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

[prabe]

The issue I'm having here is that people are mistaking minutia with the larger issues.

It doesn't matter that in a game of baseball, this pitch or that play might be different. The point is, following the rules of baseball will give you pretty much the same results every time. One side, then the other will take turns fielding or batting for a set number of times until a winner is declared. Same, I think, as cricket.

At no point can there be any deviation from that.

And, frankly, it's a bit disingenuous to bring in managing. Who actually thinks, "Hey, I'm played baseball last weekend" means "Hey, I managed a baseball team"?

OTOH, my Cthulhu game might start in Boston c1930, run for 10 hours of play time and finish. Or, it might start in the Antarctic in 2020 a la John Carpenter's The Thing, run for 100 hours of play time and finish. Or it might start in the year 2837 on a space station, a la Sarah Monette and run for 10 years of play time. All with the same ruleset.

And those are laughably called the same games?

The specific differences might matter in discussion, but it sounds as though they're following the same ruleset, so I'd be inclined to say all those groups were playing the same game. I have a hard time seeing how any other way of talking about it wouldn't make communication harder.

 

[Nagol]

The issue I'm having here is that people are mistaking minutia with the larger issues.

It doesn't matter that in a game of baseball, this pitch or that play might be different. The point is, following the rules of baseball will give you pretty much the same results every time. One side, then the other will take turns fielding or batting for a set number of times until a winner is declared. Same, I think, as cricket.

At no point can there be any deviation from that.

And, frankly, it's a bit disingenuous to bring in managing. Who actually thinks, "Hey, I'm played baseball last weekend" means "Hey, I managed a baseball team"?

OTOH, my Cthulhu game might start in Boston c1930, run for 10 hours of play time and finish. Or, it might start in the Antarctic in 2020 a la John Carpenter's The Thing, run for 100 hours of play time and finish. Or it might start in the year 2837 on a space station, a la Sarah Monette and run for 10 years of play time. All with the same ruleset.

And those are laughably called the same games?

In those hypotheticals, the players show in the same room, eat the same snacks, roll the same dice, and have the same "gm describe--> player act-->assign consequence-->gm describe" loop of play.

The cosmetics of play (genre, setting, power level) differ, some details (like episodic vs. continuity and length of campaign) change, but the game remains the same.

 

[hawkeyefan]

And that's fine. It is okay to come away with the idea that I am thoroughly unimpressed with The Forge in some way, because that's accurate. But substituting language is a recipe for trouble in any discussion of opposing thoughts.

The internet is rife with strawmen, some intentional, some not. Not a single one of them makes the discussion better.

This is fine, and I respect that opinion. I'm not a huge fan of The Forge myself, although I do like some games whose creation it led to, and so I don't tend to think of it as a waste of time. It helps that my time was not ever spent there.

I don't feel that me taking your comment of being "a colossal waste of time" as being synonymous with "unimportant" is unscrupulous. That seems a bit of an unfair categorization.

I don't want to further prove your point by getting into a semantic quibble. Suffice it to say I get your opinion, I respect it, and I hope you realize that I in no way meant to miscategorize your stance. I tend toward natural language and generally am happy to use terms with those who've presented them and defined their use, and not worry as much about a consensus.

 

[pemerton]

PbtA might not be a product of Forge theory

Vincent Baker says the opposite of this in the Apocalypse World rulebook.

 

[Fenris-77]

Vincent Baker says the opposite of this in the Apocalypse World rulebook.

Actually he said precisely that in his blog post on the design of AW. I might as well have been quoting him.

 

[pemerton]

Actually he said precisely that in his blog post on the design of AW. I might as well have been quoting him.

Well then, he contradicts himself!

 

[prabe]

Well then, he contradicts himself!

He contains multitudes?

 

[Fenris-77]

Well then, he contradicts himself!

Here's the quote and the link.

"Not pictured is the Forge approach, which appears in several of my games pre-Apocalypse World: a more-or-less specified situation of conflict, freeform character traits, and a universal conflict resolution system.

PbtA represents an approach to RPG design as broad as any of these. Choose two given PbtA games, and you shouldn’t expect them to be any more similar than two point-buy games or two Forge games."
Link

 

[pemerton]

Here's the quote and the link.

"Not pictured is the Forge approach, which appears in several of my games pre-Apocalypse World: a more-or-less specified situation of conflict, freeform character traits, and a universal conflict resolution system.

PbtA represents an approach to RPG design as broad as any of these. Choose two given PbtA games, and you shouldn’t expect them to be any more similar than two point-buy games or two Forge games."
Link

Sorry, that doesn't say anything about the influence of Forge theory. You shouldn't expect them to be any more similar than any two Forge games can't entail not influence by Forge theory, given that, presumably, any two Forge games are influenced by Forge theory.

All it says is that PbtA doesn't involve the specificity of situation found in (say) DitV, In a Wicked Age or Poison'd; doesn't involve a universal resolution system; and doesn't involve freeform traits. In that particular sense it's not a game that exemplifies the "Forge approach". Neither is Burning Wheel - but given the huge acknowledgements given in BW Revised and Gold to Forge games and Forge designers, it would be silly to deny the importance of the Forge to BW.

Here's the quote from AW, p 288: The entire game design follows from “Narrativism: Story Now” by Ron Edwards. Taking that at face value, it is clearly not consistent with the claim that AW is independent of Forge theory about RPGing.

 

[Fenris-77]

Who said independent from? I didn't. I said separate but following from. Here's the rest of my post that you snipped:

but it came out of a design process that started with Forge theory and ended up somewhere else

Ahh, the perils of post snipping. Baker obviously has a debt to Forge, and obviously thinks PbtA is a different thing. I thought I'd said that pretty clearly. Anyway, not independent, no.