My Attempt to Define RPG's - RPG's aren't actually Games

[Hussar]

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?

Yes, I do, in the sense that in all four games NOTHING is being created. The only difference is complexity.

 

[Hussar]

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

Not going to disagree with any of this. You have it exactly right.

One thing I would add though, is the fact that, at least according to any numbers I've seen, about 50% of D&D players are homebrewers, so, I'm not sure that republished module play is as common as you think. I think it's the most visible, but, I'm not sure it's the most common.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Not going to disagree with any of this. You have it exactly right.

This is why I disagree with Hussar: it misdescribes some fairly mainstream RPG play. Asserting that when I sit around with my friends playing the game - talking back and forth about who is doing what, and working out what happens - that we are really setting upo or preparing to play or creating a game which we will then play at some later time - is misdescription.

 

[Lanefan]

This is why I disagree with Hussar: it misdescribes some fairly mainstream RPG play. Asserting that when I sit around with my friends playing the game - talking back and forth about who is doing what, and working out what happens - that we are really setting upo or preparing to play or creating a game which we will then play at some later time - is misdescription.

You've slightly missed my point, I think. In your case you're not setting up or preparing to play or creating a game to play at some later time, you're setting up/preparing to play/creating a game at the same time you're playing it, with set-up bits and play bits all mushed together though still individually defineable once extracted and looked at closely.

To a much lesser extent many of us do this - when the PCs in my game, for example, decide to grill some random shopkeeper for information and I-as-DM suddenly have to dream up a random shopkeeper in response, that dreaming-it-up bit is in fact a part of game set-up. Game play, from my side, is when I role-play this shopkeeper as he interacts with the PCs.

Put another way, as the random shopkeeper is a) in theory going to be the same whether prepped now or prepped a long time ago, and b) in theory now becomes a part of my game's setting, dreaming him up right now falls just as much under "prep" as would statting him out 6 months ago in readiness for this encounter.

It's not a big distinction, and most of the time probably doesn't matter very much, but when looked at carefully in terms of what is set-up vs. what is play the distinction is clear.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, I do, in the sense that in all four games NOTHING is being created. The only difference is complexity.

Unbelievable. In one game there is set up of pieces on a chess board. In the other game is a completely different kind of set-up that involves cards. They are not equal at all in terms of what is being set-up. If you are going to call those games equal, then D&D with its creation type of set-up is just as equal to those others. At this point, given the responses, I have to conclude that you are just being willfully blind. Have fun arguing your side against the world, as you are literally the only one here arguing it.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] - the idea that one is "setting up" a game while playing it is silly.

Yesterday before our RPG session a few of us (not me) were playing a boardgame. After each turn the player had to draw some cards. Is that "set up" that happens at the same time as playing the game? Or is it just playing the game? If the former, then Hussar's distinction between board games and RPGs collapses. If the latter, then why are RPGs being analysed differently?

when the PCs in my game, for example, decide to grill some random shopkeeper for information and I-as-DM suddenly have to dream up a random shopkeeper in response, that dreaming-it-up bit is in fact a part of game set-up. Game play, from my side, is when I role-play this shopkeeper as he interacts with the PCs.

Put another way, as the random shopkeeper is a) in theory going to be the same whether prepped now or prepped a long time ago, and b) in theory now becomes a part of my game's setting, dreaming him up right now falls just as much under "prep" as would statting him out 6 months ago in readiness for this encounter.

What you describe about your game here is not true of all RPGing. That's my point. Some approaches to RPGing treat stuff made up in the course of play as the notional equivalent of preparation. But not all do. You and Hussar are assimilating all RPGing to a certain way of playing D&D and some other RPGs (mostly 80s/90s ones) heavily modelled on D&D.

 

[MichaelSomething]

So according to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] , Super Mario Maker wouldn't count as a game either?

 

[Lanefan]

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] - the idea that one is "setting up" a game while playing it is silly.

Yesterday before our RPG session a few of us (not me) were playing a boardgame. After each turn the player had to draw some cards. Is that "set up" that happens at the same time as playing the game? Or is it just playing the game?

