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

[Malmuria]

The players and GM can write a script together: this is improv-style cooperative storytelling. We can roll dice to determine the script: this is AbdulAlhazred's uniform mechanics. Or we can converse among friends with no script and actually engage in a social process: this is Campbell's first mode, in which the social role play is really just a group of friends sitting around negotiating stuff among themselves.

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?

Your points here are generally sensible but perhaps put too much a fine point on the distinction between inhabiting a character and free form cooperative storytelling. Both can be done in the third person, as it were. That is, I can say, "when my character hears that, she storms out of the room in anger." And I can say that either because it's what I think the character would do or because I think it would make a good story.

 

[overgeeked]

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.

Yes. It’s literally unavoidable no matter what you do or play someone will be excluded in some fashion. You can either accept that or not play games. The best you can hope for is a good session zero where (most) people are (mostly) on the same page.

"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.

To me this reads like “remember water is wet.” Yes, different people have different preferences and play games for different reasons. Obviously. We either accept that as a universal truth or we prevent any possible further conversation about games and gaming by insisting on bringing it up and talking about it ad nauseam.

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.

If they’re self-aware enough to know what their preferences are, there’s a nearly infinite variety of games to choose from. All they have to do is look. Or hack. Or write it themselves.

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."

Hard pass. Especially now with how prevalent online gaming is. I’m sure you can come up with a wild hypothetical, but that seems pointless. All you have to do is go online and be willing to take a chance.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

Yes, it is real and pretence at the same time. You pretend to be someone so hard that you (at least in some small sense) become them. I'm not particularly interested in untangling the semantics of this, I assume we both understand what is meant.

But how much storming out in anger actually happens at your table? Or falling in love?

These have happened. Granted, only in LARPs someone physically storms off rather than announcing that their character does that.

And are you saying that the GM is doing this for multiple characters at once?

No, GM is by necessity doing very light version at best.

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.

I don't agree. They aren't that good actors, the emotional reactions are quite real.

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.

I find it weird that you opted for a dice roll to avoid getting in the heads of the characters at an important and emotional moment. That to me seems so counterproductive for what I want from RPGs that I really cannot even begin to unpack it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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

It is not. By inhabiting the character you gain intuitive understanding of their feelings and what they would do, and those in turn contribute to the "script."

 

[pemerton]

Your points here are generally sensible but perhaps put too much a fine point on the distinction between inhabiting a character and free form cooperative storytelling. Both can be done in the third person, as it were. That is, I can say, "when my character hears that, she storms out of the room in anger." And I can say that either because it's what I think the character would do or because I think it would make a good story.

@Campbell's point, as I understood it, is that when you decide "that's what my character would do" you typically have in mind some further constraint, along the lines of the game has to go on or so-and-so can respond to that in such-and-such way.

In real life, some stormings out are actually the end of things. But how often at RPG tables do people make decisions that are actually the ends of things?

Part of the point of non-consensual resolution systems, as I see them, is that they create more space for harder resolution by shifting responsibility for carrying the fiction elsewhere.

For instance, if you declare "My character storms out!" and I now have to decide how my character reacts, the pressure is on me not to do something that will bust up the game.

If you declare "My character storms out!" and then some resolution process is invoked, that sets parameters for how I respond and clearly allocates authority to some other game participant to say the next thing, that pressure is relieved.

 

[pemerton]

These have happened. Granted, only in LARPs someone physically storms off rather than announcing that their character does that.

I mean actual storming off in anger. Not saying "My character storms off in anger" while talking calmly to one's friends, or walking away while putting on an angry face.

I find it weird that you opted for a dice roll to avoid getting in the heads of the characters at an important and emotional moment. That to me seems so counterproductive for what I want from RPGs that I really cannot even begin to unpack it.

This seems confused. The players play their PCs. They each describe their affections for Violette, I think one has a handkerchief from her, etc. Neither agrees the other has a stronger claim on her affections. Neither is going to yield lightly. What happens next?

The actual players are friends. And they are not competing with one another for anything. There is no real-world proxy for Violette. So there is no real-world basis for testing the strength of the fellow-feeling of the two characters against the strength of their devotion to Violette. (That's before we even get into the stylisation that is part of the pseudo-Arthurian framing for all this.)

And it's not like debating which door to go through, in which each player adduces reasons until an agreement is reached to go one way or another. There's no balance of reasons here on which each might come to agree. (Contrast: suppose that one of the PCs had to marry Violette in order to achieve a diplomatic resolution of a crisis. That might be something to be resolved via negotiation and reasoned agreement, which might even include coming up with a solution where no one has to marry Violette after all.)

An contest of Fellowship answers the question What happens next?

 

[pemerton]

By inhabiting the character you gain intuitive understanding of their feelings and what they would do, and those in turn contribute to the "script."

I think that people sometimes act in ways that surprise even them. We don't always intuitively understand ourselves or others.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean actual storming off in anger. Not saying "My character storms off in anger" while talking calmly to one's friends, or walking away while putting on an angry face.

I mean that would only happen in LARP. Because in TTRPG you usually only act as much as you can do by sitting on your chair.

This seems confused. The players play their PCs. They each describe their affections for Violette, I think one has a handkerchief from her, etc. Neither agrees the other has a stronger claim on her affections. Neither is going to yield lightly. What happens next?

What happens, is what the players feel their characters would do in a such a situation. That's basically how roleplaying works.

The actual players are friends. And they are not competing with one another for anything. There is no real-world proxy for Violette. So there is no real-world basis for testing the strength of the fellow-feeling of the two characters against the strength of their devotion to Violette. (That's before we even get into the stylisation that is part of the pseudo-Arthurian framing for all this.)

And it's not like debating which door to go through, in which each player adduces reasons until an agreement is reached to go one way or another. There's no balance of reasons here on which each might come to agree. (Contrast: suppose that one of the PCs had to marry Violette in order to achieve a diplomatic resolution of a crisis. That might be something to be resolved via negotiation and reasoned agreement, which might even include coming up with a solution where no one has to marry Violette after all.)

An contest of Fellowship answers the question What happens next?

And I think it is a boring way to answer that question. I also really don't understand why the reason being politics rather than love would change the matter, except it being about less important thing.

I think that people sometimes act in ways that surprise even them. We don't always intuitively understand ourselves or others.

Perhaps. And good enough immersive mental model can produce such surprises.

I really don't get wanting to outsource the very core of roleplaying to some dice. I would never get onboard with that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Sure, and all 'jargon' was ever doing was to help us describe what worked for whom and how and why so we could do it better. Do I get to call the thread? hehehehe.

 

[overgeeked]

I really don't get wanting to outsource the very core of roleplaying to some dice. I would never get onboard with that.

I think it depends on how much of a game you want in your RPG. Some people want to RP their way through persuading the guard to let them pass, others want to throw a die and get on to the good stuff. It takes all kinds. Horses for courses and all that.