Chess is not an RPG: The Illusion of Game Balance

[prosfilaes]

If you look at a traditional theater game (and working with the assumption that those games belong to a different class of games than D&D),

I would consider traditional theater games not RPGs because they don't consider themselves RPGs, and they don't descend from D&D. Games like Mars Colony: 39 Dark, My Life with Master, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Sorcerer and Best Friends label themselves RPGs right up front, so I'd prefer to draw the lines inclusive of them. (Puppetland doesn't.) When most of the games in the genre call themselves RPGs; when they claim descent from D&D or The Fantasy Trip or offer thanks to Gygax; when there's no strong line between what we're considering RPGs and these games; I prefer to draw the line inclusive of them.

 

[Janx]

I'm a high function autistic. Sometimes things that should be obvious to me aren't. I honestly thought people - even Wick - were seeking to find an accurate definition using Socratic discourse in order to speak on the topic of game design and implementation with greater clarity. That they are not literally for me a stunning revolution. I physically gasped when I realized it and nearly fell out of my chair.

Sounds silly I suppose, but it's true.

I'm not an autistic, and I assumed folks were trying to define RPG as well. Sometimes the problem is simply the manner in which a writer approaches a topic, and how a reader approaches it.

Hence why at various points I listed aspects that I think RPGs have that not-RPGs don't tend to have.

 

[Celebrim]

I am not using mod-voice here, but dude, you probably want to back off. Address the reasoning of the post, not the person of the poster.

Since your not using mod-voice here, dude, why is it that you never notice that when I'm addressing the person of the post, it's because the poster has previously addressed my person? I think I'd actually be ok with this being a standard, if it was actually one you applied equitably.

Read again what I'm quoting:

"Rather than people (like the RPG Pundit or, for that matter yourself) who use it to define games they don't like. That is what the term was created to cover. It has drifted since then. The only practical definition of a Storygame I'm aware of is "A game produced by those people over there." - emphasis added

Why is that you are always so one sided in how you apply those standards? Why is it that you only have a problem with them, and can only see them, after some one else notices them, dude? Are you actually addressing the reasoning of my post? Because the reasoning of my post as I see it is quite clear. Since the person I'm responded to stated what they thought my reasoning was, this became a window into me seeing the argument how they saw the argument. For the first time I was able to see not just the argument, but a glimpse of the motivations and reasoning behind it. New facts were provided to me that for the first time let me address the posters real underlying concerns - that is, that they believed that I was just trying to separate out Story Games for the purposes of demeaning them or trivializing them or putting them into the 'not fun' category.

I didn't just come to this point out of left field. The point is, if someone believes that of my motivations, first there is no basis for a discussion, and second they are going to be consistently misreading me.

And if you have a problem with the fact that I can be abrasive, that's a different problem, but consider that what you might not mean as abrasive can be very easily seen as abrasive by who you are speaking to, dude, even if you don't mean it to be and even in cases where it is abrasive you've just never considered the implications. It's really really hard to figure out what people mean by what they say, and that is made even harder by the fact that on the internet even what few cues we might have just aren't there. No smiles. No body language. No tone of voice.

Do you probably want to back off, dude? Are you addressing my substance or my person?

Think about it.

And is "I am not using my mod-voice here, but...", the logical equivalent of, "I don't mean to be rude, but..."?

If, in practical use, the term is muddied by having so many people use it many different ways, then it can be left in a state where it has no clear meaning.

Totally agree. And in that is my interest and motivation in the thread. I hate terms without clear meanings. Is 'dude' affectionate or is it patronizing? Veiled insult or just generic form of address. No clear answer. It's very hard to know what to do with that term, particularly in context.

What I would like is to be of one mind on the topic.

 

[Celebrim]

I would consider traditional theater games not RPGs because they don't consider themselves RPGs, and they don't descend from D&D. Games like Mars Colony: 39 Dark, My Life with Master, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Sorcerer and Best Friends label themselves RPGs right up front, so I'd prefer to draw the lines inclusive of them. (Puppetland doesn't.) When most of the games in the genre call themselves RPGs; when they claim descent from D&D or The Fantasy Trip or offer thanks to Gygax; when there's no strong line between what we're considering RPGs and these games; I prefer to draw the line inclusive of them.

Self-identification is really helpful because it tends to avoid arguments.

The problem with it is that it really only works if everyone knows what they are identifying as and has no real reason to misidentify. It ends up really being just a hat to wear - I'm going to call myself a story game because I want to be identified as part of the story gaming community, or vica versa. At which point, I consider the label to be useless - just unnecessary division. So from my perspective either we need to decide RPGs have a definition other that self-identification, or we just need to recognize the term has no meaning and drop it in favor of something that actually does. If RPGs have no distinctive features that distinguish them from games, lets just call them games. And I think we all could agree we like games.