No. It's part of play.

If the former, then Hussar's distinction between board games and RPGs collapses. If the latter, then why are RPGs being analysed differently?

Because in RPGs there's an extra step which most - maybe not all, but most - other games don't have; in your board game this step would be vaguely equivalent to pulling some more cards out of the box and shuffling them in to the draw deck each time anyone drew some.

What you describe about your game here is not true of all RPGing. That's my point. Some approaches to RPGing treat stuff made up in the course of play as the notional equivalent of preparation.

Er...because it is?

But not all do. You and Hussar are assimilating all RPGing to a certain way of playing D&D and some other RPGs (mostly 80s/90s ones) heavily modelled on D&D.

Not at all. Where in your case I suspect you've melded (most of the) prep and all of the play into one amorphous thing, I'm instead unmelding it and sorting each element as to whether it's prep or play.

In any RPG, before introducing something into the fiction there's no denying that the 'something' you (as player or GM) want to introduce has to come from somewhere. And no matter where it comes from, anything before its actual introduction counts as prep even if this consists of no more than a spur of the moment thought.

Other games don't have this, which is all I'm trying to point out.

Another major difference in your system is that it's not just you doing these on-the-fly prep steps; your players are doing some of it as well, probably without realizing it. Contrast this with a more traditional game where the DM does nearly all the prep, whether ahead of time or on the fly.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

Where in your case I suspect you've melded (most of the) prep and all of the play into one amorphous thing, I'm instead unmelding it and sorting each element as to whether it's prep or play.

Yes. This is how you play. But it's not true of how I play.

In any RPG, before introducing something into the fiction there's no denying that the 'something' you (as player or GM) want to introduce has to come from somewhere.

What do you mean "come from somewhere"? Yes, it has to be made up. But making things up is part-and-parcel of playing a RPG. They are games which are about generating and engaging shared fiction.

And no matter where it comes from, anything before its actual introduction counts as prep even if this consists of no more than a spur of the moment thought.

This is bollocks. A player declaring an attack for his/her PC is not prep - it's playing the game. Yesterday, in the session that I ran, at one point we had to work out whether or not one of the PCs was married or widowed. That became relevant because of events that had happened in play - namely, the emergence of an opportunity to woo a recently widowed noblewoman. That is not preparing to play, it's playing the game. It's not "pseudo-preparation" either - if the game is not on rails, then no one knows what might happen during play, and hence what fiction might need to be established as part of play.

Another major difference in your system is that it's not just you doing these on-the-fly prep steps; your players are doing some of it as well, probably without realizing it. Contrast this with a more traditional game where the DM does nearly all the prep, whether ahead of time or on the fly.

What's your point here? That I'm not playing RPGs? That the definition of RPGs that you and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] are advocating doesn't capture the way I play RPGs (which is not terribly radical as soon as you look beyond the parameters of traditional D&D RPGing)? If the former, I disagree - what do you think I'm doing, then, when I think I'm playing a RPG? If the latter, well that's my point - the two of you are advocating a definition that only fits a limited range of approaches to RPGing, namely, those in which the GM designs a scenario or dungeon in advance and then runs the players through it.

But that's not the only way that RPGs are played.

Other games don't have this, which is all I'm trying to point out.

Other non-storytelling games don't have authorship of fiction. That's verging on tautology. But they do involve steps that replicate steps that might be part of set-up - I already gave an example of drawing a new hand of cards during the course of the play of a board game.

 

[Maxperson]

Because in RPGs there's an extra step which most - maybe not all, but most - other games don't have; in your board game this step would be vaguely equivalent to pulling some more cards out of the box and shuffling them in to the draw deck each time anyone drew some.

When you set-up for an event, you do so in advance of the event. For a party, you'd set up the location, decorate it, set-up catering, etc. If you run out of food and have to go out and get more(the equivalent of pulling out more cards, scenario creation on the spot), that's not party set-up. It's damage control or some other term. [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s style involves no scenario set-up. Play is different from most board games, but it doesn't involve setting up a scenario.