Why do RPGs have rules?

[niklinna]

QFT... however...

• The act of creating X can lead to self-discovery.
• The shared acts of creation of persons A, B, & C, each adding bits can lead to each providing exploration of the conceptual space behind each other's additions.
• The experiencing of others creations can, and often does, lead to self discovery

The thing that makes RPGs nigh-unique is the ability to explore the setting materials' inclusions.

Several friends explored their gender identity and sexuality via RPGs (back when it was still seriously taboo to do so). Two have since switched legal gender, one of whom is entirely post surgical; at least 3 more have decided they are homosexual. The exploration of such was not something I put into the settings they played in. It was entirely their choice to make it an element of play; all I had to do as a GM was let them. Enable their journey of self discovery. In the process, I also grew from their discoveries.

RPG play isn't exactly authorship. It's related, but the collaborative aspects make it something different. Adding dice makes it something different, too.

Agreed. You can't discover something that doesn't even exist yet, in fiction or reality. But you can definitely discover through fiction and roleplay things that already exist in reality.

RPG play isn't exactly authorship, but it clearly includes authorship.

 

[clearstream]

Right to Dream oriented play is built on a foundation of extrapolation from preceding events based on details of the established fiction and often prepared material. Story Now play is built on a foundation of actively framing conflicts that directly address both the premise of the particular game (and the premise of the particular characters). You cannot both extrapolate and actively frame conflicts at the same time.

What could be pictured is P1 playing at the table with P2, where P1 is extrapolating and P2 is actively framing. It has been said upthread that P2's framing often produces results that aren't at odds with P1's extrapolating. If that's so, then it would have to be the performances themselves that are jarring. I can recall examples that would be... my question is whether that's inevitable?

You can in your situation and setting design setup a play environment where addressing premise is possible, but play will often feature some addressing of premise, but that is not some sort of magical El Darado. It's just a different sort of play experience. One I personally enjoy. It's how my home group runs/plays Vampire, Infinity and L5R. It is still no replacement or substitute for Apocalypse World or Sorcerer.

Do you mean the possibility that P extrapolates at some times and actively frames at other times, while playing say L5R?

 

[clearstream]

Authorship (creation) is neither exploration nor discovery, and conflating the two is really seriously muddying the water.

HarperCollins' deputy publishing director Chris Smith said Tolkien continued to write about Middle-earth in the decades that followed, right up until the years before his death.

“For him, Middle-earth was part of an entire world to be explored,” said Smith, “and the writings in The Nature of Middle-earth reveal the journeys that he took as he sought to better understand his unique creation.”

J.R.R. Tolkien himself once wrote in a letter to W.H. Auden, dated June 7, 1955, that he was often surprised by the world of Middle-earth as he wrote about it. Tolkien wrote that,

"I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothloriene no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horselords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fanghorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf’s failure to appear on September 22."

I accept that not everyone feels that way when authoring an imagined world. I do, and other folk tell me they do, too. I've labelled this internally "the simulationist urge" and it seems possible to me that folk who don't feel it could find simulationism less appealing. They are not experiencing the surprise and delight of exploring a simulated reality in the act of authoring it.

In Tuovinen's terms, I site the simulationist urge largely under "appreciation" as for me it is more emotive, although there is also the pleasure of dawning comprehension, which would fit "understanding".

 

[clearstream]

• The shared acts of creation of persons A, B, & C, each adding bits can lead to each providing exploration of the conceptual space behind each other's additions.

This is what excites me about collaborative arrangements such as co-op Ironsworn. It produces an engine of discovery, and is connected with the old road to simulationism for any lacking "the [internal] simulationist urge".

It generalizes to simply the case where A provides the subject of B's exploration. A common form of simulationism in the past. Updating to "shared" has already yielded a wide range of "worldbuilding" games.

• The experiencing of others creations can, and often does, lead to self discovery

Very true. This fits well into "elevated appreciation and understanding." It's not unique to simulationism, of course.

