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

[Campbell]

In my experience when social influence is resolved through the mechanic of GM exclusively decides what the NPC does, thinks and feels and other players exclusively decide what their characters do, think and feel one of three is usually going on:

1. We are limiting the social context to one that is a close facsimile to the social context at the table. Often you see this in games where every discussion involves reasonable actors and conflicts are resolved by providing rational arguments. It's also often accompanied by players playing characters that are basically self-inserts into the game's setting.
2. NPCs are actually puzzles. The trick to get an NPC to do what you want them to do is to engage in investigations, asking open ended questions and leveraging information found elsewhere. NPCs are mostly static and do not act upon each other except when provoked by player character actions. I call this a social crawl.
3. We are engaging in collaborative storytelling using improv style principles. Decisions from both players and GMs are made based on narrative outcomes we think would make for a better story. Often there is a level of player to GM and player to player negotiation of outcomes that exists either formally or informally through social cues.

In my experience most of the traditional RPGs and LARPs I have been part of follow these play structures in some combination. Nordic LARPs are almost exclusively #3.

Addendum: To give credit where it is due I did not coin social crawl. The term comes from a meat space discussion I had with Paul Czege about a game he was designing based on experience with some old school modules like Keep on the Borderlands and especially Castle Amber in a certain. It's basically a dungeon crawl, except you are exploring people instead of dungeon rooms.

 

[niklinna]

But there's a consistency there, no? No randomizing element in either case. Or at least, not from your basic description. Again, I know next to nothing about LARP.

Boffer combat doesn't involve a randomizing element, no. There are different ways of handling damage (calling numbers, versus immediate disable of any limb hit, and others). I haven't played in rock/paper/scissors larps. Even then I can imagine a fairly clear line of demarcation between things that can be fully enacted, and things that have to be randomized because of safety or real-world impossibility.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Sure, you can run a LARP in a way that is as close as possible to a TTRPG and it COULD be similar to the way some people play. I don't think this means we have to assume that this is either typical or that it constrains TTRPGs. I'd wonder why people would bother with a LARP like that, it is a little odd, but people do all sorts of stuff. The LARPs I've been exposed to were rather different, but its not like I'm deep in that!

You're misunderstanding. I'm not talking about running a LARP like TTRPG, I'm talking about running a TTRPG like a LARP.

Social interaction in TTRPG can be handled like it is in a LARP, i.e. by the players portraying their characters by acting and the GM doing the same for the NPCs.

The point to me is it is downright odd to think that it wouldn't make sense to have uniform mechanics. Again, why if you don't want to use rules in one area of the game, do you want to use them in another? Its all 'resolving conflict' in the final analysis (and even more ultimately, deciding how things progress).

Because the players can talk in my living room, but I don't want them physically swinging swords in my living room. (Though it would be easy to arrange, I have swords in my living room!) I don't think this is particularly hard to understand.

Sure, TO ME, it is like a carpenter who only uses power screw drivers indoors and drives all screws outdoors by hand. Its a bit odd...

That would be odd. But it is completely flawed comparison.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

None of this is changed by the use of mechanics or not. Using dice to determine outcomes to actions in no way inhibits anyone from inhabiting or portraying their character.

That's very YMMV thing. To some it absolutely does. I'm fine with very rules light social rules like occasional simple skill rolls, albeit even those may sometimes produce jarring results, but extensive social rules like Exalted 2e's social combat rules are poison to immersion for me. If you constantly need to interrupt the natural and intuitive flow of conversation to deal with the rules then that's not great.

Sure, this is true. But as @AbdulAlhazred said, you could do the same with combat. What determines where rules are "needed" and "not needed"? It's all subjective, of course, depending on the game in question and the desires and expectations of the participants. But this is either a design choice or a playstyle choice that has implications.

Yes, it is subjective. But it also means that lack of extensive social rules is a feature to some people rather than a flaw. And this is far from rare sentiment.

Removing some kind of resolution mechanic for social actions essentially means that the GM is deciding the outcome of such actions. If the GM is deciding the outcome, then the GM is determining the way the game goes. This may or may not be a problem for any given group, but we should not ignore it as a fact.

What I find hard to reconcile is how often this approach is coupled with the idea of the GM as a neutral arbiter. That the GM should set aside their personal biases and opinions about the events of play, and then render some reasonable and fair judgment free of their own concerns.

I mean, isn't that what dice (or any similar randomizing element) do?

To me, when I see this approach suggested, I just don't quite get it. If the GM's ultimate aspiration is to behave as dice do, then why not just use dice? Why require a person to behave in a way that people tend to not behave? What is gained by having a person decide instead of dice? What more is there to the matter?

