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

[Charlaquin]

Gonna quote this as an example of words that have no meaning to the layman. None of this means anything to me, your audience.

To do as I've been asked....can you please define for me

Purist-for-system
Process/Simulationist Play (Not even sure is this is one or two separate things)

I could be wrong, but I think simulationist is the only jargon term in there. @pemerton seems to me to be saying that the framework helped them understand a form of [whatever simulationist play is], which is stays pure to the system, the processes, of the game being played.

EDIT: Well, guess I was wrong. The perils of using common words as jargon.

 

[Aldarc]

Anyone who is interested in what scene framing is, as a technique, can read this from Paul Czege:

although roleplaying games typically feature scene transition, by "scene framing" we're talking about a subset of scene transition that features a different kind of intentionality. My personal inclination is to call the traditional method "scene extrapolation," because the details of the Point A of scenes initiated using the method are typically arrived at primarily by considering the physics of the game world, what has happened prior to the scene, and the unrevealed actions and aspirations of characters that only the GM knows about.​

​

"Scene framing" is a very different mental process for me. Tim asked if scene transitions were delicate. They aren't. Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently. More often than not, the PC's have been geographically separate from each other in the game world. So I go around the room, taking a turn with each player, framing a scene and playing it out. I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out.​

So while it's true that 5e D&D play requires the GM to "set the scene", my impression is that a lot of 5e D&D play doesn't involve scene framing in Czege's more specific sense: of deliberately framing a scene that turns a firehose of adversity and situation onto the character(s) in it.

For instance, in the example of play given in the 5e Basic PDF, we get the following:

Dungeon Master (DM): After passing through the craggy peaks, the road takes a sudden turn to the east and Castle Ravenloft towers before you. Crumbling towers of stone keep a silent watch over the approach. They look like abandoned guardhouses. Beyond these, a wide chasm gapes, disappearing into the deep fog below. A lowered drawbridge spans the chasm, leading to an arched entrance to the castle courtyard. The chains of the drawbridge creak in the wind, their rust-eaten iron straining with the weight. From atop the high strong walls, stone gargoyles stare at you from hollow sockets and grin hideously. A rotting wooden portcullis, green with growth, hangs in the entry tunnel. Beyond this, the main doors of Castle Ravenloft stand open, a rich warm light spilling into the courtyard.​

​

Phillip (playing Gareth): I want to look at the gargoyles. I have a feeling they’re not just statues.​

​

Amy (playing Riva): The drawbridge looks precarious? I want to see how sturdy it is. Do I think we can cross it, or is it going to collapse under our weight?​

​

Dungeon Master (DM): OK, one at a time. Phillip, you’re looking at the gargoyles?​

​

Phillip: Yeah. Is there any hint they might be creatures and not decorations?​

​

DM: Make an Intelligence check.​

​

Phillip: Does my Investigation skill apply?​

​

DM: Sure!​

​

Phillip (rolling a d20): Ugh. Seven.​

​

DM: They look like decorations to you. And Amy, Riva is checking out the drawbridge?​

The GM in this example is setting the scene, but there is no adversity and the situation is not that intense - can we enter Castle Ravenloft despite its precarious drawbridge and intimidating statutes? The emphasis of play - as we see in the example - is on the players exploring the setting that the GM is presenting, by "poking and prodding" and thus triggering more narration from the GM. This fits with Czege's description of "objective outgrowth" and "extrapolation" from prior events and bits of the fiction that (initially) are known only to the GM. There is not the "intentionality" that Czege refers to, of deliberately framing the PCs into a tight spot and forcing them to make irrevocable choices.

A kicker combines Czege's sense of intentional, non-objective, adversity-laden scene-framing with player authorship of the scene.

Here is where I would disagree with you and Czege. I think that using "scene framing" to mean "set the scene" is a perfectly valid way of using the term, especially since we commonly do see TTRPGs use "scene framing" and "set the scene" as nearly synonymous. It's more of a distinction without a difference.