 

[robertsconley]

The primary difference I am seeing between the narrative play you guys are describing and the ‘sun’ of rob and myself is in both players can do what they want and the GM has to react but in our games players tend to be more limited to acting through their character alone (this is a somewhat sloppy generalization though) abd the GM is expected to bring some amount of world consistency to the experience.

See this if this helps folks understand what it is we do.

During an RPG campaign, the group could take the narrative, story, and other literary concepts into account. What if you didn't? What if instead, it is treated as a pen & paper virtual reality that one visits as some imagined character having adventures? Run with pen, paper, dice, and with a human referee adjudicating.

The alternative thesis that I developed in the course of running sandbox campaigns sidesteps the issue of literary terms for RPGs. Along with whether anybody participating is collaborating on a story. Even whether authorial stance matters. Instead, the essential steps are the group choosing the setting that the campaign will focus on. Preparation for the "visit" for both the referee (campaign prep) and players (character generation). Then the "visit" begins when the campaign starts.

I could go into more details but that is the basic gist. Like a real-world trip, the group and players may have a bunch of goals they want to achieve. The outcome is uncertain but the players know with good planning and some luck what they want to do could be done even if it is as ambitious as conquering a kingdom or toppling an empire. Or something more modest such as protecting a neighborhood in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord.

The referee's job is to be a neutral arbiter adjudicating what the players do as their characters and bringing the setting to life. Along with fleshing things out as a result of the players' choices as make their way through the setting. The players are free to do anything their character can do within the setting using whatever knowledge they have about the setting.

After the campaign is done, after the trip is completed then the story can be told and perhaps an interesting narrative will be written up. Thus side-stepping the whole issue of literary terms until the campaign is finished.

 

[Autumnal]

I really like this, @robertsconley - as nerds, we tend to beat any set of terminology into greasy lifeless sterility. It’s so good to look at things to a fresh lens. And this is a nest set of comparisons.

 

[pemerton]

See this if this helps folks understand what it is we do.

I don't think anyone posting in the last N pages of this thread is puzzled about the basics of sandbox RPGing.

the essential steps are the group choosing the setting that the campaign will focus on. Preparation for the "visit" for both the referee (campaign prep) and players (character generation). Then the "visit" begins when the campaign starts.

I could go into more details but that is the basic gist. Like a real-world trip, the group and players may have a bunch of goals they want to achieve. The outcome is uncertain but the players know with good planning and some luck what they want to do could be done even if it is as ambitious as conquering a kingdom or toppling an empire. Or something more modest such as protecting a neighborhood in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord.

The referee's job is to be a neutral arbiter adjudicating what the players do as their characters and bringing the setting to life. Along with fleshing things out as a result of the players' choices as make their way through the setting. The players are free to do anything their character can do within the setting using whatever knowledge they have about the setting.

All the action is buried in the sentence "the referee's job is to be a neutral arbiter adjudicating what the players do as their characters and bringing the setting to life".

Straight away this shows that the comparison to a trip is extremely loose metaphor at best. The process of play has very little in common with the process of walking for 20 kilometres making sure to remember a packed lunch.

 

[clearstream]

All the action is buried in the sentence "the referee's job is to be a neutral arbiter adjudicating what the players do as their characters and bringing the setting to life".

Straight away this shows that the comparison to a trip is extremely loose metaphor at best. The process of play has very little in common with the process of walking for 20 kilometres making sure to remember a packed lunch.

Searle characterised constitutive norms (game rules are an example) like this: in G doing X counts as doing Y. I think you must be saying that the metaphorical aspect ("counts as") is too weak. What makes it weak, compared to other constitutive performances that are certainly not the authentic process (e.g. mixing it up with knives in the alleys of a haunted city)?

