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

[Crimson Longinus]

I like your analysis. I expect the response will be, and I can sympathize with it, is that there's SOME verisimilitude in being "in the character's shoes." Sort of like there is some verisimilitude in the use of boffers to play out the action of a fight. Neither one is REALISTIC, but there is some bit of visceral experience involved. I might not bully another player into an emotional crack up, but I might lightly inhabit that state of mind and use it to react in a somewhat more authentic way. I mean, personally I'm more in your camp than not, I think playing a role is never THAT similar to the 'real thing'. However, it isn't arguable that talking through something, and play acting, is different from rolling dice. I have to accept that some people will prefer the former over the latter for reasons which are probably not really fully rational and articulable.

Right. It is hella more like the real thing than a dice roll is.

 

[overgeeked]

Well, sounds hella boring way to solve a situation that would be fodder for some great roleplaying. I wouldn't play in a game like this.

It depends on where your line is. Some players don’t want to embody their characters to that extent. But when you get past the RP and neither side budges, how do you resolve something like that? To me, the best way to do it is RP the scene until things come to a head and you end up repeating yourself. That’s where the roll comes in. To resolve the conflict that can’t be resolved through role-play. I agree, skipping the RP and just rolling sounds duller than dirt. But I don’t think that’s what the poster suggested.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. It is hella more like the real thing than a dice roll is.

Maybe, maybe not. I have known a number of war veterans in my lifetime, one at least who was involved in combat, brutal kill and die merciless combat. Nothing you can do that is pretend is in any way shape or form similar to that, so no pretend combat even faintly resembles the real thing in any of the ways that really matter. IME something similar can be said for RP of other kinds of situations. Certainly many common everyday situations could undoubtedly be role played out in a way that is a lot more realistic than rolling dice, or feels more realistic. I don't think that's true for high stakes situations. I talked an armed man out of killing people one time, many years ago, I guarantee you cannot role play that! I mean, you can go through the motions, but it is about as real as RPing that time my buddy's patrol got overrun by an NVA regiment, like a candle compared to a Saturn V rocket.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The social interaction between referee and players is the absolute cornerstone of RPGs. Near as I can tell anything that gets in the way of that conversation should be jettisoned. But, players not being able to play characters different from themselves severely limits what RPGs can do.

I don't think there is an answer for all players, all referees, for all time. But we don't need one. Different people play these games for different reasons. Some favor the ability of players to play anything. Some favor not having mechanics for social interaction. They get to decide as a group how things are handled.

Personally, I don't see how having mechanics for social stuff interferes with the player-referee real-world interactions. It just requires that the referee police the players' character choices and/or you roll for everything. Which are both whole other cans of worms.

But that's the point; there are people who do see any mechanics of any account as getting in the way of that, and as long as that's how they see it that way, they have the view you express in your first sentence. There's different degrees of how much mechanics before they see it that way, but in some cases its virtually any at all.

 

[pemerton]

I simply must conclude that you do not do, nor get, the sort of immersion based 'method acting' that is common in LARPs. It is not real, but it is more than just "pretending." And people actually feel their character's feelings and inhabit the mental position of their characters and make decisions from there.

Stuff that's not real is pretence, isn't it?

Conversely, inhabiting the mental position of the character would mean that it's real. The point of method acting, as I understand it, is that the feelings are real.

But how much storming out in anger actually happens at your table? Or falling in love? And are you saying that the GM is doing this for multiple characters at once?

I certainly don't think the Critical Role players are doing this. They aren't method acting. They're performing in the same sort of way an actor would do on a TV ad.

Well, sounds hella boring way to solve a situation that would be fodder for some great roleplaying. I wouldn't play in a game like this.

We have other things we're doing and want to do. After framing the checks, we resolve them. I'm reporting something from a few years ago, but I imagine the scene probably took 15 minutes to resolve.

 

[overgeeked]

But that's the point; there are people who do see any mechanics of any account as getting in the way of that, and as long as that's how they see it that way, they have the view you express in your first sentence. There's different degrees of how much mechanics before they see it that way, but in some cases its virtually any at all.

