Why Jargon is Bad, and Some Modern Resources for RPG Theory

[soviet]

Um, no, I'm going to disagree. What GNS is saying is that if you want this thing, say a clear cause-effect pattern enforced in play, that you should look for games that do this. GNS doesn't provide any tools to label games -- that's up to you -- it provide tools to understand agendas.

Sure, but that doesn't make it a theory about people. I don't have an agenda, like narrativist is my RPG star sign. I adopt a narrativist agenda to play this particular game - either I sought out a narrativist game on purpose, or potentially I have ended up in a narrativist-leaning game for reasons of accident or convenience and I am modulating my approach to suit.

 

[niklinna]

Sure, but that doesn't make it a theory about people. I don't have an agenda, like narrativist is my RPG star sign. I adopt a narrativist agenda to play this particular game - either I sought out a narrativist game on purpose, or potentially I have ended up in a narrativist-leaning game for reasons of accident or convenience and I am modulating my approach to suit.

All Aldarc said was that it was a theory about people, and the different things (plural) they want out of roleplay. They didn't mention people having an agenda.

Now Edwards, in spite of initial protests to the contrary, did slip into that language fairly often, only sometimes remembering to add the proviso that it was "just a shorthand", but shorthand becomes identity all too easily. This is one of my major criticisms of his writing.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Alignment got removed from the game for a reason...

 

[Campbell]

The terms of art we depend on to facilitate discussion in traditional RPG spaces were designed to describe a particular arrangement and structure of play. When you limit discussion to only those terms of art you are limiting it to only that particular structure of play. It's not just Forge terminology that seems to be an issue in this community. Stuff like shared fiction, fiction first, scene framing, kickers, bangs all seem to be an issue here. If we cannot utilize the terms of art that actual games use to describe their own play structure, how can we meaningfully talk about those structures? What their implications are? Where certain play structures fulfill certain player desires better than other structures?

How is this discussion not about putting other sorts of play (aside from traditional play) into a ghetto?

This also includes OSR play by the way which is likewise treated as a red headed stepchild on these boards.

 

[Charlaquin]

Oh? Werewolves aren't shorthand for a complex concept related to a specialized field? So werewolf means something general, and is used in many fields, and doesn't refer to a specific set of interrelated tropes that are only seen in fantasy?

It’s pretty general, yeah. I could ask just about any random person off the street if they know what a werewolf is, and they’d probably all give pretty similar answers. It would be jargon if, like, there was some particle or something that physicists named “werewolf.” You would need specialized knowledge in their field to know what they were talking about.

 

[Aldarc]

Some good discussion here. I think the idea that some TTRPGs require a game master, who must not only know the rules, but make rulings in how to apply them is forced into the drivers seat of design. All that is done for you in video games usually. TTRPG put you closer to under the hood, so naturally folks are more inclined to want to know how they work and discuss such.

I think that another issue is that we sometimes treat TTRPGs as a singular game type rather than a collection of diverse game types, much as we likewise find in video games or board/card games.

 

[overgeeked]

shared fiction, fiction first, scene framing, kickers, bangs

I understand scene framing. But not the rest. They’re all jargon. Some people will know what they mean but not others. Assuming everyone knows what they mean and not explaining them is gatekeeping. Which, again, is the problem with over use of jargon.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think that another issue is that we sometimes treat TTRPGs as a singular game type rather than a collection of diverse game types, much as we likewise find in video games or board/card games.

Right. Imagine if you were asked to explain videogame theory, but with no jargon and only through the lens of first-person-shooters.

 

[Charlaquin]

The terms of art we depend on to facilitate discussion in traditional RPG spaces were designed to describe a particular arrangement and structure of play. When you limit discussion to only those terms of art you are limiting it to only that particular structure of play. It's not just Forge terminology that seems to be an issue in this community. Stuff like shared fiction, fiction first, scene framing, kickers, bangs all seem to be an issue here. If we cannot the terms of art that actual games use to describe their own play structure, how can we meaningfully talk about those structures? What their implications are? Where certain play structures fulfill certain player desires better than other structures?

How is this discussion not about putting other sorts of play (aside from traditional play) into a ghetto?
This also includes OSR play by the way which is likewise treated as a red headed stepchild on these boards.

Personally, I don’t know what any of those terms mean. If you were to have a lengthy discussion about them, I would be left out unless someone explained them to me. Now, that might not be a problem. If the discussion is about, like, a game that uses them, it makes perfect sense to use that game’s terms in that discussion (and I probably wouldn’t care about being out of the loop because clearly I’ve never played the game in question). If it’s in a discussion about D&D, I’m probably not the only one who’s unfamiliar with the terms, and the discussion would probably be better served by more layman-accessible language.

 

[Lanefan]

Significant explanation is often given. Extensively so. I know I have spilled a whole lot of virtual ink on this stuff in pretty much every thread I try to talk about this stuff. Others have spilled far more.

Thing is, while there's some high-grade jargon that gets chucked around in places like this, there's also jargon and terms that have become so baked-in that we don't even think about them any more.

Like, if you'd never heard of the game what would "saving throw" mean to you? Or "hit dice*"? Or "dungeon master"?

* - never mind the definition of this one has morphed through the various editions.