a secret keeper, usually a human Dungeon Master who is a participant in the play but has a special role as secret keeper and judge.

The other participant(s) will have a character, who represent the avatar they control within the game. And the character will have attributes represented by mathematical values.

The secret keeper will describe a fictional setting that your character is a part of.

And you and the other participants will take turns speaking to the secret keeper. The most important thing you can say to the secret keeper, and the one thing the game really cares about, are propositions to alter the fiction - or to be formal about it to "change the fictional positioning."

When you propose to change the fiction, one of three things will happen. Either the secret keeper will say, "No", or they will say "Yes", or they will say, "Roll a D20, add a specific number from your character sheet, and report the result." If you observe the game long enough you'll eventually discover that that roll of the D20, usually with a modifier added to it, is being compared to a target number, and if your total is equal to or higher than that number, then the change you want to make to the fiction or something quite like it will probably happen. But if your modified roll is below that target number, then it probably won't.  Critically, regardless of what happens it's usually the secret keeper that explains the results of your proposition.   Also critically, it's usually the case that you make the proposition before you roll the die, and the the outcomes are described after the die is thrown and the result known.  And you can continue to make observations of this sort and eventually you will be able to report, "Yes, we are playing D&D".

What this tells us is that the game of D&D is mostly a collection of rules for achieving agreement between the participants with respect to a series of changes in the fiction. But the actual process of playing the game is as much or more about the fiction than what the rules describe. Above and beyond the rules, there is a whole bunch of ideas about the sort of things that might populate the fiction - like say orcs - but none of those things are essential to the game being D&D. What RPGs tend to cover in all of their hundreds of pages are either aids to brainstorming fiction, or else the equivalent of the tiny section of the rules of baseball that describe what players actually do to resolve whether someone gets around the bases and scores a point. The rules are usually silent on most of the things that sports rules care very deeply about.

It is therefore absolutely true that the event of play each table performs is unique in a way that baseball match isn't.   But there are still some commonalities between those tables so that we can tell they are playing the same game.


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## Hussar (Mar 5, 2020)

Umbran said:


> /snip
> 
> Baseball seems to allow a player to make propositions ("I propose I get to run around all the bases!"), and a mechanic for determining success, but it is not a role playing game because it lacks a fictional narrative. You can tell the story of the game, but it is non-fiction, as those events actually happened in the real world.




I would like to say that I pretty much agree with @Celebrim here.  And, I'm saying that just for the novelty of it.    And, yes, genre is defined by the center.  I do fully agree with that.  And that's a useful direction for defining a genre.  OTOH, you can define things negatively - it's not X or Y.  A bicycle is not a motorcycle because it doesn't have an engine.  RPG's are not the same as other games because they do not include a fixed order of play.

But, I would disagree with this quoted point.  The player doensn't get to propose that he gets the opportunity to run all around the bases.  He can only run the bases when the mechanics allow him to do so.  In fact, he has no choice sometimes (squeeze play, runner behind him) and must run after he hits the ball.  

I suppose you could argue that he could hit the ball and then stand there doing nothing, but, at that point, he's refusing to play the game.  It's like saying a Monopoly player could refuse to roll the dice on his turn.  It's true, but, kinda beside the point.


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