Instead of quibbling that there is a real difference between "scene framing" and "set the scene," I would suggest that it would be far more useful to recognize that there are multiple methods of "scene framing" depending on how you want to highlight in the scene. "Scene framing" in D&D tends to highlight the player interactivity (e.g., environment, scenery, etc.), whereas "scene framing" in a game like Apocalypse World will often prefer framing the scene around the dramatic conflict or threat.

I don't have a problem with jargon per se. The difficulty I have with jargon is that framing a discussion or argument in particular terms assents to the validity of those terms. So if we ask, is dnd 5e simulationist or gamist, we're assuming those terms, within a specific model, are valid ways of talking about games. So, if you happen to be even a little bit skeptical that your own experiences of play fit so neatly into those categories, you still have to explain your position using them. So you have some people that want to say that their experience is that the game they play combines G, N, and S--because those are the categories on offer--and other people saying that's categorically impossible. Forge terminology, in particular, exacerbates this problem because it appears, to me at least, as both an expansive and relatively closed system.

Games can try supporting G, N, and S, though I think some combinations are easier to support than others. The point is not that it's impossible, but, rather, that conflicts of interest can and often do emerge between these roleplay motivations. That said, I think that the benefits and intentionality of GNS "incoherence" has been overlooked by Edwards and the Forge. Many video game designers, for example, understand that they have different sorts of players for whom they are designing. In order to cast a fairly wide net of a fanbase, a MMORPG may have to design for players with varying shades of Bartle's typology (i.e., Explorers, Socializers, Achievers, and Killers) to co-exist to varying degrees.

I do think that the six cultures of gaming article that @Snarf Zagyg linked represents a better typology of sorts than GNS, though I do think that the author spends a little too much time griping about the Forge and Ron Edwards than explaining "Story Games" fairly. I also wouldn't call these "Story Games" either, though I understand that it's an autonym, because I don't think that this term really conveys what these games are fundamentally trying to achieve and the term is so vague as to generate far more confusion.

*on designers who were deeply influenced by but have also moved past:

A fair number of game designers from the Forge have moved past, but I think that it's also important to understand where their ideas came from and how they still reverberate in tabletop game design. IMO, some Forge jargon is "stickier" or more enduring in their usefulness as terms and principles than others. The main goals of the Forge, IMHO, have been met. They recognized that they wanted something different out of their gaming experience than what Storyteller and similar games were marketing themselves as, and they began developing games that were meant to support those principles: e.g., Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, Lady Blackbird, Fiasco, Fate, Cortex, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, etc.

This has already been talked about.

1. I'm in the audience of this thread. I am included in the target audience of any general statement made here.

2. I have never heard the word kicker as defined in this thread until today. To me kicker is something added to sweeten a deal.

3. The definition of kicker is very subtle, nuanced, and difficult to convey.

4. By using the word kicker earlier in the thread we now have added 1000+ words to this thread just trying to nail down a definition.

5. The word kicker has done nothing to save time in THIS PARTICULAR conversation, thus it's an excellent example of "jargon" best used in an audience already on the same page.

I have not played Sorcerer. I am not all that interested in playing Sorcerer. I have heard discussion of "kickers," but only from a few people and mainly from people like pemerton who have mentioned them in passing. I would probably not use the term "kicker" in most of my discussions of D&D as it doesn't really fit with the style of games that D&D supports and it's mostly applicable for play in Sorcerer, where it is discussed in the books. I still find "kicker" a useful term of sorts in how it frames a PC's inciting incident and the big "why the frack is your PC here and doing crap when they could choose not to be doing this crap?" But as I said, it's more of a term that I may think about and utilize discretely in the background than in casual TTRPG conversation.

 

[Campbell]

@Charlaquin

So I think a more helpful framing is that there are two common play structures. There are others as well, but I do not want to get too caught up in it.