I felt that @robertsconley laid out with some warmth a version of the "old road to simulationism" which is where author-A provides the subject of player-B's exploration. In an example like RuneQuest, A is a collaboration between designers as original authors (Perrin, Stafford, Turney, Kraft, Jaquays) and GM as secondary author, with players exploring what they have created. As @Bedrockgames has several times pointed out, GM is able to author-in-the-moment; designers perforce preload. An argument I made up-thread, borne out by the dispositions of @niklinna and @aramis erak, ("authorship... is neither exploration nor discovery"), is that making the sub-creation objective from the point of view of the players facilitates their explorative stance toward it.

A new road to simulationism is that framed sufficiently well by @aramis erak, and strongly implied once one grasps the ludic duality of player as audience=author:

The shared acts of creation of persons A, B, & C, each adding bits can lead to each providing exploration of the conceptual space behind each other's additions.

A authors that which is objective to B and C, while B authors that which is objective to A and C, and C authors that which is objective to A and B. Whomever authors the game text (Tomkin, say, with regard to Ironsworn) perforce engages in prior authorship (preloading), while whomever are counted among players author in the moment. As I see it, the main duties of GM in this setup are to manage adversaries and adversities, and that too can be shared (see the "no dice no masters" collection of game texts.)

All the above sets aside any contention over whether one can or cannot discover in the act of authoring, making it more suitable for a wide range of players. Taking @innerdude's arguments to heart (their post #2537 is worth re-reading in its entirety) the process is benefited by 1) lightening the level of integration / tightness of coupling the preloaded elements, and 2) letting no author gainsay another (except per other principles shared upfront). Based on my observations upthread, I'll add 3) unless it's crucial to your subject, avoid preloading theme. And in closing point out that preloading need not exclude players once they are authors, or be unresponsive to them where designer has followed 1).

This will drive

significant crossover between the improv / spontaneous authoring as you describe.

and

a strong current of "instant discovery", or discovery in the moment, as fiction is authored through play that can be unexpected (and welcome and exciting).

 

[Manbearcat]

If I understand this correctly this can definitely occur in sandbox. It may not occur as it does in the kinds of games you prefer, but I often am very clear about what procedures I am using, how I am making decisions, etc. Even in cases where I have to make up a procedure on the fly my usual routine is to explain that process to the players and ask if they think it would fairly address what they are trying to do (and they often suggest changes that I incorporate). For me this just adds to the sense that everything is above board, and to the sense that the 'physics' of the world are legit (i.e. not just a product of me having outcomes I prefer)



This matches how I have heard the term. I suspect most sandbox GMs would consider this overly rigid. I also suspect you, Manebearcat, might watch a sandbox game and discern a play loop. So I don't know that it is not present or excluded so much as not part of how we conceive of play if that makes sense.



I am still not sure I follow this one about orbiting.

There isn't a menu of hooks though. Again in sandbox the idea is you can do anything you want. The GM might provide possible starting points via conflicts that exist, and other details but the players can just press on and push for anything they want (again though usually limited through their characters).

Again the starting points you are emphasizing (which can exist in a sandbox) are largely more what you find in something like a traditional linear campaign or something. You don't push hooks on players, and you don't hadn't them a list. Occasionally stuff like a mystery will emerge I find but more often than not the adventures arise much more organically (and often conflicts are created as PCs interact with NPCs and groups).

I will say if the players declare an action, the action is always permitted in sandbox. What is not always certain is the outcome. They can't declare their action over the setting material for example (i.e. a player can't say "I assassinate the king and take his throne"----he could try to do those things but he wouldn't be able to declare such an outcome in most sandbox play).




This is pretty optional in something like a sandbox. I do sandox+drama, and there is no problem introducing elements that connect to things the players have established about their characters (as an example a player wanted to explore a relationship with his character's long lost father and that became part of the campaign). Some sandbox players and GMs might bristle at this, but it isn't universal. And things like tables can tie specifically to these things. I have grudge tables for example. They are an important thing that makes my wuxia campaigns function and they always tie to things about the PCs (grudges can emerge in game, the player can establish them at character creation, etc).




I have to be frank and say I just don't understand the language you are using here. So I don't think I can really respond to it in a way that is meaningful or devoid of confusion.



