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

[hawkeyefan]

I wouldn't consider this thread an example of what I'm talking about though. This thread in my view is more of a discussion about the jargon itself, or has become that, as well as its utility (which then touches on the theory and its author, naturally). I'm more referring to threads where someone has a situation at a D&D table with either the experience not being all it could be or an issue with particular rules, then we get a few posters entering the thread (often late in the discussion) with a litany of Forge jargon at which point the whole thing goes south. Which isn't to say a discussion can't go south without Forge jargon. It just seems to me, more often than not, it will once the Forge jargon is introduced (with or without my "help"), and it doesn't actually solve the original issue that was posted. Knowing this to be a thing, how about we just don't bring in that jargon?

Well as someone who benefitted from the kinds of conversations that you're talking about, it reads to me as if you don't really care about my experience, at least not as it compares to a few threads being derailed.

Threads get derailed. It happens.

 

[Ovinomancer]

lots of words for the same thing... the world the story takes place in IS THE STORY...

it is by common usage of the words...

that would be the game yes.

only when you try to break them down to technicalities instead of broad over views...

Ah, so you did introduce jargon. You used words that mean other things, because verisimilitude does not mean story, and you mean story to mean versimilitude, then that's a unique definition to your specific use case, which is how jargon is defined. My bad, I thought you didn't mean jargon.

So, if I understand correctly, here, your point was correct because when you said "story" you actually meant "verisimilitude" and when you said "game" you actually meant "challenge." Totally clear.

yes I reduced it to two and said the 3rd was a hakf way point... it isn't perfect but it is a broad highview summery for someone who doens't role play to understand (or someone that doesn't read 1,000s of form post on game theories)

Well, that's entirely wrong. Narrativism doesn't really care about verisimilitude or challenge. It's not in the middle of those two at all.

 

[iserith]

Well as someone who benefitted from the kinds of conversations that you're talking about, it reads to me as if you don't really care about my experience, at least not as it compares to a few threads being derailed.

Threads get derailed. It happens.

It's not that I don't care about your experience. I had the same experience back on the WotC forums! It's just that this isn't very effective in most discussions in my view and maybe instead of trotting out the Forge jargon - and more to the topic of this thread (if not the spirit) - we can imagine another way to communicate those ideas that helped us.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Ah, so you did introduce jargon. You used words that mean other things, because verisimilitude does not mean story, and you mean story to mean versimilitude, then that's a unique definition to your specific use case, which is how jargon is defined. My bad, I thought you didn't mean jargon.

So, if I understand correctly, here, your point was correct because when you said "story" you actually meant "verisimilitude" and when you said "game" you actually meant "challenge." Totally clear.

Well, that's entirely wrong. Narrativism doesn't really care about verisimilitude or challenge. It's not in the middle of those two at all.

This is why this can't be a +thread about common language no jargon... you are too interested in the "every little bit right" and not interested in laymans high over view.

 

[iserith]

This is why this can't be a +thread about common language no jargon... you are too interested in the "every little bit right" and not interested in laymans high over view.

That's right, and if you add in the zeal of the recently converted, it's an explosive mixture sure to set fire to any discussion.

 

[soviet]

Every time I see people playing football in the street I go out and attack them.

Sometimes they are playing at my invitation! I attack them nonetheless.

What is so broken about football that makes it always end in violence?

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's right, and if you add in the zeal of the recently converted, it's an explosive mixture sure to set fire to any discussion.

I would think such a comment as this would go against the idea of a + thread, and would accomplish through lack of etiquette what you fear forge jargon would do to a thread.

 

[Malmuria]

It's somewhat tough because much of it was spread between various mailing lists, particularly The Sorcerer mailing list. Then the forums which are still archived. I think it's somewhat important to consider that the essays are in many ways the synthesis of a lot of different people's ideas that were fairly highly contested and some of the names for things were not Ron's decision. As an example Story Now was a moniker that came from the Sorcerer mailing list.

I actually think it's best to understand the Big Model through the prism of The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast, the idea that a GM cannot control the story while players decide what the protagonists do and desire. This essay covers various way to resolve what most of The Forge say as the fundamental question of RPG design. I consider it more important than anything found in the essays.

This is probably the best distillation of what Story Now is really about :

Why is it called “The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast”?

 

[Charlaquin]

Again, this is a bad take, intentionally assuming ill intent and malevolence and assigning it to someone you don't know as if he actually did terribly things.

It’s not assuming ill intent. His words always gave the impression of ill intent, and then he confirmed it with the brain damage comment.

Edwards is "deplorable" now because he used some words you don't like. I don't like them either, but you know what, what he's saying with those words is really good stuff.

No, it really isn’t. Some really good stuff incidentally came out of the discussion he kicked off. What he was saying with his words was elitist, gatekeeping garbage.

This is more attacking the speaker to dismiss the ideas. Edwards isn't saying your game sucks,

He literally is though. He called a game that I very much like “dysfunctional.” Just because it was obfuscated in a lot of pseudo-academic analysis doesn’t change the content. And it would be a different story if he had said “I don’t understand why anyone likes Vampire and I don’t care to, here’s what I don’t like about it and what would make a better alternative.” But he didn’t do that. He said Vampire is incoherent and dysfunctional and the people who like it have “brain damage,” which he later clarified meant that the game caused trauma in their developing brains that left them unable to appreciate the games he likes.

he's not acting in an elitist way about games (fair cop to discussing his attitude towards people's engagement with criticism). He likes a lot of the games that people are saying he's trashing. @pemerton has said that Edwards' essay on Simulationism described his play exactly and he continued to do it and got better at it for the description. That's not actually possible to do if the intent and extent of the essay is trashing a game or idea.

It’s great that pemerton was able to take something of value from what Edwards said, but that experience is not universal, and a lot of what he said was very actively exclusive to certain RPG players.

Some games do not work. If we apply this to a game like FATAL, no one argues.

The problem with FATAL isn’t that it has “incoherent agendas” or whatever other waffle, the problem with FATAL is that its mechanics are poorly considered and its contents and themes are odeous bigoted garbage.

If you look at where games that are more popular than that fail to do what's on their tin, people get testy because you're impinging on identity for them. Edwards didn't care whose feathers he ruffled, he called it bluntly as he saw it. But, that bluntness seems to be what everyone stops at and claims that analysis is bad because blunt. They don't get through to the actual ideas. You can disagree with Edwards, for sure (I do in areas), but if you can't even get through to the ideas then you aren't disagreeing, you're dismissing.

I’m perfectly happy to discuss the ideas. We did so, pretty productively for several pages. What I’m not happy with is trying to defend him and his words as anything but hateful towards players whose preferences he either didn’t understand or just didn’t like.

And it's fine if you want to dismiss. It's the attempt to shut down discussion with people that don't want to dismiss it, or poison the well by bringing in, mischaracterizing, and then sensationalizing other things said with no intent to further the discussion that's a problem.

I have no interest in shutting down the discussion. If you want to stop arguing about the man and get back to his ideas, I will join you in doing so.

 

[Charlaquin]

Right. It would be like saying "I dislike railroads, which are characterized by X, and here's how I avoid them" as being incendiary and deplorable because someone else likes railroads and is offended. It's ridiculous. Not liking a thing doesn't mean analysis is wrong.

It’s fine to not like railroads and talk about why you like them and how to avoid them. It’s not fine to try to ascribe motivations to people who do like railroads, and couching one’s efforts to do so in academic-sounding jargon doesn’t make it better.