One works exactly like the described 5e play loop (which pretty much all traditional RPGs follow) :
1. GM describes the environment.
2. Players describe what their characters do.
3. GM describes how the environment changes.

The second works like this:
1. The GM describes or telegraphs an event that directly threatens a player character's interests.
2. That specific character must respond to the threat in some way.
3. The group determines narrative fallout according to mechanics and principles.

The first is built around making the setting feel tangible as a space you can freely move about in. The second is about keeping things in motion. What I personally find is that people who have only had experience with games using the first structure can have trouble grasping that the second model actually exists as a distinct thing and/or that there are distinct strengths and weaknesses to each structure.

Some of the most contentious conversations that have led up to this thread were actually centered on my comments about the limitations of the second structure when it comes to exploration of your environment and its fairly relentless pace. I had intended to go into greater detail about why I sometimes choose more traditional play structures and why I sometimes I opt for the second, but even saying that Apocalypse World treats the setting like a background set in a movie was contentious, but not with it's fans - with people who assume it was structured using the first model and tried to analyze it from that perspective.

As someone who is a fan of both of these structures it's often my praise that gets treated the most harshly because it does not center traditional play as like the norm or capable of doing the same things as that second structure. What it does well is amazing though.

 

[Charlaquin]

@Charlaquin

So I think a more helpful framing is that there are two common play structures. There are others as well, but I do not want to get too caught up in it.

One works exactly like the described 5e play loop (which pretty much all traditional RPGs follow) :
1. GM describes the environment.
2. Players describe what their characters do.
3. GM describes how the environment changes.

The second works like this:
1. The GM describes or telegraphs an event that directly threatens a player character's interests.
2. That specific character must respond in some way.
3. The group determines narrative fallout according to mechanics and principles.

The first is built around making the setting feel tangible as a space you can freely move about in. The second is about compelling action and keeping things in motion. What I personally find is that people who have only had experience with games using the first structure can have trouble grasping that the second model actually exists as a distinct thing and/or that there are distinct strengths and weaknesses to each structure.

Some of the most contentious conversations that have led up to this thread were actually centered on my comments about the limitations of the second structure when it comes to exploration of your environment and its fairly relentless pace. I had intended to go into greater detail about why I sometimes choose more traditional play structures and why I sometimes I opt for the second, but even saying that Apocalypse World treats the setting like a background set in a movie was contentious, but not with it's fans - with people who assume it was structured using the first model and tried to analyze it from that perspective.

As someone who is a fan of both of these structures it's often my praise that gets treated the most harshly because it does not center traditional play as like the norm or capable of doing the same things as that second structure. What it does well is amazing though.

Interesting analysis. The difference there seems really, really subtle to me, maybe because I think it’s important in the first structure for the environment where gameplay takes place to be inherently threatening (therefore making the key difference the fact that it is always an event that threatens the players’/characters’ interests in the first step of the second structure). Differences in the second step seem to follow directly from the differences in the first step - procedurally, these seem the same, but since in the second structure the first step always involves an event that threatens the PCs, the players must necessarily always respond to that. The biggest difference, as I see it, is in the third step, where the group, rather than the DM, determines the results. That the determination is based on mechanics and principles seems the same to me, and framing it as “determining the fallout” as opposed to “describing how the environment changes” seems again to just be a natural consequence of the fact that the second structure always demands an immediate threat in step 1.

Unless I’m missing something, it seems like the differences here could be much more succinctly explained, simply by saying that in the second type of game, the gameplay loop always starts from an immediate threat to the PCs, and action resolution is a group responsibility rather than solely up to the GM.

 

[Lanefan]

If your point is that people bring unrelated jargon into conversations, I disagree.

Not necessarily unrelated jargon, more tangential; but many's the time in this forum there's been a perfectly decent discussion get derailed when some indie-game supporters and-or Forge* fans chime in and start throwing jargon around; and everyone ends up arguing over the jargon while the original discussion wanders off to the pub for a beer.