Again this really varies. Like I said sometimes I have a lot of depth sometimes I have something closer to what you posted. I would say mostly these days my notes are more likely to resemble the example you gave. It can vary though

Things are never independent of the PCs. If the PCs are not engaging a particular area and something is going on there, it may march on without them. But I am usually more focused on the stuff and people going on around the PCs. Sometimes I roll randomly to see what is going on in the broader world or advance the historical timeline, but that still is all stuff the players could potentially influence if they chose to.

For factions I don't usually plan stuff out in an arc of any kind. If a conflict is going on, and the players are totally absent from that conflict, my default is to use tables or to roll opposing dice pools to see what the outcome is (and that stuff usually arises because of what the leadership are trying to do, not because I have a particular arc I want). And a lot of times the reason I even being thinking about that with a given group is because the players interacted with them in some way



I don't find this to be particularly the case. Yes there is often established setting material to fall back on for sure (dungeons are a useful thing to just have in the setting for instance). But a lot of what emerges is a result of play, not prep. I will often start with a number of of details hammered out for example. But that isn't a requirement. And the campaign doesn't begin and end with those things. It is entirely possible for example to want to run a wuxia campaign where there are 8 sects I have planned out in advance and the players never interact with a single one of them because they are more interested in exploring things I never thought of.

What I will say is it isn't Hillfolk. The players won't generate that setting material simply by narrating things. But stuff will be generated in response to where they are going, who they are seeking, what they want to do, etc.

Stuff like pre-generated quests are pretty rare for me and I think for a lot of sandbox GMs (this can vary tremendously though). I prefer adventures that arise organically. I don't like handing players quests. Sometimes players may do something that falls into that (i.e. hear about a legendary object and seek it out----and if they do where it can be found is something that would be determined based on either what makes sense or what is established). But those are pretty rare types of adventures.

I will say there are usually concrete things in the setting. But I get the senes that the way you imagine me and my players interact with those things is very different from how we do (a lot of your descriptions of sim play seem to resemble the kinds of adventures I remember being put out in the early to mid 90s by TSR for example, which are exactly the types of adventure structures most sandbox GMs are seeking to avoid).




Again I may not be 100% sure of what you mean, but this is not written in stone. I often build things around the PCs and connect them back to them. Not every GM does. I think if something like drama is important it is fair to incorporate threads from the PCs. But this is something that I think honestly varies a lot. In many sandbox discussions you sometimes encounter this platonic idea of a sandbox that is so realistic and so focused on naturalism that, for me at least, it wouldn't be very fun to play. I think the vast majority of sandbox GMs consider things like what the player characters were made to do, what types of things the players are interested in doing, etc. This may often need to be framed in naturalism, but it is still there. There are plenty of conceits to playability in sandboxes.




Again I am not so sure. It is possible I am not fully following the language and confusing your points. But if I follow any that I have been responding to, I think sandbox play is a lot more varied than it is being given credit for here (at the very least it is quite different from early 90s era TSR modules)

Yes, its 4 AM and I have absolutely no business being up or posting.

I'm going to go with a different tact here. Forget Mouse Guard for the moment. I'm hoping this might do some work to clarify some of the aspects of our exchange (and the differences between what we're describing) because it will bear a resemblance to a sandbox game while simultaneously pointing to some pretty significant differences.

This is the very first Faction/Setting Clock in the last Blades in the Dark game:

WHY WAS THIS FACTION CLOCK IN PLAY? Because the players chose key advances in their building of their Crew that brought them positive faction with The Red Sashes (TRS) and negative faction with The Lampblacks. This connecting to these factions via Crew build signals that the players want early play to be about the default BitD milieu of these two gangs at war:

This is out in the open. This isn't secret backstory. This is "table-facing." And the Crew and PC creation process establish early threats, potential alliances, friends, contacts, rivals, lair (among other things). Early play engages these choices and things snowball and branch out as players use the Info Gathering/Free Play phase to develop a prospective Score > Score phase to resolve the Score and change the situation > Payoff & Downtime to earn Coin, accrue Heat, deal with Entanglements, Recover, Train, Indulge Vice, Acquire Assets, perform Longterm Projects.