The exception is folks who don't want the GM to be a neutral arbiter, but instead acknowledge that they want the GM to actively steer the direction of the game to deliver the "most fun". That's an approach that I think is clear and understandable.

I don't think the GM can ever be truly "neutral" arbiter. Though this doesn't mean they necessarily need to make decisions based on directing the 'story' in some particular direction. (Though that's fine too.) If the GM has a good mental image of the NPCs, they can simply aim to portray them with integrity. The NPC react to what the PCs say according to their nature. And sure, what that exactly means is a judgment call, but GMing is full of judgement calls.

 

[Xetheral]

The point to me is it is downright odd to think that it wouldn't make sense to have uniform mechanics. Again, why if you don't want to use rules in one area of the game, do you want to use them in another? Its all 'resolving conflict' in the final analysis (and even more ultimately, deciding how things progress).

This is where I think my earlier post about granularity fits in. Your claim that "it's all resolving conflict" is both true and meaningful at a specific level of generality.

At a higher level of generality where differences in types of conflict are the focus of analysis, however, your claim elides the differences that the analyzers are interested in. Accordingly, your claim is less meaningful at that higher level of generality, despite still being true.

Thus, I don't think the second part of your claim--that it's all resolving conflict in the final analysis--is accurate. It suggests that the lower-generality analysis most relevant to you is somehow more important than the higher-generality analysis that is most relevant to some others.

In other words, I don't think it's in any way "odd" (to use your wording) for (e.g.) those who focus on the in-fiction differences between types of conflicts to want separate mechanics whose differences reflect the in-fiction distinctions that are important to them.

After all, it's a general principle of modeling that to preserve relationships in the system being modelled, similar things should be modelled similarly and different things should be modelled differently. At the level of generality you're focused on, conflict resolution is all similar, and so it makes sense to you to have one mechanical system to model it. At a higher level of generality, conflict resolution is not all similar, and so it makes sense to others to have separate mechanical systems to model it.

 

[overgeeked]

You're misunderstanding. I'm not talking about running a LARP like TTRPG, I'm talking about running a TTRPG like a LARP.

Social interaction in TTRPG can be handled like it is in a LARP, i.e. by the players portraying their characters by acting and the GM doing the same for the NPCs.

Because the players can talk in my living room, but I don't want them physically swinging swords in my living room. (Though it would be easy to arrange, I have swords in my living room!) I don't think this is particularly hard to understand.

To me, the question is: should an RPG be run like a LARP?

I don't think it should. For the simple reason that it prevents players from playing characters they can't embody. No everyone plays these games to be an actor. If you run for actors, it'll work. But for those of us who don't, or unless your players are always willing to "be on" it won't work. You have a super-smart player...who can never play a less smart character. You have a super-persuasive player...who can never play a less persuasive character. I like player skill up to a point. But I like players being able to try characters different from themselves more.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To clarify, the original sense you presented for "coherent" was: "having a single unified purpose and direction." (Emphasis added.) I questioned if there was a source for that usage, since I wasn't familiar with a usage of "coherent" that was restricted to unitary purposes or directions.

Your response, however, cites an American Heritage definition that doesn't support the idea that coherence is a question of quantity, and you also say: "[incoherence] isn't a question of multiplicity". I'm thinking that means I misread your original definition of coherent as placing too much emphasis on the word "single". Based on your expanded discussion above (which I greatly appreciate) am I correct in now understanding that you think something can be "coherent" even if it has multiple purposes and directions, as long as those purposes and directions have sufficient "aesthetic consistency"?

Its an interesting question. So, I think it may, to a degree, be a perspective-dependent thing. Sticking to RPGs, there could be coherency at a certain level, but maybe not at all levels. Like, an example might be the combat system in V:tM, which as I understand it (being not super familiar with this particular game specifically) is rather 'crunchy' and seems intended to be pretty gamist (rewarding expert play and requiring an exercise of skill to achieve the greatest success, possibly including a reward system for such). This seems fairly coherent, in and of itself, its a game, you play the game well, you win. Now, is the WHOLE GAME very coherent? Maybe not so much.

Maybe more generally yes, I think its possible for things that have different purposes to form a coherent whole. Aesthetic consistency certainly seems like a way to express that. There might be other ways, in specific fields too, I'm not personally wedded to aesthetics as the only possible measure.

If so I completely agree that that would be a standard usage! I'm just not confident that it's the same usage Edwards had in mind, as it would mean that "coherence" is an entirely subjective question of aesthetic consistency. I was under the impression that Edwards instead approached "coherence" as something that could be determined objectively by counting agendas, but I could be mistaken on that point.

