An Intro to RPGs

[Starman]

A writer over at the AVClub writes about trying out tabletop roleplaying for the first time. It's very interesting to get a set of outside eyes checking out our hobby.

Yet all role-playing games are about worlds that shouldn’t exist, and they’re also about essentially banishing any concept of cheating—and attendant punishment—from the game’s reality. I’m not gay or a woman, yet I play characters who are both over the course of the weekend, including a Japanese schoolgirl who gets everything she wants through sheer power of cuteness, which is about as opposite from me as you can get. But there’s also no set scenario, no game board, no comforting limit to where the reality stops. You can’t put things in boxes, because the only boxes that exist are the ones the GM and the players invent for themselves. Give four players the same sets of tiles consistently in a game of Scrabble, and they’ll probably play markedly similar games. Give those same four characters a basic D&D setup, and they’ll likely play incredibly different games each time. This notion is about as hippie-dippie and left-wing as they come. It’s a breakdown of the natural order, an installation of a new one that exists only in your head. But like most things that exist only in your head, it’s more powerful than just about anything else. Put that in the hands of adolescents, who already question everything placed in front of them, and who knows what happens.

If Carman had known this, instead of seeing D&D as a generic “bad thing,” he might have been even more terrified. The fictional witch who invited him over to his house was a familiar, friendly construct, someone who kept rubbing his “otherness” in the singer’s face, taunting him with his lack of salvation. But in a way, that fiction is comforting because it suggests that the sinners out there are just filling a precise role in the drama of the believer: They’re there to remind you of how good you are. That’s less possible for those who simply reject the game entirely, be they progressive political activists, Occupy Wall Streeters, or D&D players. You can’t yell someone into submission if they aren’t playing the same game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Great article. I can relate to a lot of what the writer says, in that while I was a kid the 80s badwrongfun of D&D was prevalent. (My step dad was Deacon in a Southern Baptist Church.... yeah, he didn't approve of my hobby.)
I remember the Carmen video I also remember how I used to scream, "That isn't D&D, that's Paladium role playing system!" Yeah, I was a dyed in the wool geek even back then.

 

[1Mac]

This was mostly quite excellent. The part that you quoted irked me. Without making this thread too much about politics, I'll just say that some of the most hidebound, reactionary, doctrinaire people I've come across are people who imagine they are countercultural, who merely think that they "reject the game entirely." That includes the sorts whom the author mentions in the second-to-last sentence you quoted.

 

[S'mon]

"It’s possible, I realize, to put myself in two different places. Todd thinks it would be cool to see what happened if she turns evil. Lenore knows she’d never take that deal. And in that instant, I can see what this whole role-playing thing is about, why it holds so many in its expensive thrall: For an instant, you aren’t seeing with your eyes. You’re seeing with someone else’s eyes. And it’s intoxicating."

Take that, Ron Edwards! Author Stance can get lost! IMMERSION FTW!!!

Edit:

Reads on...

Oh...

a system called Apocalypse World, which also gave rise to Dungeon World, which is the game where I become Lenore and finally start to figure all of this out.

I'll get me coat.

 

[S'mon]

...progressive political activists, Occupy Wall Streeters, or D&D players...

This was mostly quite excellent. The part that you quoted irked me. Without making this thread too much about politics, I'll just say that some of the most hidebound, reactionary, doctrinaire people I've come across are people who imagine they are countercultural, who merely think that they "reject the game entirely." That includes the sorts whom the author mentions in the second-to-last sentence you quoted.

Whereas I am a hidebound, pro-cultural reactionary (and probably a counter-revolutionary element) fan of traditionalism, who also loves Dungeons & Dragons!

Does this game have dungeons? Does this game have dragons? Then I want to play this game.

Although I have to confess that the dysfunctional Traveller game with the hawt babe NPCs also sounded weirdly intriguing...

 

[1Mac]

"It’s possible, I realize, to put myself in two different places. Todd thinks it would be cool to see what happened if she turns evil. Lenore knows she’d never take that deal. And in that instant, I can see what this whole role-playing thing is about, why it holds so many in its expensive thrall: For an instant, you aren’t seeing with your eyes. You’re seeing with someone else’s eyes. And it’s intoxicating."

Take that, Ron Edwards! Author Stance can get lost! IMMERSION FTW!!!

Isn't this Narrativism? Ron Edwards, vindicated!

Whereas I am a hidebound, pro-cultural reactionary (and probably a counter-revolutionary element) fan of traditionalism, who also loves Dungeons & Dragons!

Naturally if you think that, you really are a revolutionary, like the one guy in the crowd in The Life of Brian who says he can't think for himself . (Of course that's not necessarily true, and would make being a revolutionary a little easy. Like the guy who determines the universe is against him, and so goes around saying, "Boy it would sure be disappointing if I found a million dollars and could metabolize ice cream into all the essential amino acids.")

 

[UselessTriviaMan]

That was a very entertaining read. Plus, it gave a little shout-out to some of my good friends, the Happy Jack's RPG Podcast. Someday I'll make it out to L.A. for a gaming convention so's I can meet up with those guys. Someday...

 

[S'mon]

Naturally if you think that, you really are a revolutionary, like the one guy in the crowd in The Life of Brian who says he can't think for himself

Yes, within my academic milieu (or even within Britain 2012) I often feel pretty subversive. I probably cannot say more without risking violating the no-religion and/or no-politics rules.

 

[S'mon]

Isn't this Narrativism? Ron Edwards, vindicated!

It turned out the Onion guy was playing a Narrativist game, Dungeonworld, when he had his moment of total immersion. I tend to associate Narrativism with what Edwards calls "author stance" - treating the PCs as characters in a novel, not "you are there". He certainly came over as advocating both author stance and Narrativist play, IME. By contrast I associate immersion with what Edwards calls "actor stance" - getting in character, like a method actor - and this with Simulationist play.

I guess what the Onion guy's experience brings home is that Story Creation 'Nar' games are not necessarily incompatible with 'actor stance' and a strong sense of immersion.