The PCs and Crew don't just have Downtime. The Factions and Setting components that they (the players) bring on-screen via their build choices and actions undertaken during the other phases of play also have Downtime. And its my job as GM to (a) give expression to this within the imagined space of play (Mylera Klev is demanding further alliance in the war against The Lampblacks...pick a side damnit) and (b) mechanize that using the rules of play (6 tick clock, 2d6 because TRS is Tier 2, usage of The Faction system and the threat of the hardship of At War status looming, inevitable situation framing + consequence-space + Devil's Bargains being impacted by the player decisions and resolution with this).

---

This feeds into decision-points > which feeds into resolution > which feeds into changed gamestate, changed setting, new situations > loop back to decision-points. More conflicts with more Factions spreading like wildfire. Setting changes like Forgotten Goddesses being summoned back into this broken world leading to heresies and inquisitions. And all of it out-in-the-open. All of it systematized via a transparent, stable, encoded for all to see game engine. By the time things are done a year later, you have a Duskvol that is profoundly different than when it started along with profoundly changed Crew and PCs which shape all of that action, all of that change.

My job (as GM) is to follow their lead, bring Duskvol and the game's engine to life via the process of that lead-following meeting the deployment of my own creative capacities while relentlessly following the agenda, adhering without fail to the principles, rules, and application of (again; out-in-the-open) system.

* I don't get to deviate from their lead and introduce whatever crap I want to (such as situation-framing that is unresponsive to players or introducing Setting or Faction Clocks that have nothing to do with play-to-date or are secret backstory that I shouldn't be employing in the first place)

* I don't get to have an off-week to bring sterile, conflict-neutral situation framing or boring Devil's Bargains or fictionally-feckless, mechanically-toothless consequences to their actions or to idly stand by and watch them free play affectation and performative color and goal-less wandering and setting-touring. I have to bring "lead-following antagonism"...hard...and correct...every session. Players say "punch me here please;" I punch them there. We find out how they handle the punch and what their swingback does.

* I don't get to deviate from the codified agenda and principles at any moment.

* I don't get to suspend rules, structure, or the application of system (for any purpose, especially for the purpose of some kind of story imperatives that I shouldn't have in the first place).

* I don't get to hide stuff. Its all out there.


If all of that sounds like your game...well, then you're running a sandbox that is very much like Blades in the Dark. If not, then whatever differences you see when contrasted with the above should hopefully be clear.

 

[pemerton]

the comparison to a trip is extremely loose metaphor at best. The process of play has very little in common with the process of walking for 20 kilometres making sure to remember a packed lunch.

Searle characterised constitutive norms (game rules are an example) like this: in G doing X counts as doing Y. I think you must be saying that the metaphorical aspect ("counts as") is too weak. What makes it weak, compared to other constitutive performances that are certainly not the authentic process (e.g. mixing it up with knives in the alleys of a haunted city)?

Searle has nothing to do with my point.

The process of packing my lunch and then walking 20 km involves slicing bread, putting a filling inside my sandwich, tying the laces on my shoes or boots, and striding forth. At the end of the day, having move my legs back and forth many times, I would expect to be tired, probably a bit sweaty, with sore legs. Challenges and threats include tripping risks, rain, steep slopes, snakes on the path, etc.

Things I might discover include things about myself include my degree of strength and endurance. Things I might discover about the world include animals, plants, topography, mud, etc.

The process of playing a RPG involves sitting down at the table, reading, writing, speaking, rolling dice. The challenges are largely social and possibly intellectual. Things I might discover about the world are facts about others' personalities, my own patience, how similarly or differently we imagine things, etc.

These are both activities done by people. RPGing is social; going for a walk can be social. Both are leisure activities.

What else do they have in common?