* - I think the fact that every time I try to type the word Forge it comes out as Fogre is trying to tell me something...

 

[pemerton]

I appreciate the very long example. I'm really not being arumentative about anything, just trying to understand.

If I had, at my table, a 4e game with a skill check that happened exactly as you described....but the only difference was I played around in the medium range of DCs (say the 10-14 range) then would that then be a hybrid of the two systems in action?

I'd probably talk about "degrees" rather than "hybrid". But for full process sim you'd need to get rid of all 4 factors. So the whole situation (of trying to track down the demon origin) would be resolved not on a pacing-based timetable (4 successes before 3 failures) but by following the logic of what happens in the fiction - X causes Y causes Z, where the Xs, Ys and Zs reflect what the players say their PCs do, and eventually we end up at a place where either the PCs get what they want, or the players give up and have their PCs do something else.

The idea of responding to failed checks by bringing in external factors with no in-fiction causal connection (like the thugs in the example) is also anathema to process sim. I've seen this come up a lot in discussions about 4e and other games that don't take a process sim approach.

Just one example: I remember once suggesting, as a possible narration for a failed Diplomacy check in 4e, that it starts raining and so the crowd disperses rather than listening to the character. More than one poster responded that that was silly, because how can the character's poor diplomatic efforts cause it to rain! That's an example of posters with very strong process simulationist intuitions rejecting the alternative approach that I think was the norm for 4e D&D.

 

[Lanefan]

@Charlaquin

So I think a more helpful framing is that there are two common play structures. There are others as well, but I do not want to get too caught up in it.

One works exactly like the described 5e play loop (which pretty much all traditional RPGs follow) :
1. GM describes the environment.
2. Players describe what their characters do.
3. GM describes how the environment changes.

The second works like this:
1. The GM describes or telegraphs an event that directly threatens a player character's interests.
2. That specific character must respond in some way.
3. The group determines narrative fallout according to mechanics and principles.

The first is built around making the setting feel tangible as a space you can freely move about in. The second is about keeping things in motion. What I personally find is that people who have only had experience with games using the first structure can have trouble grasping that the second model actually exists as a distinct thing and/or that there are distinct strengths and weaknesses to each structure.

I don't see much difference.

The second '1.' - the event - can be a part of the first '1.' - the environment, but can't exist completely on its own. An event without a surrounding environment and-or context (which may well have been described earlier) takes place in a vacuum. (see below)

The two '2.'s are exactly the same thing, worded differently: the player determines and then relates what the character does, or tries to do, in response to '1.'.

There is a difference between the two '3.' points as worded: one has the GM describing changes while the other has the table determining narrative fallout. However, wording it like this is a bit disingenuous in that in the first '3.' you fail to note the GM is expected to adhere to mechanics and principles* in order to arrive at that description; while in the second '3.' someone at the table still has to describe what changes and-or happens. End result: they're pretty much the same.

* - principles here being quasi-universal things like internal consistency, fairness, integrity, etc.

Some of the most contentious conversations that have led up to this thread were actually centered on my comments about the limitations of the second structure when it comes to exploration of your environment and its fairly relentless pace. I had intended to go into greater detail about why I sometimes choose more traditional play structures and why I sometimes I opt for the second, but even saying that Apocalypse World treats the setting like a background set in a movie was contentious, but not with it's fans - with people who assume it was structured using the first model and tried to analyze it from that perspective.

As someone who is a fan of both of these structures it's often my praise that gets treated the most harshly because it does not center traditional play as like the norm or capable of doing the same things as that second structure. What it does well is amazing though.

Even if AW treats the setting like a background set in a movie, someone (probably the GM) at some point still has to describe what that setting is and-or looks and feels like. That description is then assumed to be built in to your second '1.' above when an event is brought forward.

 

[pemerton]

Consider for a moment the problem of communication in the following scenario. If you have jargon using certain words and I have jargon using those same words/phrases significantly differently. Must I accept your jargon? Must you accept mine? Whose jargon prevails here?

