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

[Lanefan]

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

Like it or not, it's how everyone plays. You're just refusing to see it for what it is.

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.

This is exactly my point - making things up is part and parcel of prepping, not playing. The playing part is what then gets done at the table with the made-up stuff.

They are games which are about generating and engaging shared fiction.

As you keep saying. My point here is simply that you're incorrectly calling it all "play" where part of what you're doing is in fact what counts as prep. Very (very!) loosely put: generating = prep, engaging = play.

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.

Determining whether a PC is married or widowed is completely prep, just like everything else to do with determining a PC's background. Just because in this case it's done after play has started rather than before doesn't change this.

What's your point here? That I'm not playing RPGs?

Not at all, for my part. You're 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.

For once, I'm not in fact advocating this particular definition that you seem to think I am.

In a traditional game, yes, the prep-v-play parts are often much more obvious. But in a non-traditional game, or in a traditional game that's taken a big left turn such that the DM is completely winging it, even though prep and play kinda run together they are still separate things when you break each element down.

Let's take your recently-widowed noblewoman as an example. The determinations that she's a) a noblewoman and b) recently-widowed - those both come under prep regardless of when or how they are done.

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.

No, it's still set-up; only being done on the fly rather than in advance. You're getting hung up on equating set-up with things done in advance, which isn't always true: set-up can be (and in RPGs sometimes is) an ongoing process that can and often does happen even during moments of play.

Lan-"if it starts raining halfway through the backyard party and in response you put up a few patio umbrellas, that's set-up"-efan

 

[Ovinomancer]

Like it or not, it's how everyone plays. You're just refusing to see it for what it is.

This is exactly my point - making things up is part and parcel of prepping, not playing. The playing part is what then gets done at the table with the made-up stuff.

As you keep saying. My point here is simply that you're incorrectly calling it all "play" where part of what you're doing is in fact what counts as prep. Very (very!) loosely put: generating = prep, engaging = play.

Determining whether a PC is married or widowed is completely prep, just like everything else to do with determining a PC's background. Just because in this case it's done after play has started rather than before doesn't change this.

Not at all, for my part. You're playing RPGs.

For once, I'm not in fact advocating this particular definition that you seem to think I am.

In a traditional game, yes, the prep-v-play parts are often much more obvious. But in a non-traditional game, or in a traditional game that's taken a big left turn such that the DM is completely winging it, even though prep and play kinda run together they are still separate things when you break each element down.

Let's take your recently-widowed noblewoman as an example. The determinations that she's a) a noblewoman and b) recently-widowed - those both come under prep regardless of when or how they are done.

No, it's still set-up; only being done on the fly rather than in advance. You're getting hung up on equating set-up with things done in advance, which isn't always true: set-up can be (and in RPGs sometimes is) an ongoing process that can and often does happen even during moments of play.

Lan-"if it starts raining halfway through the backyard party and in response you put up a few patio umbrellas, that's set-up"-efan

This is not only wrong, but insulting to claim that your play is everyone's play.

What happens if a player, as part of an action declaration, announces the existence of a secret door? Prep or play? What if the fictional truth of that declaration is determined by engaging game mechanics? Prep or play?

What significant difference exists between GM play and player play with regards to the above?

 

[Lanefan]

This is not only wrong, but insulting to claim that your play is everyone's play.

I stand by my defintions of what is prep vs what is play (which to me are almost as obvious as defining a clear daylight sky as being blue) and fail to see how they can be insulting.

What happens if a player, as part of an action declaration, announces the existence of a secret door? Prep or play?

Player-side prep.

What if the fictional truth of that declaration is determined by engaging game mechanics? Prep or play?

Play, using the prep just done by that player.

What significant difference exists between GM play and player play with regards to the above?

Little to none. Adding a secret door to the scenario comes under prep, regardless of who at the table does it or when it is done. Engaging with that secret door once it has been added, whether said engagement consists of game mechanics confirming its existence or PCs engaging with it in the fiction, is all play.

As I've said earlier, what is prep vs what is play is a fine and often almost irrelevant distinction easily ignored during the run of play in any RPG. My argument is that even though minor it is still in fact a recognizable distinction; and that the existence of this distinction puts a factor into RPGs that most if not all other games do not have.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I stand by my defintions of what is prep vs what is play (which to me are almost as obvious as defining a clear daylight sky as being blue) and fail to see how they can be insulting.

Player-side prep.

Play, using the prep just done by that player.

Little to none. Adding a secret door to the scenario comes under prep, regardless of who at the table does it or when it is done. Engaging with that secret door once it has been added, whether said engagement consists of game mechanics confirming its existence or PCs engaging with it in the fiction, is all play.

As I've said earlier, what is prep vs what is play is a fine and often almost irrelevant distinction easily ignored during the run of play in any RPG. My argument is that even though minor it is still in fact a recognizable distinction; and that the existence of this distinction puts a factor into RPGs that most if not all other games do not have.

How can it be player-side prep if the scene having the wall wasn't presented until the in play scene? What if the player spends a plot point to create the door, ie, uses game mechanics to specifically create the door in play? What if the game uses story creation mechanics -- is the entire game prep?

