D&D 5E [+] Explain RPG theory without using jargon

[Crimson Longinus]

IMO. Even with that clarifier it's off putting. Incoherence is a negative property in basically every other context. Trying to act like it was ever intended as some neutral descriptor requires a major leap of faith.

And considering it is coined by the same person who said that people who like traditional games are literally suffering from brain damage, it's not a leap I'm willing to take.

(But perhaps he meant 'brain damage' as a neutral analytical term too? )

 

[Ovinomancer]

Quoting this post again because I had a follow-up and think it’s likely to get missed if I edit it into the other post. This “exploration of character” concept looks to me a lot like special pleading to exclude character development that isn’t directly player-authored from narrativism.

This is a common statement, but one that isn't considering that the difference is in how you go about doing play. That there's a large difference in outcomes and impacts. If you only get to explore your character in relation to the things that the GM provides for you to engage with (and, if you're lucking, the GM has taken some of your suggestions and written them into their setting or story) then that's going to be a world of difference from a game where play is centered on interrogating the character -- who they are, what they want, what they're willing to do to get it -- and where play isn't anodyne to character.

A good example would be to consider a WotC AP, like Curse of Strahd. This AP doesn't care what characters show up to play it -- nothing about the structure of the plot, the locations, the NPC motivations, the point of play, etc., changes with a different party. However, while you play you can represent your character in the situations provided. However, this representation is going to be reflective of the provided play -- it won't be informing it. There's no analog to the Curse of Strahd AP in narrativist play -- the entire concept doesn't make sense. There aren't published adventures for strongly narrativist supporting games. Setting is very thin (Stonetop, which has a beefy for PbtA setting, is mostly prompts for consideration when something comes into play, meant to be used only as impetus and then only as it bears on and is informed by the current play). This is because everything is going to be centered around the characters. And not all of it will be player authored -- the GM has a role to play as well, the provider of honest adversity towards the PCs.

 

[FrogReaver]

Probably because incoherence has an ordinary, everyday definition



The overlap between forge theoretical terms and ordinary, colloquial language is a real failure of articulation, because it continually produces miscommunication.

I’ll further note that “incoherent” has a negative connotation, being defined as per above by a certain lack of clarity and structure in speech or thought. It suggests something that is broken down, disorganized, and unable to communicate. And it’s another instance, maybe a prime instance, of the Forge claiming to use neutral, definitional language that is in fact judgmental and pejorative.

An extreme skeptic might view that failure of articulation to be more a sign of an extremely biased theory. Afterall it's already established that the GNS theory was created by those that did not like the direction of current RPG's at the time and it was for those that had those same preferences. Perhaps the coincidence where all the negative terminology in GNS refers to traditional popular games wasn't actually a coincidence but intentional. (*traditional is not the best word here but i'm at a loss for another).

And maybe it's really not such a leap to adopt such a skeptical view of that part of the theory.

That said, I think there are some great points that GNS did help bring out at the time but I don't think it was ever really intended to analyze why people like traditional games. It seems it was more about analyzing different relationships of authority/principles/processes and how that could impact games. In that area it had some profound impacts and influence. It may have achieved that while not actually being fair and unbiased toward games that followed more traditional designs.

 

[pemerton]

Ok, interesting. So, in light of this new (to me) information, it sounds like exploration, both of the world and of the character, is my main priority in play. Which… it sounds like is what simulationism is supposed to mean?

Yes to the second (about meaning). And as to the second (about your main priority), I wouldn't be surprised. I don't want to pretend to be able to diagnose your play preferences - a complex manifestation of any individual human's multifaceted personal and social being - on the basis of posts of yours that I've read. So what follows is tentative.

If you're into exploration, in Edwards's sense, then the following dot points might be true, or at least you might be able to see why they're part of my tentative conjecture:

* As a player, you enjoy the "big reveal" bit that is part of any good CoC scenario; and when it comes to D&D scenarios, you prefer ones with a story that has a twist or a reveal or a trajectory, rather than ToH-ish "beat the dungeon because that's just what we do";

* Related to the above, while you may not be judgemental about "murder hobo" play it's probably not your first preference;

* As a player, you get a bit frustrated when another player's play of their PC detracts from engaging with the situation the GM is putting forward;

* As a player, you enjoy learning what clever thing the GM put behind the secret door (or in the secret compartment, or in the BBG's secret diary, or . . .);

* Maps are fairly important to your play experience (I'm not meaning battle maps, but dungeon maps, building maps, city maps, regional maps, etc);

* As a GM, you like to form a conception of who your NPCs are and what they want, and then when the players (via their PCs) encounter them, you portray your NPC faithfully to your conception of them;

* If a player has a particular conception of their PC, then as a fellow player and even moreso as a GM, you look for ways to let that shine through (eg by giving them the spotlight to show of their PC).​

As I said, the above is tentative, but is a sincere response to what you've posted in this and other threads.