In mainstream philosophy, Plato, Berkeley and Kant are all labelled idealists. But in the sense in which Berkeley and even moreso Kant are idealists, Plato can be characterised as a realist - thus, for instance, in philosophy of mathematics there are Platonist realists who argue with Kantian idealists.

The terminological complexity is not ideal for undergraduate students, but part of mastering the field is learning to work with it.

I've never had trouble working out what the typical ENworlder means by "gamist" (roughly - having metagame mechanics and/or compromising simulationist priorities in pursuit of playability) while normally, myself, using the term in Ron Edwards's sense (roughly - RPGing where the reason for playing is to be challenged, and to show that you've got what it takes to win - think classic D&D dungeon-crawling as one form of this, and T&T or "lottery D&D" as the more hijinksy version).

Likewise, most ENworlders uses "narrativist" or "story-focused" to mean what I, again following Edwards, would call High Concept Simulationism.

Most ENworlders either don't have a term for what Edwards calls "narrativist", or else call that sort of play "story games", and associate it almost exclusively with player-authoring by way of expending meta-currency. I can work around that too, although it does sometimes mean that lengthy explanations are required.

 

[pemerton]

Is it only a kicker if it's resolved as soon as its laid down?

Game session 3
GM: As you round the bend you are startled by several ravens cawing loudly in the mide of the road.
Player: (inspiration to add to backstory) Barnabus backs up terrified. He is irrationally afraid of loud ravens. The night he discovered his sister rmissing he had been startled awake by two loud ravens outside this window.

Game Session 5
GM: (introducing sideplot involving ravens and missing sisters) When the hermits hut opens you flinch as two ravens perched on his shoulder begin seemingly laughing at you.

No, not "as soon as it's laid down". But there is an idea of immediacy and pervasiveness. As a technique, a "kicker" is associated with a wider set of orientations and expectations about where most of the "drive" of play will come from.

In your example, it seems that a lot stuff has happened leading up to session 3, and between sessions 3 and 5, that came from somewhere but wasn't related to Barnabus's issue with ravens. In most D&D games the "somewhere" it comes from would be the GM. So we have a lot of stuff that the GM is doing which isn't responding to, riffing on, putting pressure on, the raven thing. So the raven thing isn't really a kicker.

 

[pemerton]

Edwards' framework is in my view very powerful for understanding purist-for-system, or process, simulationist play

Maybe it helps people who don’t enjoy that kind of play to conceptualize it in a way that makes sense to them. And I think that’s what makes it feel so condescending.

I played Rolemaster as my main game for 19 years, 4 or 5 of which were after I read Edwards on purist-for-system simulationism.

In that 19 years I ran two campaigns. One lasted from 1990 to 1997, the other from 1998 to 2008. The first eventually collapsed. The second was brought to a terrific conclusion (if I do say so myself). I couldn't have pulled that off without having read Edwards or other RPG authors/commentators that he pointed me to (like Paul Czege).

The idea that only someone who didn't like purist-for-system play would find Edwards insightful is just wrong. His analysis is brilliant. I was fairly active on the ICE forums around the same time I first read Edwards. The comparison in degree of insight was mindblowing. And frankly your assumption that because I like Edwards I must hate and sneer at purist-for-system RPGing is a bit insulting.

I also don't mind the odd bit of classic D&D - and certainly enjoy it more since I've been able to work out what it's about, which I was able to do by rereading Pulsipher and Gygax informed by Edwards - but it's not my favourite and I'm not very good at it. But I'm trying my hand at Torchbearer, which is unabashedly a "gamist" RPG in Edwards sense, and which I wouldn't be able to GM if I hadn't read Edwards.

As far as high-concept simulationism is concerned, Edwards in my view also explains very well why I enjoy a well-GMed session of CoC but find AD&D 2nd ed a mostly frustrating experience.