 

[Lanefan]

How can it be player-side prep if the scene having the wall wasn't presented until the in play scene? What if the player spends a plot point to create the door, ie, uses game mechanics to specifically create the door in play? What if the game uses story creation mechanics -- is the entire game prep?

Hmmmm - now you're into an interesting gray area.

A true TotM collective-storytelling or pass-the-conch game would be perhaps the one type of game where prep and play largely become one and the same once play begins.

An RPG using story creation mechanics as in your example would lead to a bizarre situation where play causes prep to happen - the use of the mechanic is play but the result kinda falls under prep! Further engagement with the door thus created is, obviously, play.

 

[pemerton]

making things up is part and parcel of prepping, not playing. The playing part is what then gets done at the table with the made-up stuff.

<snip>

My point here is simply that you're incorrectly calling it all "play" where part of what you're doing is in fact what counts as prep. Very (very!) loosely put: generating = prep, engaging = play.

This is arbitrary stipulation.

Google gives me, as a definition of prepare, "make (something) ready for use". To prepare is to get ready. When I'm playing the game I'm not getting ready. I'm playing the game. Spontaneously deciding, in my game on Sunday, that Sir Eobald is "Sir Eobald the Blue" is not preparing. It's playing the game - on that occasion, narrating the situation to the players.

Determining whether a PC is married or widowed is completely prep, just like everything else to do with determining a PC's background. Just because in this case it's done after play has started rather than before doesn't change this.

<snip>

No, it's still set-up; only being done on the fly rather than in advance. You're getting hung up on equating set-up with things done in advance, which isn't always true: set-up can be (and in RPGs sometimes is) an ongoing process that can and often does happen even during moments of play.

To equate preparation or setting up with things done in advance isn't getting hung up - it's simply paying regard to the meaning of the words.

And the real issue here, besides usage, is the one I've mentioned several times already: to frame establishing the fiction as "prep" rather than "play" is to frame it as an input into play rathter than a result of the back-and-forth of play. That is true of some approaches to RPGing, but not all of them.

EDIT:

Hmmmm - now you're into an interesting gray area.

A true TotM collective-storytelling or pass-the-conch game would be perhaps the one type of game where prep and play largely become one and the same once play begins.

An RPG using story creation mechanics as in your example would lead to a bizarre situation where play causes prep to happen - the use of the mechanic is play but the result kinda falls under prep! Further engagement with the door thus created is, obviously, play.

This is a "gray area" and "bizarre" only because you're imposing your own framework of "prep" vs "play" onto it.

But there's actually nothing bizarre about the play of a RPG generating some new bit of fiction. It's pretty normal.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Hmmmm - now you're into an interesting gray area.

A true TotM collective-storytelling or pass-the-conch game would be perhaps the one type of game where prep and play largely become one and the same once play begins.

An RPG using story creation mechanics as in your example would lead to a bizarre situation where play causes prep to happen - the use of the mechanic is play but the result kinda falls under prep! Further engagement with the door thus created is, obviously, play.

How is it obviously play? The nature of the door being able to be opened seems like it would be prep, because someone has to create that bit of fiction. Is it locked? Prep. Does it open inward or outward? Prep. Pin hinges or pivot? Prep. All of these things, according to your framework, are prep. The play is... not sure what the play is, when so much is prep. Your framework is what's bizarre, not the play description. Absent the requirement to define the creation of fiction happening during play as prep so as to save [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s definition, the bizarre drops away and you just have a game.

 

[Hussar]

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.

IOW, the game is the shared fiction, not the rules. Without that creative element, you cannot have an RPG. When the element is created doesn't matter. It's the act of creation that differentiates RPG's from other games. And, since you play out what you create, rather than what the rules of the game tell you to play out, RPG's become game creation engines.

The rules cannot tell you whether or not that PC was married no? That's entirely the creation of that table and that creation creates the situation to be played out. If the PC is married, then you play one scenario, if the PC is not married, then you play out another. At no point do the rules of the game tell you what to do here. That's entirely your table's creation. Until such time as you can answer is the PC married or widowed, you cannot actually progress. That decision had to come first. Thus scenario creation precedes play.

 

[pemerton]

IOW, the game is the shared fiction, not the rules. Without that creative element, you cannot have an RPG.

Well a RPG is a game in which, by the application of certain rules, and with some players occupying a special role in relation to certain protagonists, a shared fiction is established and developed. The rules are ones which take (elements of) the fiction as inputs, and produce (elements of) the fiction as output.

In some RPGs the rules may also be mediated through physical objects (eg markers on a board/map) but if it's a RPG and not a boardgame then the fiction takes primacy over the physical artefacts. (Talisman is clearly on one side of this divide; Moldvay Basic is clearly on the other; maybe there are/were some 3E and 4e tables where the location of the game in relation to this divide is unclear?)

Trying to say that the game is the fiction and not the rules makes no sense to me: I could write the fiction up in a encyclopedia (like a FR sourcebook or a Story Hour) but that wouldn't be the game. The game is precisely using the rules to establish and engage the fiction.

It's the act of creation that differentiates RPG's from other games. And, since you play out what you create, rather than what the rules of the game tell you to play out, RPG's become game creation engines.