Well, maybe, I'm not sure. I mean, as forms of entertainment with goals and tastes that are primarily coming from the participants its hard to say what 'objective' ultimately means. I think the objective part is in terms of being able to say "gosh, if 100 different people play this game, AD&D 2e, its likely they will run into this certain kind of situation in play, often." Now, ULTIMATELY, you can only say objective things like that, you can't judge anything at all. There are no known criteria by which to render objective judgment on the world (at least that more than about 3 people will generally agree on). I like the Buddhist formulation of this concept: Om, gate gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi soha! Roughly "the world is empty of meaning and this is a truth beyond meaning."

Do you happen to know whether Edwards considered hybrid games to be coherent despite having multiple agendas, or whether he considered them not dysfunctional despite being incoherent? I think resolution of that question would go a long way towards determing whether Edwards use of "incoherent" was a standard usage as your describe above, or was instead jargon based on non-standard usages of "coherent" and "incoherent".

Eh, I don't know. I'm not that much of a Forge Guru, lol. My impression is that he meant incoherent in the sense of 'not sticking to one agenda coherently', and thus that any 'multiple agenda' game is in some sense incoherent, but that it might be designed in such a way as to achieve overall aesthetic consistency at some level (presumably by resolving the issues raised by the clash of agendas in some deliberate way). This would then be a 'hybrid agenda situation' and presumably functional. Would it still be incoherent? You would have to ask Ron how he would answer that, but again maybe @pemerton, having a rather good mind for quotations, can cite something on that. I really have a lousy memory for such things!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No weirder than using boffer weapons to hit people in combat, and talking to them when having a conversation.

I've done rather a lot of that, lol. Rattan and compressed foam and etc. too! Ever been hit in the nuts by a 2lb mace? Fun stuff! Anyway, I would call those two activities totally consistent, you act out everything (modulus the fact that boffers and such are not 100% realistic). Equally possible, but only really making sense in TTRPG play IME, you can dice for everything. A third possibility is a ref can decide everything. Obviously some permutations of these are available where 'actions' are divided up into multiple categories to which different solutions are applied. All of these logically can exist, although 'boffers at the table' is a BAD idea (trust me).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is where I think my earlier post about granularity fits in. Your claim that "it's all resolving conflict" is both true and meaningful at a specific level of generality.

At a higher level of generality where differences in types of conflict are the focus of analysis, however, your claim elides the differences that the analyzers are interested in. Accordingly, your claim is less meaningful at that higher level of generality, despite still being true.

Thus, I don't think the second part of your claim--that it's all resolving conflict in the final analysis--is accurate. It suggests that the lower-generality analysis most relevant to you is somehow more important than the higher-generality analysis that is most relevant to some others.

In other words, I don't think it's in any way "odd" (to use your wording) for (e.g.) those who focus on the in-fiction differences between types of conflicts to want separate mechanics whose differences reflect the in-fiction distinctions that are important to them.

After all, it's a general principle of modeling that to preserve relationships in the system being modelled, similar things should be modelled similarly and different things should be modelled differently. At the level of generality you're focused on, conflict resolution is all similar, and so it makes sense to you to have one mechanical system to model it. At a higher level of generality, conflict resolution is not all similar, and so it makes sense to others to have separate mechanical systems to model it.

I am a little bit unclear as to what the higher level of generality is.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To me, the question is: should an RPG be run like a LARP?

I don't think it should. For the simple reason that it prevents players from playing characters they can't embody. No everyone plays these games to be an actor. If you run for actors, it'll work. But for those of us who don't, or unless your players are always willing to "be on" it won't work. You have a super-smart player...who can never play a less smart character. You have a super-persuasive player...who can never play a less persuasive character. I like player skill up to a point. But I like players being able to try characters different from themselves more.

Right, this is all the age-old classic debate about player-focused play vs character-focused play (aka role-play vs roll-play in some circles). I agree with you, it is one possible consideration. When I come at the whole question more from a Narrativist (and specifically Story Now) type of perspective then we can STILL have this same debate (because there's no reason why the ideas related to staying in character or not go away in SN). So, TYPICALLY most of the SN games I'm really familiar with seem to operate on the basis of using mechanics to resolve everything, and using the same mechanics across the board, or at least reusing a couple of specific approaches in many situations. Some instead do create different 'phases' or 'modes of play' in which the rules differ somewhat.

Certainly I could see attempting to do SN like OD&D non-combat where there basically are not rules, but only 'markers' (alignment, ability scores, race, class) plus avowed character background. This could be extended to a more elaborate system of traits, though past a certain point it would probably shade into 'rule based adjudication' again. Will it work? I'm not sure, gotta think about that one