My Attempt to Define RPG's - RPG's aren't actually Games

Ovinomancer · Aug 27, 2018

Hussar said:
Ok, let's work with this.

DM: You are at the Hardby market.

Players: Ok. ...

.... crickets chirp...

DM: What do you do?

Players: Well, what can we do? Who can we talk to? Can we have more information?

DM: Nope. No more information for you. We will play this game without creating anything before you interact with it.

Players: Umm... we look around?

DM: Ok. And?

Players: Well, what do we see?

DM: NO. Dammit. Nothing needs to be created before you play this game, so, what do you do.

Players: ((Stare at each other around the table for three hours before going home.))

Because, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], until SOMEONE creates stuff, there's nothing to do.

As a few people have told you before, you're analyzing from a very narrow view of RPGs. The scene you provide above is plenty sufficient fir a no-myth game. Play will go immediately from the scene frame of a market in Hardby to the players declaring actions according to thier desires and goals.

Frex:

PLAYER 1: I go to the fish vendor's stall and buy some salmon so I can salt it for travel. I am "always prepared" after all.

HM: Good. Let's kick this off. Roll your (game appropriate skill).

PLAYER: um, crud, I failed.

GM: okay, let's see. The fish stall is closed, and you overhear someone say that the fisherman has been missing a few days.

In this example, the player uses his traits defined during character creation to motivate his play. He invents a fish stall in the market to play on, and tries to buy fish. The GM decides to challenge this action and calls for a roll. When the player fails, the GM narrates how his action fails, but then uses that failure to offer a new twist: the fisherman is missing. Why he is missing will get established in play, as the players declare actions and succeed or not. Frex, the next bit of play could involve a PC with a background as a river pirate announcing that it's common for pirates to kidnap for ransom (now established fact in game) and declare he's looking for a ransom demand. Success makes this true, failure means that's not the case; it's something else. In ganes with partial successes, it would be true but with a complication -- perhaps the ex-pirate discovers it's his old crew that he was tossed from on pain of death doing the kidnapping?

The point is, if you are looking only from a prepared scenario/story mode of play, where the players have no authorial control over the plot, you're going to have a very narrow view of play and make incorrect assumptions. What you provide above is plenty sufficient for play for a number of systems. This view is also why your analysis doesn't work (also why you keep becoming frustrated with me, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]). Lots of games develop pretty much everything in play.

Maxperson · Aug 27, 2018

Hussar said:
Sigh. There is NO CREATION IN SET UP when you play Pictionary. There is NO CREATION in set up when you play virtually any board game, outside of strictly delineated elements like deciding a warband in a war game.

Try playing Pictionary without creation and tell me how you do. Without the creation, there is no game, just like with @pemerton's style. And I still reject the notion that both you and @Lanefan put forth that creation on the spot as part of RPG gameplay is set-up. It's a part of play, just as with Pictionary.

Is creation part of set up? Sure. I can see that.

I'm glad you finally agree with me on this. That's all I've been saying with regard to creation in RPGs. This fact makes the game steps for RPGs the same as most games. Rules-->set-up-->play.

Is all set up creation? Nope. Not at all. That's the false equivalency you keep trying to make.

Eh, no. Try again. It's a part of the Strawmen you keep trying to attribute to me, as I've never said or even implied that all set-up is creation. Not once.

Board games do not require creating elements outside of the scope of the game in order to play. All role playing games do.

It has been proven to you that a few board games do. Most do no, but a few do.

pemerton · Aug 27, 2018

Hussar said:
Ok, let's work with this.

DM: You are at the Hardby market.

Players: Ok. ...

.... crickets chirp...

DM: What do you do?

Players: Well, what can we do? Who can we talk to? Can we have more information?

DM: Nope. No more information for you. We will play this game without creating anything before you interact with it.

Players: Umm... we look around?

DM: Ok. And?

Players: Well, what do we see?

DM: NO. Dammit. Nothing needs to be created before you play this game, so, what do you do.

Players: ((Stare at each other around the table for three hours before going home.))

Because, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], until SOMEONE creates stuff, there's nothing to do.

But what you're saying can't happen did happen.

GM: You're at the Hardby market. A peddler of trinkets says he has an angel feather for sale, recovered from the Bright Desert.

Player: I use Aura Reading to inspect the feather.

<check made, fails>

GM: the feather is cursed . . .