 

[Umbran]

Since your not using mod-voice here, dude, why is it that you never notice that when I'm addressing the person of the post, it's because the poster has previously addressed my person? I think I'd actually be ok with this being a standard, if it was actually one you applied equitably.

If you want to take it to PM, I'm happy to discuss it with you.

And is "I am not using my mod-voice here, but...", the logical equivalent of, "I don't mean to be rude, but..."?

You'd prefer to *not* get less confrontational notes, and have me go straight to Official stance without conversation? I was just trying to be a bit friendly about it, so as not to derail the conversation. That seems to have failed. I'll remember that for the future.

 

[prosfilaes]

The problem with it is that it really only works if everyone knows what they are identifying as and has no real reason to misidentify.

Who has a reason to misidentify? And what does "misidentify" mean there? When an offshoot of RPGs colonized the idea space now known as story games, there's no nonarbitrary way to say whether they were RPGs or not. So when the authors of these story games, knowing their origins in RPGs, declared them RPGs, why should we argue?

It ends up really being just a hat to wear

I wasn't arguing that this necessarily works on a game by game case, but when a whole subgenre calls themself RPGs, then I'm hard put to say that they aren't.

So from my perspective either we need to decide RPGs have a definition other that self-identification, or we just need to recognize the term has no meaning and drop it in favor of something that actually does. If RPGs have no distinctive features that distinguish them from games, lets just call them games.

As I said previously, I think that too much focus on the definition of "roleplaying games" overlooks reality. Every person has a slightly different understanding of what "roleplaying games" means, and their understandings almost invariably will be prototype-based. If you ask them if My Life with Master is an RPG, they'll blink and ask you if that's anything like D&D or maybe Rifts or Vampire, depending on their base RPG.

(Aside: One discussion at Wiktionary was over the definition of PC; ultimately the problem is you can't ask most people "do you consider an Alpha server running Windows NT a PC? What about Linux on x86? on Alpha or S/360?", because they have no idea what those mean, that those fuzzy edges exist.)

But in any case, not excluding story games from RPGs doesn't mean it has no meaning. Game creators have an understanding of what is and isn't an RPG; if a boardgame, no different from a dozen others, called itself an RPG, we could look at other boardgames like it, that neither the players nor the makers think are RPGs, and say it's not. But a lot of times it doesn't matter enough; if a storygame, daughter of Sorcerer, daughter of The Fantasy Trip, daughter of D&D, wants to call itself an RPG, I don't see the win in arguing that it's too similar to a theater game to be an RPG.

(Likewise, there are number of country bands that rock more then a number of rock bands, but as long as they don't cross the line too far, it's easier to let them self-identify then to try and define exactly where the line between country and rock is.

Or, are two people related? Siblings are, nigh-universally. Someone who is pureblood Kikuyu and someone who is pureblood Navaho (no close ties by marriage, either) aren't, even though they share an ancestor not more than 100,000 years ago. What about two random descendants of Genghis Khan? What about people who share a common great-grandparent? Does the fact there's no bright line, that one person might answer differently based on the context, really make "related" have no meaning?)

In any case, nobody is going to mistake bridge for an RPG. The fact that we can't draw bright lines doesn't mean the concept is void. When my friend says he likes board games better then RPGs because the choices are more limited and more concrete, I can understand what he's saying without arguing out the fine lines.

(continued...) Note also that lines are arbitrary and even mobile. In another universe where Dungeon was labeled an RPG and similar boardgames were also labeled RPGs, I'd be arguing that they're included as RPGs. Had the storygaming idea space been colonized from theater games written by people who didn't have an RPG background, I'd be arguing they weren't RPGs.

 

[JamesonCourage]

You'd prefer to *not* get less confrontational notes, and have me go straight to Official stance without conversation? I was just trying to be a bit friendly about it, so as not to derail the conversation. That seems to have failed. I'll remember that for the future.

Personally, I'd rather you do that in the future. When mods start modding without mod voice, it makes me wonder if I can do so as well. I can quite easily separate your mod posts from your personal opinions by the colors you use -when not using red or orange, you're just another poster, same as we are. As such, I assume that you'll be following the same basic rules that we all have to follow (that we agreed to when we signed up for the site). That means when mods use their non-mod voice, it sets an example of acceptable behavior on these boards.