To me, this (once again) very strongly implies a module/adventure path style of play - someone (the GM?) writes the fiction in advance, and then the group plays it out at the table. That is one way to play RPGs, but not one I personally enjoy and not exhaustive of RPGing.

If the creation itself takes place in the course of play, then it is not the creating of a game - it is the playing of a game!

The rules cannot tell you whether or not that PC was married no?

Not in Prince Valiant - or, rather, the rules tell us that the player is free to decide (with input from the referee). I think the Pendragon rules take a different approach - ie the mechanics for the winter phase dictate whether or not a PC is married and/or widowed - but I'm not as familiar with them.

That's entirely the creation of that table and that creation creates the situation to be played out.

No. It's part of playing the game. The situation has already been established - the PCs are staying in the castle of the noblewoman whom they assisted, and early in this stay she is widowed, and so there is the possibility of the PC knight who saved her son now wooing her. Deciding whether or not the PC is married, or widowed - we took it for granted that one of these must be the case, given that he has a son, also a knight, with whom he is travelling (another PC) - is part of the play of the game. Obviously it's not an action declaration, but those aren't the only things that take place in the playing of a RPG.

If the PC is married, then you play one scenario, if the PC is not married, then you play out another. At no point do the rules of the game tell you what to do here. That's entirely your table's creation. Until such time as you can answer is the PC married or widowed, you cannot actually progress. That decision had to come first. Thus scenario creation precedes play.

Again, yoiu distinction here is artificial. I could set up the same structure as you do in relation to any decision at all, in a RPG or a boardgame.

Chess: the rules cannot tell you whether or not to take the knight with your bishop. (I am assuming here that the bishop is not pinned by a threatened check.) If the bishop takes the knight, the game unfolds one way. If the bishop doesn't take the knight, the game unfolds another way. And until such time as the player decides whether or not the knight is to be taken, the game cannot actually progress.

Alternatively, deciding to take the knight, or not, is playing the game and is one step in progressing the game.

Keep on the Borderlands: The rules cannot tell the players whether their party should enter the top cave or the bottom cave. If they enter the top cave, the challenge they face will be (let's say) the ogre. If they enter the bottom cave, the challenge they face will be (let's say) the orcs. And until such time as the players decide which cave the PC's enter, the game cannot progress.

Alternatively, deciding which cave to enter is playing the game, and is one step in progressing the game.

Prince Valiant: The rules of this particular RPG cannot tell the player whether or not the PC is married or widowed. If he is married, then he cannot (justly) woo the noblewoman. If he is widowed, then he can. And until such time as the player decides this fact about his PC, the game cannot progress.

Alternatively, deciding the characters backstory in this circumstance is playing the game, and is one step in progressing the game.

Needless to say, in each case I prefer the alternative description. Making decisions in playing chess is part of playing the game; it's not preparation for some actual play which consists simply in the physical movement of the piece on the board. Likewise in RPGing. The fact that the decision is about backstory (as in my Prince Valiant game) rather than action declaration (as in the KotB example) doesn't matter in this respect.

It's not like I'm saying anything new here. Vincent Baker wrote the following in 2003:

Roleplaying's Fundamental Act
Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players and GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not.

. . .

Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​

Agreeing on what to imagine together - in the case of my Prince Valiant session, agreeing to imagine that the PC knight is widowed and yet nevertheless not interested in wooing the noblewoman - is a paradigm case of playing a RPG (eg we see the special role of the player in relation to the fiction concerning this character; and we see the special role of the GM in managing the overall backstory and framing). The fact that it didn't involve mechanics doesn't tell us that it wasn't play. It tells us that Greg Stafford didn't think this was a topic in respect of which easing and constraining real-world social negotiation mattered. (Why did he take a different view in relation to Pendragon? Interesting question - at least some of the answer is that Pendrgaon is a game about family and dynasty whereas Prince Valiant is not.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

IOW, the game is the shared fiction, not the rules. Without that creative element, you cannot have an RPG. When the element is created doesn't matter. It's the act of creation that differentiates RPG's from other games. And, since you play out what you create, rather than what the rules of the game tell you to play out, RPG's become game creation engines.

The rules cannot tell you whether or not that PC was married no? That's entirely the creation of that table and that creation creates the situation to be played out. If the PC is married, then you play one scenario, if the PC is not married, then you play out another. At no point do the rules of the game tell you what to do here. That's entirely your table's creation. Until such time as you can answer is the PC married or widowed, you cannot actually progress. That decision had to come first. Thus scenario creation precedes play.

This is a better attempt than "prep" but it runs aground in many of the same ways. Wargame scenarios are quite often creative. Many boardgames involve scenario creation for extended play. Some boardgames involve permanent changes to the fictional space due to events on play (Legacy games, frex). The mere act of creation cannot be the line.

If, however, you say that RPGs focus more on the creation of shared fiction via interaction between the players and then leave the boundry vague, I think you're at a better starting place. Maybe even that RPGs are consensus fiction creation games that have various rules for achieving that consensus. After all, no one disagrees with what happened, even if they wanted different things to happen.