Here's another example:

GM: You come to a Large Steading that Reeks of Smoke and Worse.

Player: I climb to the top of the pallisade to gain an Overview of the Steading.

<check is made, succeeds>

GM: You're on top of the steading pallisade. You see the hall and some outbuildings.

Player: Is one of them a barn?

GM: Yes.

Player: I sneak into the barn and lead out the ox!

<check is made, succeeds>

Player: I lead the ox into the hall and offer to sell it to the giant chieftain.

<check is made, fails>

GM: The giant chieftain asks whether you think he's a fool, trying to sell him his own cattle!

Players can take the initiative - suggestions, creations, initiating checks. That's one way to play RPGs.

Treating creation as if its a prelude to play, rather than part of play, is you and [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] projecting a narrow style of play onto RPGing as a whole.

Aenghus · Aug 27, 2018

My take on the OP is that wargames are distinctly games despite often requiring scenario creation, printed scenarios or user created scenarios. They often also involve worldbuilding. I don't see RPGs as any different, apart from the difference in game activities.

I bought the 1st edition Warhammer white box set, which was half wargame and half RPG, the state of the art being quite primitive at the time. I certainly see it as a game. I see RPGs as games as well.

My question to the OP is that I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why is it important to you to designate RPGs as "not games" despite having "Game" in the title? Is there a "and therefore" that you haven't mentioned yet?

Hussar · Aug 27, 2018

Ovinomancer said:
As a few people have told you before, you're analyzing from a very narrow view of RPGs. The scene you provide above is plenty sufficient fir a no-myth game. Play will go immediately from the scene frame of a market in Hardby to the players declaring actions according to thier desires and goals.

Frex:

PLAYER 1: I go to the fish vendor's stall and buy some salmon so I can salt it for travel. I am "always prepared" after all.

HM: Good. Let's kick this off. Roll your (game appropriate skill).

PLAYER: um, crud, I failed.

GM: okay, let's see. The fish stall is closed, and you overhear someone say that the fisherman has been missing a few days.

In this example, the player uses his traits defined during character creation to motivate his play. He invents a fish stall in the market to play on, and tries to buy fish. The GM decides to challenge this action and calls for a roll. When the player fails, the GM narrates how his action fails, but then uses that failure to offer a new twist: the fisherman is missing. Why he is missing will get established in play, as the players declare actions and succeed or not. Frex, the next bit of play could involve a PC with a background as a river pirate announcing that it's common for pirates to kidnap for ransom (now established fact in game) and declare he's looking for a ransom demand. Success makes this true, failure means that's not the case; it's something else. In ganes with partial successes, it would be true but with a complication -- perhaps the ex-pirate discovers it's his old crew that he was tossed from on pain of death doing the kidnapping?

The point is, if you are looking only from a prepared scenario/story mode of play, where the players have no authorial control over the plot, you're going to have a very narrow view of play and make incorrect assumptions. What you provide above is plenty sufficient for play for a number of systems. This view is also why your analysis doesn't work (also why you keep becoming frustrated with me, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]). Lots of games develop pretty much everything in play.

Where did the "fish vendor" come from? What page of the rules has a fish vendor? SOMEONE had to create that fish vendor. Whether it's the DM, or the players, someone at the table had to create that information before you could play it out. Your entire example is replete with the players creating material, that is not actually part of the game itself, in order to have something to play.

Let's see you play without creating anything before playing it out. Is it developed in play? Sure. I've agreed with that multiple times. But, EVERY SINGLE TIME, the players (whether one or all the players at the table) MUST CREATE SCENERIOS before play progresses. You simply cannot play an RPG without that.

Hussar · Aug 27, 2018

Maxperson said:
/snip
I'm glad you finally agree with me on this. That's all I've been saying with regard to creation in RPGs. This fact makes the game steps for RPGs the same as most games. Rules-->set-up-->play.
/snip

So, you agree that not all set up is the same. That there are different kinds of set up. So, that make the difference I've been saying all the way along. Not all set up is the same. RPG's share a kind of set up that is not shared in any other game.

Can you play Pictionary without drawing a picture? No, or at least, not very well. But, the drawing is not part of set-up. Set up is picking the word. Drawing the picture is simply playing the game. And, again, you are 100% following the mechanics of the game in doing so. You are not bringing in anything that is not specifically talked about by the game.

Hussar · Aug 28, 2018

pemerton said:
But what you're saying can't happen did happen.