If you want to mod, please, mod away. I love the moderation on this site compared to other sites I've visited. The moderation at several other popular RPG sites actively drove me away, in fact. But if you're going to mod, please be up front about it. It just makes it less confusing for me as a fellow poster.*

*A few years ago, when I was new, I was chided in orange for trying to mod another poster instead of reporting it. (I think you were the one that warned me, too, Umbran.) That helped define the roles of posters and mods on this site, and that was useful. It's confusing when I see some mods here (you and Morrus most often, in my experience) refrain from using your mod voice, since I've been chided for 'attempting to mod' years ago.

It's just easier if you skip to the mod voice. Use orange if it's not as confrontational. It's just a warning, not a hard slap-down like red is. Just my opinion. And I'm writing it openly because we're apparently allowed to discuss mod practices openly in this thread (no mod voice yet, including from a mod).

 

[Hussar]

I'm not sure that I disagree, but for the sake of argument, do we agree that Bloodbowl is a board game? If so, then it has at least some concept of "challenge the character" Any board game with differentiated pieces (and a fortune mechanic?) challenges the character at least to some degree.

While the fact that RPGs challenge both character and player seems to be reasonably true, even if we accept it as true, I'm not sure it is a distinguishing feature from other classes of games.

I suppose, although, really, what character is being challenged? There's no expectation of more character (as in thinking of the piece as having independent motivations that the player is trying to express) in Bloodbowl than there is in Chess. The player is never expected to say, "Well, I don't think this piece would move there because he doesn't want to." The expectations are entirely tactical considerations. If I (the player) move my piece here, I have these odds of gaining this result. There's no character motivation or challenge is there?

 

[Hussar]

In any case, nobody is going to mistake bridge for an RPG. The fact that we can't draw bright lines doesn't mean the concept is void. When my friend says he likes board games better then RPGs because the choices are more limited and more concrete, I can understand what he's saying without arguing out the fine lines.


Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Illusion-of-Game-Balance/page37#ixzz3H6e3u84W

I like the idea of RPG being a rather big tent concept. Kind of like how Speculative Fiction divides into Fantasy, Horror and SF (with lots of bleed through in between - more of a Venn diagram than anything), I see the "genre" of Games dividing into things like Board Games, RPG's and CRPG's (With bleed through, and very obviously more categories under Games like Sports and others) again with lots of bleed through.

Like you say, no one is going to mistake bridge, or Monopoly or Risk as an RPG. CRPG's obviously need some sort of Computer. Just as there are lots of games on the edges that might be one or the other. Is Diplomacy a role playing game? It's bloody well close.

Bedrockgames - I do understand what you're saying about specific tables, but, then again, I don't think that's a particularly useful direction to take. We have to stick to what the expectations of the game are, rather than how someone plays it. Otherwise, the categories really don't mean much. If I play Baldur's Gate entirely in character, only taking actions that would make sense for that character, am I playing an RPG? Well, maybe. But, the game as it stands certainly doesn't presume that you will play that way. Conversely, I could play D&D entirely in Pawn stance, 100% metagaming every encounter (which is how I think @Howandwhy expects RPG's to work) but, that doesn't mean that the game presumes that this is what you will do. There is certainly an expectation within the game of D&D that you will create a character whose motivations and actions are separate from your own and that you, the player, will take those motivations into consideration when trying to portray the game.

As I said earlier, we need to focus on the middle, not on the edges. Players who do nothing but reference the character sheet are not the expected norm of a player, and nor is the 100% meta-gamer. The expectation of most RPG's that I can think of, is a mix of both where you have a little of column A and a little of column B. When the expectations of the game move very far in one direction or the other, then I think it goes to the edge of the definition of RPG and then into something else, like Story Games where the expectation is that the player isn't really being challenged directly by the game but rather the expectation is that the player will, in part, create some of the challenges for the characters in order to craft a better story for the group. Player decisions shift from "What can I do to make my character succeed in this situation?" to "What can I add to this situation to challenge this character?"

I guess, for me, this is why I don't mind that the definition of, "Role playing games focus on character motivations separate from the player" does sweep up something like Tomb of Horrors. ToH is such an outlier anyway, that trying to include every single exception will result in a definition so broad that it becomes meaningless. In the module "The Silver Key", PC's are transformed into Orcs in order to infiltrate an orc city. The challenge is specifically directed at the players - characters gain "orc points" every time they do something "orcish". So, if you burp or swear at the table, you gain an Orc point if anyone else in the group nominates you and the majority of the group agrees. However, you also gain bonus xp for every orc point you gain, but, if you gain too many, you are forever turned into an orc.