 

[Campbell]

It may be because I’m tired, but I’m not sure if I’m parsing this correctly. You’re saying L5R and Vampire are naturalistic and put minimal pressure on the player to engage in character exploration, while Burning Wheel and Sorcerer are intense, and deliberately built on contrivances?

When I run Vampire or L5R what I basically do is create an overall scenario that I feel will give players the oppurtunity to explore who their character might be and will connect back to their clan (funny how that works for both) and associated NPCs. In the act of designing that scenario I am going to define a whole host of characters, factions, places. When players interact with an NPC I will first and foremost be concerned with playing them faithfully to what I have established in my notes and relationship maps. What their goals are, etc. Any character development that happens in the course of play is going to arise naturally out of their interactions with the scenario.

When I run Burning Wheel none of that is true. I'm framing scenes that are designed to put those characters through a crucible. I'm directly threatening their aspirations, hopes and desires. The things they believe. Anything not already established through play (not prep) about NPCs is fair game to use to set those scenes. Fallout will be forceful and dramatic. I'm making that stuff go according to how those scenes shake out.

 

[Manbearcat]

Well if it’s explicitly a negative trait in a game (as in, “an incoherent essay”), and thus something to avoid in design, that’s at least honest.

Its something to either (a) reconcile with or (b) design out. But you have to first acknowledge that "its a thing" if you're going to do either of those things. I've spoken about it a lot. I've written excerpts of play that demonstrate it in action. Its about moments of play where you have to subordinate one priority for another (like subordinating skillfulness resolving play to story imperatives or subordinating simulationist priorities because you need game conventions and contrivances to suss out skillfulness of play) because they don't cohere in that moment.

You see indications of it all over ENWorld all the time with people lamenting this problem or lamenting that problem because their play doesn't match up to their expectations. And then you have all kinds of back-and-forth on how to resolve that issue. They're talking about incoherency. @pemerton posted this last page and folks seemed to think it was a good explanation so I'll repost it here.

The GNS essays aren't really addressed to WotC. They're addressed to small indie designers trying to design in a "tight", artistically deliberate fashion. (WotC's system design is deliberate. But not artistically so.)

We can see how "incoherence" plays out in 5e D&D. It is deliberately designed to appeal to two different groups of players: those who like finding out what happens to their PCs in the imaginary world; and those who want to play a compelling resource-management game with a risk of player loss (in the form of PC death). The latter often complain that the encounter challenge advice is pitched too easily, and that some feats and/or spells are dominant strategies. The former don't like playing with munchkins/powergamers.

(There's an element of simplification in the preceding paragraph. I don't think that obscures its basic truth.)

Each individual group has to work its way through the issues in the preceding paragraph itself. There's no "official" answer because WotC wants both sorts of play groups to buy and play its game!

It sounds like "incoherence" means a game can satisfy different things for different people, appealing to lots of people with varied interests. As a result, at least one such incoherent game seems to sell very well compared to all other RPGs, even the so-called coherent ones. That can't just be because it's been around a long time (though that must help). One could conclude perhaps that the market has spoken and incoherence is desirable, despite the negative connotations of that word.

I assume you believe this to be a heavy point of contention given the tone of what you've written here, but no one that I know of disagrees with this.

This has been conceded over and over and over and over again. 5e overwhelmingly achieves this through GM-facing action resolution and heavily GM-directed play (relying upon the GM to skillfully, behind the screen, resolve moments when priorities don't play nice so the players can just do their thing). 5e also achieves this through a well-designed puzzle game of social interaction a la Pictionary (which, IMO, is the only site of reliable Gamism that will never threaten other priorities in 5e...a fantastic minigame that really has no issues that are a threat to clash, conceptually or in my own running of the game)...which...at least back when I was running it...virtually no one knew existed or just ignored it entirely (every time I brought it up people were all "huh?...what?...just happened again a few days ago").

The game is wildly popular for a host of reasons and one of them has to be that, presently, this is the proverbial nut draw of system design. And this wasn't a happy accident. This was intentful, skillful design by the 5e designers. They built toward a particular game and they executed that effort. Bravo.

