Who wants to talk theory?

[pawsplay]

I can think of a million different ways to engage players,

Indeed, that's why I decided to avoid describing the entire scope of human existence and settled for describing the "envelope of experience" as a phemoneon.

 

[Dlsharrock]

Well quite

Thanks for the first post. It's given me a great deal of food for thought. Notably, I made fewer parallels between Story and fiction as Story and real life. Real life, like RPG, is about interpretation and decision-making. But anticipation, the belief in likely future events, is more ambiguous in real life. Ironically, I think anticipation holds more opportunity in real life than RPG where realisation of the outcome you anticipate depends upon the skills or intentions of the DM. I think real life is more *reliable*, though that does depend on your... what?... spiritual outlook? Hence the maxim: life's what you make it, and so on. Just an observation.

Interesting stuff.

 

[Korgoth]

I think my answer would be to say I use the phrase "meaningful choice" because you can make a lot of choices that are yours to make which are not, per se, interesting in and of themselves. They might be quite minor, or they might add interest only in concert with other choices. What is important to me is that, within the framework of the rules, each player is free to make the choice they prefer.

I think your language of "meaningful" is at least as serviceable as my language of "interesting", if not moreso. It seems like a reasonable way of talking.

Keeping a game compelling is obviously a good thing, but I think this has devolved to point scoring. The wording left you open to critical assassination. 'Forced' and 'Create a situation' do conjure negative connotations, insinuating an authorial stance, but if you say that's not your intent, then pawsplay's [Impelling PCs to do interesting things] is a good alternative minus the negative intonation.

Negative intonation? Who says I use negative intonation? That's a bunch of mealy-mouthed liberal crap! Me, negative. HA!


It's funny. You guys want to split hairs over tone, and I want to split hairs over categories. Do you guys read postmoderns or somethin'? I'm an Aristotle man over here. Guess it shows.

Moreover, your point is negligible anyway as it's covered under

2. Engage the Players

If anything you're not making an addendum to the basic tasks of game design, you're just expanding on one that's already there.

Again to clarify: I wasn't selling an addendum. I was just trying to nail down what we're doing with those three categories, make sure we know what they really are, make sure there's exactly three, etc.

 

[Mark]

Negative intonation? Who says I use negative intonation? That's a bunch of mealy-mouthed liberal crap! Me, negative. HA!

Teacher: While two negative can make a positive, there is no instance where two positives can make a negative.

Student: Yeah, right . . .

 

[pawsplay]

It's funny. You guys want to split hairs over tone, and I want to split hairs over categories. Do you guys read postmoderns or somethin'? I'm an Aristotle man over here. Guess it shows.

I guess I'm kind of post-post modern. I have read Aristotle's Poetics more than once.

 

[pawsplay]

If you were going to summarize or name these ideas, what would you call them? And are there places where the vocabulary could be improved?

 

[eyebeams]

A good theory needs the creator to do the following:

1) Admit Incompleteness

Instead of trying to vacuum everything up and define it, you're better off identifying the heart of what you want to talk about and admitting that you can't bring everything under one banner. Trying to do everything and worse yet, refusing to admit that this doesn't work, is why theory is in its current, wretched state, and why lots of people hate it.

2) Admit Your Focus and Bias

Related to the first point, clearly state what you theory deals with the most, speculate on what it deals with the least, and link its execution to the kind of productive work you want to do and the issues/problems you think need exploring. People will know what you intend and look at the ends, as well as the heart of your ideas.

3) Be Multidisciplinary

The mistake everybody makes is refusing to examine roleplaying in light of a larger look at contemporary culture, and looking at how examinations of other media might apply. Read some books. There is nothing worse than someone trying to develop a theory whole cloth out of some desire to be the Nerd Aristotle. And if you go too far afield (by using metaphors from biology), realize that the burden on you to justify your decision is that much greater.

4) Return to the Concrete

Your ideas should be applicable to real games and real processes. Do not confuse convincing thought experiments or what you read on the Internet with this. Have you ever taken notes as a nonparticipant third party in a game session? If not, maybe it's time to start. (I've done it myself quite a few times, actually.) Podcasts -- *unedited podcasts* are a new way to get a more authentic look at gaming, though you're necessarily missing many of the nonverbal elements.

Plus, not to put too fine a point on it, people lie about their experiences -- and their gaming -- online all the time. A few years ago, one of the vocal guys in the theory community admitted he didn't even play any more, and one one occasion when I challenged a a bunch of folks to post pictures of them gaming in a group, most of them posted convention or Meetup pictures.

 

[eyebeams]

Words like "interesting" are wholly subjective, as is the entertainment value in being "forced" to do things. You like these things. Other people don't. Hence, being entirely subjective qualities, I think that they would best be included under the heading "Fulfill the expectation of excitement" which specifically addresses the subjective "expectation of excitement" (i.e., the desired end result of applying other subjective qualities in the pursuit of entertainment). Codifying any specific subjective qualities as necessary robs theory of any useful purpose by knocking it back into the land of My Way Is The Only Way And Your Way Sucks.

This just pushes the subjectivity back a few rungs to "entertainment" and "excitement."

Really, it is possible to demand, as a basic prerequisite, the premise that players should have the capacity to making decisions, because if you don't enjoy that, the RPG form can't accommodate you. We can in fact say that making these interesting is a goal, because nobody plays RPGs to make uninteresting choices.

The question of what constitutes an "interesting" choice is utilitarian. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as people feel that way. Now if you were into the Forge, at this point you would be frightened of everybody having different opinions and you would try to use rhetoric and authorial force through a game system to make everybody be interested in the same things -- or at least ashamed to report a lack of interest in the belief that if they did, it would mean they have no business participating. From an immersion standpoint, the player defines these things instead, as things that matter from the character's perspective.

To succeed, the GM and/or other players need to know what that perspective is. This is something that game groups are often very bad at.

 

[pawsplay]

3) Be Multidisciplinary

The mistake everybody makes is refusing to examine roleplaying in light of a larger look at contemporary culture, and looking at how examinations of other media might apply. Read some books.

Everybody?

 

[pawsplay]

Okay, I want to try to respond to eyebeams post. What am I trying to do here?

1) I want to describe the immersion experience. Particularly on a site that focuses on D&D, you have to have that or you're on a canoe without a paddle. Meta is important. But the experience of the imaginary world ("Exploration") is important, intrinsically, and not simply to fulfill meta requirements.
2) Be able to describe play experiences. I think its useful to have a vocabulary to discuss things like railroading or GMPC or kick in the door or beer and pretzels.
3) I don't believe in crystallized agendas that drive play, I believe in multitudinous social and personal factors. The creative agendas are out. Recognizing different sources of satisfaction is legitamate. Analysis of force and consensus is useful. This is my response to the inadequacies of GNS and the Big Model.
4) Put forward my contribution to a school of thought here at ENWorld that is practical, intuitive, and applies to the vast majority of RPGs.
5) To treat the gaming experience as game design, and view game design as an approach to immersion and decision-making. To avoid game design philosophy that seeks to constrain play, to describe what is actually done at the table.
6) To be able to talk about things like "fudge or let them lie" from a common understanding of what an RPG is so such discussions can be productive, civil, and informative. To be able to talk about "why".
7) To leave creative space for further discussion of topics, to be incomplete, to be a work in progress.
8) To dignify all successful roleplaying experiences, from retro dungeon crawls to diceless games about sentient clouds of methane.
9) To avoid theorizing about people's personalities based on their like or dislike of a particular game.