Now, these are pretty much entirely Story Game style mechanics. Certainly not something presumed by baseline D&D (even 2e). If our definition of RPG has to include ToH, shouldn't it also have to include this? But, if we include this, then we're pretty much back to square one where there is no differentiation between Story Games and RPG's.

In order to actually build a working definition, there will always be exceptions. That's just how Genre works. Is Star Wars Fantasy or SF? Well, it depends on who you ask, mostly because genre is always porous. Is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban Fantasy or Mystery? Is Vampire an RPG or a Story Game? Again, it depends on who you ask really. I think the best we can do is build a fairly broad set of typical characteristics and simply accept that any definition will never be 100% accurate. Try to define "forest" and you run into the same limitations of language.

 

[Celebrim]

I suppose, although, really, what character is being challenged? There's no expectation of more character (as in thinking of the piece as having independent motivations that the player is trying to express) in Bloodbowl than there is in Chess. The player is never expected to say, "Well, I don't think this piece would move there because he doesn't want to." The expectations are entirely tactical considerations. If I (the player) move my piece here, I have these odds of gaining this result. There's no character motivation ....is there?

I snipped out two critical words so that I could agree with the whole statement.

All of that is true, but it doesn't mean that the character isn't being challenged. Generally speaking, when we speak of a character being challenged, we aren't talking specifically about challenges to the character's beliefs and motivations - something that I think the "Indie" gamer crowd felt quite keenly. In an RPG, when we speak of a character challenge we usually mean something that is overcome by recourse to the character's abilities, rather than the player's abilities as a diplomat, tactician, or problem solver.

So for example, a puzzle door which must be overcome by a character succeeding on a Knowledge (Puzzles and Enigmas) check is a character challenge, where as a puzzle door that requires the players figure out the combinations that the different levers have to be sat at is a player challenge. This is pretty obvious I think in a cRPG because we recognize in the cRPG that we are shifting to a minigame to be played by the player, rather than resolving whether the door opens with a pass/fail mechanic that references whether or not you have a character with at least a 75 in lockpicking.

Of courses, some minigames can be both character challenges and player challenges. Traditional RPG combat is of this sort. You have to rely as a player on your character's combat abilities, but skillful deployment of those abilities and coordination between the players can improve your odds of a favorable outcome or reduce the amount of resources lost or committed during the combat.

And in that sense, the character of the Bloodbowl player is being challenged during the game. Can "Whiff Windtail" the Gutter Runner pass his 2+ agility roll now that you are out of rerolls? Can that Black Orc Blocker actually manage to pick up the ball, go for it twice and score for the win? Often victory or defeat in Blood Bowl comes down to being able to pull off those sorts of character challenges, where the player challenge is figuring out the least likely to fail path to success. Sure there is no expectation that the character has a developed personality (though it might) but there is I should point out not necessarily any expectation that Black Dougal has a developed personality in a game of D&D beyond being 'the thief'. Can Black Dougal perform an disarm traps check to stop the room from flooding? Failing that can he find the secret door and open the lock to escape? You don't have to play D&D as if the characters had independent motivation from the player, backstories, or personalities. Some groups just don't. Which I think gets back to Wick's complaint. D&D has no real expectation that a character's beliefs will be challenged. It cares very little about the character of the character. You can play it as if the character of the character is very important, but Wick argues that if you don't have to play it that way, it's not an RPG.

I don't agree, but I also don't agree that character challenge is unique to RPGs. It's one of those things that is probably essential to RPGs (I'm trying to think of a counter example, but failing), but is not the unique and defining element of an RPG any more than story itself is (lots of things have stories that aren't RPGs). Bloodbowl has adopted some RPG-like elements to provide for RPG like open ended game play. But it is not I think an RPG just because it shares one or several elements with an RPG.

What's missing in Bloodbowl is the idea of personification. I may create a sort personality for Whiff Windtail, Warren Doom, Prince Charming and Angelina Balerina (and many other players I've had over the years). I may even describe and add flavor to his moves on the game board to entertain myself. But I'm never really acting out a role. My relationship to the pieces remains basically the same as my relationship to the pieces on a chess board, save that since these pieces can persist from game to game, you develop something of an attachment to them.

Now something like Bloodbowl or Necromunda shares so much in common with RPGs that I think it would take very few steps to turn them into an RPG, but then again, I don't think it takes many steps to turn a theater game into an RPG or chess into an RPG. So I don't think it is going to turn out that the definition of an RPG is really complicated. It's a game with certain features. We know it when we see it. We have some differences in the fuzzy edges but I think on the whole we can tell ravens from writing desks. It's just going to be a matter of figuring out how to reify that understanding.