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

[Thomas Shey]

But again, when the world is NOT REAL, they are ALL just constraints that are built from conceits!

I'm just going to say that if you don't see the difference between things that have an acknowledge in-world existence and those that don't we're not going to have a useful conversation about this.

 

[Thomas Shey]

When I think of games that operate under genre logic I think about Classic Deadlands, Exalted Third Edition, Vampire The Masquerade 5th Edition, FFG Star Wars, Monster of the Week, Conan 2d20, etc. Games that reinforce genre appropriate outcomes by skewing their systems to those sorts of results and have reward systems that encourage players to act in genre appropriate ways and predefined character concept.

I don't really disagree, but I think in some cases its baked in a lot harder than that. It doesn't just skew the results, it virtually forces it (because some results outside the genre just won't occur unless someone very proactively chases them. There are superhero games where you outright won't kill someone by accident within the mechanics; there's just no process that will make it happen).

 

[Thomas Shey]

@Thomas Shey

I think the distinctions we raise are only banal to those who take exploratory as a given. As defining what it means to play a roleplaying game.

That might have been true of the GDS Simulationists, but it very much was far from universal with the GDS Dramatists (with only three samples, its hard to judge with their Gamists--it wasn't at least entirely true with me but I'd not care to characterize Gleichman or Szonze).

 

[overgeeked]

Hey, @Snarf Zagyg , you finished Elusive Shift, right?

Would it be too out of line to say that Steven R. Lortz’s Cannibals & Castaways (1978) is similar to PbtA games in that it’s focused on drama, only has mechanics for dramatically important situations/moves, ignores everything not directly related to the drama of the core premise, and the rest is free role-play.

Because it sure reads like it’s a PbtA game…with slightly different phrasing. What’s the Forge jargon for PbtA games? And isn’t it wild that one very likely was written back in 1978.

 

[Campbell]

Powered by the Apocalypse is much more of a design language than a standardized system or type of play. There are a number of games that are Powered by the Apocalypse I consider fairly traditional including The Sprawl, Monster of the Week and Freebooters on the Frontier (which is my second favorite D&D-like). Others like Apocalypse Keys or Bridlewood Bay kind of ride the line transitioning between Story Now and more traditional play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Hey, @Snarf Zagyg , you finished Elusive Shift, right?

Would it be too out of line to say that Steven R. Lortz’s Cannibals & Castaways (1978) is similar to PbtA games in that it’s focused on drama, only has mechanics for dramatically important situations/moves, ignores everything not directly related to the drama of the core premise, and the rest is free role-play.

Because it sure reads like it’s a PbtA game…with slightly different phrasing. What’s the Forge jargon for PbtA games? And isn’t it wild that one very likely was written back in 1978.

It appears very difficult to find a copy of Different Worlds issue 1, where this mini-RPG came from. I did find issue 2 of Different Worlds, though, where Lortz discussion what he means by dramatic focus in RPGs. I was hopeful there was something I was unaware of, because he was using language in a way that the Forge used it much later, but that article makes it very clear that he's talking to a pretty traditional RPG structure, just using "dramatic structure" and "dramatic action" to refer to things like rolled random encounters while a part is resting. I'd still like to review the original text of Cannibals and Castaways, but given the follow-up discussion the next issue, it doesn't look at all like he was talking to the same things as what Apocalypse World is doing (or any other strong narrativist supporting RPG).

You can read that article in issue 2 of Different Worlds by Lortz here.

I am curious why you'd ask someone that hasn't shown any understanding of how games like Apocalypse World operate what they think, though. Is it the strange appeal to authority -- he should know because he read the same book you did? And that trumps people with many decades of combined experience playing and discussing these games?

 

[Aldarc]

If you ever play Blades in the Dark, there is a really helpful section near the beginning of the book that lists the touchstones for the game—videogames, tv shows, movies etc. It really helped our group when we were learning the game because everyone had seen Peaky Blinders. Whenever we were thinking about what would be a good score, or even a good complication, we could always reference a moment from the tv show and go from there. (i.e. genre emulation is helpful across a variety of games(

Touchstones have a long history extending all the way back to Appendix N in a bespoke pen 'n' paper fantasy adventure tabletop game called D&D. Nowadays, a lot of designers will move their own Appendix N/Touchstones towards the beginning of the book as a means to set tonal, thematic, and genre expectations and get readers excited.

 

[pemerton]

Hey, @Snarf Zagyg , you finished Elusive Shift, right?

Would it be too out of line to say that Steven R. Lortz’s Cannibals & Castaways (1978) is similar to PbtA games in that it’s focused on drama, only has mechanics for dramatically important situations/moves, ignores everything not directly related to the drama of the core premise, and the rest is free role-play.

Because it sure reads like it’s a PbtA game…with slightly different phrasing. What’s the Forge jargon for PbtA games? And isn’t it wild that one very likely was written back in 1978.

I've frequently posted that the earliest game I'm aware of that has anything like a PbtA structure - player side moves triggered on the basis "if you do it, you do it" that then establish the constraints on GM narration - is Classic Traveller (1977). But it's not, and obviously not, full-blooded PbtA: to begin with, the account of the referee role is not entirely consistent with the PbtA structure; and it has some resolution mechanics that are not "moves" in the relevant sense (the main ones, which I've often complained about, being those for onworld exploration).

 

[pemerton]

I am curious why you'd ask someone that hasn't shown any understanding of how games like Apocalypse World operate what they think, though. Is it the strange appeal to authority -- he should know because he read the same book you did? And that trumps people with many decades of combined experience playing and discussing these games?

Didn't you get the memo? @AbdulAlhazred is only anecdote until an interview with him is published by an academic press, at which point he becomes a data-point!

(To be clear: there are methodological techniques in the social sciences that can handle the criticism implicit in my remark; and the relationship between the knowledge of the research subject, and the knowledge created by the researcher, is something that has been much explored from a variety of methodological and political angles. I don't think the dismissal of AbdulAlhazred in this thread is consistent with those approaches, though.)

 

[FrogReaver]

Didn't you get the memo? @AbdulAlhazred is only anecdote until an interview with him is published by an academic press, at which point he becomes a data-point!

(To be clear: there are methodological techniques in the social sciences that can handle the criticism implicit in my remark; and the relationship between the knowledge of the research subject, and the knowledge created by the researcher, is something that has been much explored from a variety of methodological and political angles. I don't think the dismissal of AbdulAlhazred in this thread is consistent with those approaches, though.)

Maybe I have someone ignored but where is this dismissal you are speaking of?