Okay. But so what? Some people play that way. Not everyone does. I don’t see the problem. Everyone has preferences and will gravitate to games that work how they want or hack games to work how they want. That’s the DIY aspect of the hobby working as intended.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It depends on where your line is. Some players don’t want to embody their characters to that extent. But when you get past the RP and neither side budges, how do you resolve something like that? To me, the best way to do it is RP the scene until things come to a head and you end up repeating yourself. That’s where the roll comes in. To resolve the conflict that can’t be resolved through role-play. I agree, skipping the RP and just rolling sounds duller than dirt. But I don’t think that’s what the poster suggested.

That said, "duller than dirt" is preferable to some people who would find getting into that kind of scene deep enough to do an even halfway competent job as extremely stressful, as they're heavily non-confrontational, and there being no real stakes doesn't change that. This is why this is an area where any decision you make on how to resolve things excludes some people and/or tells some people simply not to participate in this part of the game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Okay. But so what? Some people play that way. Not everyone does. I don’t see the problem. Everyone has preferences and will gravitate to games that work how they want or hack games to work how they want. That’s the DIY aspect of the hobby working as intended.

"So what" is it produces the uncrossable divide I mentioned earlier. And it pays to keep that in mind or you find you go into discussions with assumptions other people simply don't share, perhaps at all.

(But also I think you're extremely optimistic that everyone has the selection options to just chose a game that lands where they want on this spectrum. There can be any number of reasons where people's options are "play with this particular group and how they play or not at all.")

 

[pemerton]

I like your analysis. I expect the response will be, and I can sympathize with it, is that there's SOME verisimilitude in being "in the character's shoes." Sort of like there is some verisimilitude in the use of boffers to play out the action of a fight. Neither one is REALISTIC, but there is some bit of visceral experience involved. I might not bully another player into an emotional crack up, but I might lightly inhabit that state of mind and use it to react in a somewhat more authentic way. I mean, personally I'm more in your camp than not, I think playing a role is never THAT similar to the 'real thing'. However, it isn't arguable that talking through something, and play acting, is different from rolling dice. I have to accept that some people will prefer the former over the latter for reasons which are probably not really fully rational and articulable.

People's preferences are what they are.

Given that I've cried tears in playing a character, I've probably emoted as much as many ENworlders.

But the script had to come from somewhere. I didn't cry tears because someone or something actually reduced me to tears. I made a decision about what my character would feel, and then used memories (of experiences in my own life, and also of the person I knew who had had an experience most like that my character was undergoing) to generate that feeling in myself, which thus led me to cry.

In the bullying case, you as a player might inhabit the state of mind of someone who is being bullied. But I doubt that many people advocate that the bully should inhabit that state of mind, and imagine taking pleasure in reducing others to tears! Rather, we rely on the player of the bully to convey the idea that their character is a bully, and then except the other players to somehow internalise that in their response. They're not actually being bullied.

Or think of a romance case. The world is full of passes and pick-up lines that fail, one night stands who won't go away, broken hearts, etc. Is anyone saying that we should have those things among the friends at a RPG table? In real life there are many social situations that simply don't resolve, people who never speak again, etc. Unless one character is permanently out of the game, how is that going to work at the RPG table?

The script has to come from somewhere. And the creation of the script is logically independent of the emoting or inhabiting of the character.

Right. It is hella more like the real thing than a dice roll is.

I've cried watching Maggie Cheung in Ashes of Time. It was a lot more real than any RPGing I've ever seen or participated in. But she was following a script.

The notion that scripting and emotional power are at odds isn't one I can agree with.

 

[pemerton]

I talked an armed man out of killing people one time, many years ago, I guarantee you cannot role play that!

That's the sort of thing I have in mind. But also more prosaic moments that still involve emotional processes that are irrevocable and are not going to be emulated at the table: propositioning someone; being prepared to break someone's heart; being screamed at by one's boss for an hour; calming a student who is in tears in your office; deciding whether or not to take a sick child to the hospital in the middle of the night, or instead to wait until morning and see if they feel any better.

Someone has to make a decision. The character won't script themself.