 

[pemerton]

It also sounds like Edwards is the actual worst person on the planet at naming things.

I've put this in a separate post, because it's largely tangential (to our discussion; maybe it's on topic for the thread!).

Edwards was building on an existing discussion, which had already coined various terms that he was developing.

Why do we call batteries batteries? They don't have much in common with artillery formations! But trace the usage back, and the connection makes sense in the historical context. For the same sort of reason I call the machine I'm using a computer even though I personally use it for non-computational tasks. Yes, it works via computational methods, but that's not how I experience it; by way of contrast, an internal combustion engine works by explosive methods, but we don't call a car an exploder - we call it after its function (car, or automobile) rather than its method of propulsion. Contrast a jet (meaning jet-propelled aeroplane).

Jargon typically has an origin in which it made sense, even though that origin is often irrelevant to the contemporary usage of the word.

EDIT:

The overlap between forge theoretical terms and ordinary, colloquial language is a real failure of articulation, because it continually produces miscommunication.

See what I posted just above. The essays were written first-and-foremost for those already engaged in a discussion in which certain terms had been coined, for reasons that seemed to make sense to those at the time. Just like "battery".

 

[Charlaquin]

This is a common statement, but one that isn't considering that the difference is in how you go about doing play. That there's a large difference in outcomes and impacts. If you only get to explore your character in relation to the things that the GM provides for you to engage with (and, if you're lucking, the GM has taken some of your suggestions and written them into their setting or story) then that's going to be a world of difference from a game where play is centered on interrogating the character -- who they are, what they want, what they're willing to do to get it -- and where play isn't anodyne to character.

A good example would be to consider a WotC AP, like Curse of Strahd. This AP doesn't care what characters show up to play it -- nothing about the structure of the plot, the locations, the NPC motivations, the point of play, etc., changes with a different party. However, while you play you can represent your character in the situations provided. However, this representation is going to be reflective of the provided play -- it won't be informing it. There's no analog to the Curse of Strahd AP in narrativist play -- the entire concept doesn't make sense. There aren't published adventures for strongly narrativist supporting games. Setting is very thin (Stonetop, which has a beefy for PbtA setting, is mostly prompts for consideration when something comes into play, meant to be used only as impetus and then only as it bears on and is informed by the current play). This is because everything is going to be centered around the characters. And not all of it will be player authored -- the GM has a role to play as well, the provider of honest adversity towards the PCs.

No, I totally get that they would produce very different experiences, and of course the concept of an adventure path is incompatible with narrativist games. What I take issue with is the idea that what Edwards would apparently call “character exploration” is, by contrast with Narrativism, is not and can’t be, as you say, “centered on interrogating the character -- who they are, what they want, what they're willing to do to get it” that’s like, verbatim what I get out of this (apparently sumulationist) “exploration of character” sort of play.

It is certainly true that a scenario designed for “exploration of character” doesn’t care what characters show up to play it. That’s, in my view, a strength because it allows for development of the character through play. You can start out with a blank slate and discover who they are through the choices you make in response to the world, instead of coming to the table with a picture already in mind of who the character is, and trying to faithfully portray them.

…Aaaaaand, in typing that, I’ve realized these play styles have reversed player and GM roles compared to one another. In one the scenario is designed in advance and the characters develop organically in response to it. In the other the characters are designed in advance and the scenario develops organically in response to them.

 

[Charlaquin]

An extreme skeptic might view that failure of articulation to be more a sign of an extremely biased theory. Afterall it's already established that the GNS theory was created by those that did not like the direction of current RPG's at the time and it was for those that had those same preferences. Perhaps the coincidence where all the negative terminology in GNS refers to traditional popular games wasn't actually a coincidence but intentional. (*traditional is not the best word here but i'm at a loss for another).

And maybe it's really not such a leap to adopt such a skeptical view of that part of the theory.

That said, I think there are some great points that GNS did help bring out at the time but I don't think it was ever really intended to analyze why people like traditional games. It seems it was more about analyzing different relationships of authority/principles/processes and how that could impact games. In that area it had some profound impacts and influence. It may have achieved that while not actually being fair and unbiased toward games that followed more traditional designs.

Mmm… It definitely seems more likely a product of unconscious bias than or active malice to me.

 

[FrogReaver]

Mmm… It definitely seems more likely a product of unconscious bias than or active malice to me.

Malice isn't really what I'm getting at. But I think it's a bit more than simple unconscious bias.