Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
You think D&D is not a game?
My Attempt to Define RPG's - RPG's aren't actually Games
- Thread starter Hussar
- Start date
You think D&D is not a game?
MichaelSomething
Legend
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
In the same way a tomato is not a vegetable
I've never seen a tomato in my fruity pebbles.
Hussar
Legend
Set-up does not equal creation. Placing pieces on a board in a pre-set arrangement is not creating anything.
You are equating two things that are not equal. It's not a straw man. I keep responding to this and you keep arguing that for you, any kind of set up is equal, regardless of whether content is being created or not. Fair enough. If that's how you define set-up, then sure, all set-up is equal.
Me, I cannot equate placing pieces in a pre-arranged form that is identical every single time, to creating a scenario/shared fiction. They are not equal.
Hussar
Legend
I've never seen a tomato in my fruity pebbles.
Funnily enough though, I've lived in countries where placing tomatoes (those little cherry tomatoes) on ice cream parfaits is perfectly acceptable because tomatoes are a fruit.
I think these quotes capture both what we agree on and what we disagree about.
I agree that the essence of RPGs includes creation of a shared fiction. I say "includes" rather than is because another element of that essence is that the players engage that fiction in the "moves" they declare for their "pieces". (This is how RPGs differe from storytelling in the stricter sense.)
Where we disagree is that the creation step is in some sense prior to play or a precondition for play. It can be, but need not be - I find it very hard to imagine a RPG session where no creation occurs as part of play, and it is possible to play a RPG where most or all of the creation happens as part of play. (In a trad game like Classic Traveller, many people feel that PC gen is a part of play, because of the way it works as a lifepath system; although the rules I quoted for In a Wicked Age talk about stuff you have to do so that it can be "time to start the game", that other stuff can feel very much like playing a game. It's certainly more like playing a game than setting up the pieces in chess is, as you're sitting there with your friends bouncing ideas back and forth and making stuff up!
And this is also why I disagree about "game creation engines". To me it seems that you're locating all that creative stuff as not playing the game and rather as creating the game, which would then mean that playing the game is just making moves (ie declaring actions for PCs). To me that's far too narrow. I'm not sure it even works for classic D&D. It certainly doesn't work for any game run "fail forward"/"scene framing" style, because in that sort of game much of the fiction that establishes the parameters of the situation/scenario will be narrated by the GM in response to failed checks, and it's hard for me to see that as anything other than playing the game.
I understand that you think your definition is inclusive, but to me it seems to exclude most of the RPGing I've done over the past few years. (And I'm not doing anything very radical, I don't think.)
Hussar
Legend
For your style of game [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I'd simply say that game creation is ongoing throughout play. It never stops. Which might differentiate two different styles of RPG's - trad style where most of the game creation is done beforehand, and more indie style games where game creation is an ongoing process. Fair enough. I can see that.
And it still nicely delineates a strong difference between RPG's and other games where game creation isn't required at all.
Like I said, when isn't terribly interesting to me. When you create the game doesn't matter. The fact that you are creating the game is the important part.
And it still nicely delineates a strong difference between RPG's and other games where game creation isn't required at all.
Like I said, when isn't terribly interesting to me. When you create the game doesn't matter. The fact that you are creating the game is the important part.
[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] - I don't understand why you describe one aspect of playing the game as creating the game. When I think of "creating a game" I think of game design. But when I decide in the Traveller game that Lt Li (the initial patron) is part of a bioweapons conspiracy, that's not game design. Is it?
The approach to RPGing where your description seems most apt is classic dungeoncrawling, where mapping and stocking the dungeon is highly analogous to designing a (very complex) board for a boardgame. But I don't think most of your RPGing looks much like that, or anyone else's really these days except for an old school or OSR minority.
The approach to RPGing where your description seems most apt is classic dungeoncrawling, where mapping and stocking the dungeon is highly analogous to designing a (very complex) board for a boardgame. But I don't think most of your RPGing looks much like that, or anyone else's really these days except for an old school or OSR minority.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Do you think that the set-up for Chess is equal to the set-up for Arkham Horror? Do you think the set-up for Checkers is equal to the set-up for Catan?
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I think what [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is saying (and I know he'll correct me if I'm wrong
) is that there's more to creating the game in an RPG than simply designing the rules; and that your-as-GM decision that Lt Li is part of a conspiracy comes under game creation rather than game play.In more clear-cut situations, the game creation and set-up phase is pretty much finished before game play begins: you don't start making chess moves before all the pieces are on the board where they should be, and a traditional DM doesn't start running an adventure before she's got it all mapped out and stocked. But in the way you play RPGs I'd say the creation and set-up phase never really ends and very much overlaps with the actual play of the game - you kind of mush the two together and probably don't even realize (or maybe even care) when you and-or your players jump from one to the other and back.
Inventing the persona of Lt Li is part of set-up, as is deciding she's part of a conspiracy. Whether these things are done by you ahead of time or on the fly in mid-session is irrelevant: they're still a part of the set-up phase. Contrast this with your actual role-playing of this character, informed and molded by the background you've given her, and the players/PCs' subsequent reactions and interactions with her: these are part of the game play phase.
My educated guess is that most RPGing these days kinda does look like this, in that most current RPGing still involves a DM or GM running a prepublished module or AP where the module/AP author has already done the mapping and stocking work. I say this because by far the most-played RPG today is D&D 5e, with PF1 next; and while some few might play these systems in make-it-up-on-the-fly format I'd think that would be an extreme minority.
Lanefan
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