GM: You're at the Hardby market. A peddler of trinkets says he has an angel feather for sale, recovered from the Bright Desert.

Player: I use Aura Reading to inspect the feather.

<check made, fails>

GM: the feather is cursed . . .

/snip.

Where did the peddler come from? Where did the feather come from? Where did the Bright Desert come from? What rules of D&D or whatever system you are using, did you draw those from?

None. You had to create that scenario - talking to the peddler with an alleged angel feather before play could progress. Without that, you cannot play.

Every single example you bring up Pemerton simply proves my point. Creation precedes play. Without creating elements, you cannot play an RPG. Which, again, is different from any board game where you do not need to create a single thing in order to begin play.

Hussar · Aug 28, 2018

Aenghus said:
My take on the OP is that wargames are distinctly games despite often requiring scenario creation, printed scenarios or user created scenarios. They often also involve worldbuilding. I don't see RPGs as any different, apart from the difference in game activities.

I bought the 1st edition Warhammer white box set, which was half wargame and half RPG, the state of the art being quite primitive at the time. I certainly see it as a game. I see RPGs as games as well.

My question to the OP is that I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why is it important to you to designate RPGs as "not games" despite having "Game" in the title? Is there a "and therefore" that you haven't mentioned yet?

Yup, there is. This has been asked and answered. Again, mea culpa for the clickbait in the title. RPG's are games and game creation engines. Sigh.

Hussar · Aug 28, 2018

There's a fairly simple way to illustrate the distinction here.

In a non-RPG, the rules answer the question, "What?" What are you going to do when you play this game? You are going to draw hints related to "Cagney and Lacey". You aren't going to change key words half way through. You aren't going to invent a new language in play. You are going to draw hints related to whatever key word the game tells you.

In an RPG, the rules answer the question, "How?" How are you going to adjudicate whatever it is you created? They don't tell you what and, even if you follow the rules of the RPG, you won't get a what. You especially won't get a what if you're playing No-Myth style play. The What is created by the players at the table in play and then the rules tell you how to move forward.

The rules don't tell you to create a peddler in a market with a magic feather. The DM, or the group and the DM, creates that. The rules tell you how to adjudicate that scenario and move forward. Which, in turns, leads to another creation which in turn leads to more "how to resolve this" from the mechanics.

This cycle is absent from non-RPG's.

Ovinomancer · Aug 28, 2018

Hussar said:
Where did the "fish vendor" come from? What page of the rules has a fish vendor? SOMEONE had to create that fish vendor. Whether it's the DM, or the players, someone at the table had to create that information before you could play it out. Your entire example is replete with the players creating material, that is not actually part of the game itself, in order to have something to play.

Let's see you play without creating anything before playing it out. Is it developed in play? Sure. I've agreed with that multiple times. But, EVERY SINGLE TIME, the players (whether one or all the players at the table) MUST CREATE SCENERIOS before play progresses. You simply cannot play an RPG without that.

It's in the rules for those games. The players declare actions. The GM says yes or tests the action with a check. These games explicitly (and some implicitly) allow for players to author content as part of their action declarations. So, to answer you question, the player creates the fish vendor as part of their action declaration, which is part of their play. The creation step is part of the play step. It doesn't go 'create -> play'; it's simultaneous. When the player declares the fish vendor, it's his play. That declaration can be tested if a check is called for, and, if failed, negated entirely. The GM could say 'sorry, but you don't find any fish vendors.' I'm not sure how you're assuming that this creation is done prior to the play when it's very existence is determined by use of the mechanics.

Go read the rules for any Powered by the Apocalypse game, or Burning Wheel, or Mouse Guard and you'll see the play schema. In Blades, it's player declares action, GM determines if it succeeds or should be tested, if tested, GM determines the position (danger level) and effect (success level) for the action declaration of the player. Dice are rolled, success, success with setback, or failure is determined. The player's action directly changes the established fiction of the game in an authorial context. The GM just adjudicates the fallout of the actions, good or bad. The creation part is the players playing the game.

You should really have a broader experience with RPGs other than D&D before you try to classify them all under a single umbrella.

My Attempt to Define RPG's - RPG's aren't actually Games

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

pemerton

Legend

Aenghus

Explorer

Hussar

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Hussar

Legend

Hussar

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Hussar

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Hussar

Legend

Ovinomancer

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