S/Z: On the Difficulties of RPG Theory & Criticism

[Umbran]

I don't think people here have pretensions to doing science, here. I think we just are hoping we can find a way to talk about RPGs in a way that is generous and helpful and clear.

Yes. So, what do you think the people who built out the modern scientific methods were trying to do?

Before science, medical practitioners were trying to talk about medicine in ways that were helpful and clear - and they developed language around humours, and chi.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That would vary from person to person.



Certainly, you are aware that people have unconscious biases.

Speaking not to you, personally, but about people in general - most human opinion is not based on facts and analysis. We create opinions that are based on feelings and intuition, and then support that with rationalizations - there are neurological reasons for this I can go into if you wish. But, this is why simply laying out facts on the internet rarely changes anyone's mind - because the mind wasn't made up on the facts in the first place.

This is why modern science has double-blind studies, and peer review - because the action of the mind is insidious, and can lead us astray, even if we intend and claim and vow to the heavens that we have no personal agendas. And, honestly, the more you reject the possibility that you can be biased, the more likely you are to be impacted by your bias - because your confidence in your ideological purity leads you to not worry so much about safeguards against it. I'm afraid that these strong claims of really only wanting to understand put you in a high-bias-risk category.

In this context, you can imagine that any given analyst will have their own preferred playstyle. They can't help it. And, the language they choose is very, very likely to reflect that. And once the language has style embedded in it, the whole framework is biased, and thought and analysis done with that framework will tend to have a similar bias.

This, honestly, is the larger issue with discussion of theory and criticism - we are not using any sort of guards against bias, and we reject the possibility that we are biased.

Nah, thanks, we just did this. I'm not up for round 2 of you telling me what I'm saying, me trying to correct, and you calling me obnoxious.

 

[Umbran]

I do find it ironic that you chastise me for my choice of words seeming to impute things to you, but leave aside that your phrasing does largely the same thing in the reverse.

Yeah. These guys are trying to be generous and clear.

 

[FrogReaver]

Certainly, you are aware that people have unconscious biases.

They can. Strangely the very notion that others can have unconscious biases is more often used as a justification for disregarding what they say than for reevaluating what we believe.

As such it's possible that the whole focus on unconscious bias is actually a large contributor to remaining bias.

Speaking not to you, personally, but about people in general - most human opinion is not based on facts and analysis. We create opinions that are based on feelings and intuition, and then support that with rationalizations - there are neurological reasons for this I can go into if you wish. But, this is why simply laying out facts on the internet rarely changes anyone's mind - because the mind wasn't made up on the facts in the first place.

I think you underestimate the power of internet persuasion. While we rarely see an immediate change in someone - our words can have a profound impact on others beliefs.

This is why modern science has double-blind studies, and peer review - because the action of the mind is insidious, and can lead us astray, even if we intend and claim and vow to the heavens that we have no personal agendas.

I thought double blind was to eliminate 2 different issues. A truly double blind test makes it impossible to cheat and also tests for the placebo effect.

Peer review primarily helps ensure accuracy of the work. A small part of that may be control for bias but that's more a side effect than the purpose.

And, honestly, the more you reject the possibility that you can be biased, the more likely you are to be impacted by your bias - because your confidence in your ideological purity leads you to not worry so much about safeguards against it. I'm afraid that these strong claims of really only wanting to understand put you in a high-bias-risk category.

I think you are being to hard on him.

By the way, is it possible that most of this focus around unconscious bias is itself biased?

In this context, you can imagine that any given analyst will have their own preferred playstyle. They can't help it. And, the language they choose is very, very likely to reflect that. And once the language has style embedded in it, the whole framework is biased, and thought and analysis done with that framework will tend to have a similar bias.

Sure, but the notion of a professional is typically someone that can avoid having their biases impact their decision making process. I think that's possible, but we all must be careful that we are being honest with ourselves as well (what the bias concept used to be called)

This, honestly, is the larger issue with discussion of theory and criticism - we are not using any sort of guards against bias, and we reject the possibility that we are biased.

Yep - and the more personal the topic, the more validating it is to your worldview the easier it is to sucummb to bias.

That said, I think the notion of unconscious bias is being overplayed these days. It's not that it doesn't exist. It's that people are more able to sit it aside than what we are being told IMO.

 

[prabe]

Yes. So, what do you think the people who built out the modern scientific methods were trying to do?

I think they were trying to define science, and science-adjacent fields and terms.

Before science, medical practitioners were trying to talk about medicine in ways that were helpful and clear - and they developed language around humours, and chi.

And those languages (or theories, I guess) were factually wrong. I'm not sure how the comparison is relevant to something I'm thinking of as more like literary theory, but I'm willing to be enlightened.

 

[prabe]

Yeah. These guys are trying to be generous and clear.

Well, I at least am trying to be generous, and I'm looking for clarity.

I'm also trying to avoid getting caught in a crossfire. ;-)

 

[Leatherhead]

You so quickly lost the narrative there, that it isn't even funny.

Oh. That's how it came across.
I apologize.

 

[FrogReaver]

Alrighty, then. You've clearly mistaken my intent as trying to impute things to you when I'm trying to understand what it is you're trying to say.

I don't think your intent was to impute to me something I didn't say or imply - but I think you were doing that.

The best I can get from the above is that you'd like everyone to share a general concern that definitions might tend toward some conclusion and to be aware of this. That's... super helpful, I guess, in a vaguely cautionary way.

That's all I was saying.

I do find it ironic that you chastise me for my choice of words seeming to impute things to you, but leave aside that your phrasing does largely the same thing in the reverse.

Please be specific about my words and what you see them imputing to you. I gave you that courtesy.

 

[Hussar]

Without a field there is no baseball game...
Nor do the rules of a baseball game create that field...

True, but, the rules of a baseball game define the field to be used. They tell you the distance to between the bases, the distance of the pitcher's mound, so on and so forth. So, the rules of baseball very much do define the field.

 

[Hussar]

And yet somehow two games of baseball played by the same rules set can look markedly different based on all sorts of things. The rules of baseball do not produce identical games, nor do they produce the entire game as played. The steps outlined in the rules get followed, sure, but that's not by a long way the 'whole' game. Very much in the same way that the same RPG rules set can produce very different games. Moreover, different baseball rule sets still produce something generally identifiable as baseball much in the same way as a variety of RPG rules sets produce something generally identifiable as role playing. In the latter case, the similarities are enough to have fueled serious and informative academic work. YMMV I guess. You can only stretch the baseball metaphor so far.

You're missing the point. Variations of baseball rules are still defined BEFORE play begins. So long as we always use the same variation, our baseball games will be pretty much the same - same field, same number of players, same rules. Two campaigns using the same RPG rules can be so different that, to an outside observer, they aren't even sharing the same rules.

IOW, the rules of games define the start and end points of games. RPG rules barely define the start points and do not define an end point at all.