Authenticity in RPGing

[Fenris-77]

Another issue that has arisen is I think some people would also view this as something of a straw man. They would push back against the idea that these other styles of play and games are more curated. The GM is doing a lot of improv in these games, the players are reacting in the moment: they are improvising their response. It isn't like they are sitting down before hand to curate what will happen. There may be structure, but even an uncurated jazz performance has structure in the form of modes, scales, key signatures.

Well, to be fair I think that in many games there is a significant amount of curation going on in the GMs prep. The extent of that differs dramatically of course from game to game, and I have no comment about the inherent value of it (or lack of it).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, to be fair I think that in many games there is a significant amount of curation going on in the GMs prep. The extent of that differs dramatically of course from game to game, and I have no comment about the inherent value of it (or lack of it).

I think it is fair to say in most games the GM is curating prep material. But I think it is important to also keep in mind Prep material doesn't have to equal what happens in the game (the prepping situations advice in three clue rule for example is more about prepping material so you have a foundation to improvise on as a GM; and afford the players the ability to improvise too). But I think you could liken this, to use the Jazz example, as setting the key more than anything else. And a player can always force a key change (for example by stabbing the king when the GM doesn't expect it)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

We often leave out the most important part of phrase in question during these discussions. Play to find out what happens. Meaning that first and foremost play is centered around a curious spirit of what happens next. Not what the setting is like. Not what the story is. Not how we manage resources. What happens next.

It's a mentality that is focused on being present, not worrying where things will lead or on manifesting your conception of your character. Not chewing scenery.

The frenetic energy and visceral emotion of something like Dogs in the Vineyard is just different than the slow elaborate buildup, detailed character work and brief crescendos of action that typify the social heavy, character reinforcing play of something like L5R/Vampire. Which is incredibly different from adventure of the week D&D play centered on group problem solving,

I have no idea why so much virtual ink gets spilled trying to minimize these differences rather than celebrate them.

Scenery chewing, lol. Yeah, I have to agree. It continues to amaze, and perplex, me to keep hearing all these people vociferously contending that, essentially, system doesn't matter. This argument was settled DECADES ago, like 45+ years ago. Yes it does! Sure, no one specific nut or bolt thing that might take place in one game cannot (generally) come to pass in any game, but to say that means there is all that much similarity is like someone went to Yosemite and found a maple tree and now claims that the forest there is just like every other forest with a maple tree in it. The proposition is not tenable.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think it is fair to say in most games the GM is curating prep material. But I think it is important to also keep in mind Prep material doesn't have to equal what happens in the game (the prepping situations advice in three clue rule for example is more about prepping material so you have a foundation to improvise on as a GM; and afford the players the ability to improvise too). But I think you could liken this, to use the Jazz example, as setting the key more than anything else. And a player can always force a key change (for example by stabbing the king when the GM doesn't expect it)

Yeah, I was stepping over the mess of 'well, exactly what prep blah blah'. I'll confine myself to assuming prep and use in good faith in whatever system is in question. Different system actually require different (sometimes vastly different) amount of prep, a fact which is neither good nor bad. In my post above I was using curate in terms of curated fictional supports and framework I suppose, which could be anything depending on the game, but represent fact or something close to it that is GM facing and for the players to discover.

Personally, when I run D&D or another 'high prep' game I'm doing very much what you describe - providing myself a framework of evocative ideas and bits to riff off of and bring in as I need them. I'm also of the RSC school wherein as soon as it hits the table it's the players' to trash as they see fit. You have to kill your darlings (or allow them to be slain).

 

[Umbran]

I have no idea why so much virtual ink gets spilled trying to minimize these differences rather than celebrate them.

Because we, as an overall community, are so fast to tribalism that we must constantly labor against it.

Those differences are most commonly used to divide us. The first approach we typically use to "celebrate" those differences is to use them to tear down those who are different from us - "squelch authenticity" is right there in the OP! It was not enough to sing the praises of the preferred style, it was deemed appropriate to try to drag others styles down in the process.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Knowing that…and it should be obvious, especially when choosing a word that carries implicit value judgments…it would probably be smart to preface the whole thing with definitions/disclaimer.

While true, my observation is that it only helps so much; people are still going to react to the connotation.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One of the things I find strange/interesting in these discussions is that the adventure path (or railroad if you prefer) is considered the default D&D 5e play style... but I question that assumption. I've literally never run a published adventure path (though I have stolen liberally from them both for encounters and idea generators) and in all the games I've joined I've never once played through an adventure path. In fact the vast majority of D&D streaming doesn't seem to be adventure path play either... I'm just curious if there is actual evidence (outside of the fact that they are being published by WotC) that this is the predominant playstyle for D&D 5e?

Well, my experience with 5e, which I have played a fair amount of, is like one campaign that had 2 modules in it, and a bunch of semi-structured play with a number of encounters/adventures made up by the GM. I think that one pretty heavily focused on stuff that the PCs were trying to do and then that would spin off some GM authored stuff related to it. In the second campaign we were playing in a published setting. I'm not sure how much of the stuff we went through was part of that and what percentage the GM made up, but there was a pretty decent amount of exploring an established map of a level or some buildings, or a neighborhood, etc. Again, we took turns as players kind of defining "OK, now we're going to deal with whatever So-and-so wants/needs."

So, what IME I would characterize 5e play as would be the GM prepping ahead, sometimes pretty far ahead and sometimes not so far. Play was always PCs exploring GM prepared stuff (maybe now and then we 'went off the ranch' a bit). The stuff we explored generally related to and was in some degree brought into focus by player choices. It wasn't nearly PbtA-style Story Now narrativist play, and I can tell you it lacked that kind of character. It was usually fun, although in some ways I found the process falling a bit short of what I really wanted. On the whole 5e feels like it wants to focus on exploration of setting more than anything else. That seems to be what it is optimally designed for. GM creates setting, PCs explore setting, get the treasures, fight the monsters, act like heroes (or whatever).

 

[Campbell]

Another issue that has arisen is I think some people would also view this as something of a straw man. They would push back against the idea that these other styles of play and games are more curated. The GM is doing a lot of improv in these games, the players are reacting in the moment: they are improvising their response. It isn't like they are sitting down before hand to curate what will happen. There may be structure, but even an uncurated jazz performance has structure in the form of modes, scales, key signatures.

From my perspective a lot of the curation comes from the gameplay conceit of the adventure to be completed or mystery we are obligated to solve. A lot of this is usually socially reinforced by the whole play group, usually more strongly by other players than the GM in my experience. Basically, it is the GM who decides what player characters goals should be. There are clues to be found, information players need, etc. We essentially move away from these characters (who have meaningful connections to the setting) in this specific situation and move towards group problem solving or moving through story beats.

I mean I get that there are levels to this stuff, but there are definitely levels to this stuff. It's also not just GMs doing the curation. Players are active hands in curating the adventure gaming experience.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think one of the problems is that it presupposes how these games are run and played in the wild without actually backing up that assertion with any evidence. When I run a campaign of D&D I definitely don't think it could be summed up as an "adventure of the week...play centered on problem solving" campaign. If anything that describes a minority of what has taken place in the campaign to date.

I find it telling that the response to "people seem determined to ignore the differences between these types of games" is exactly to once again assert that these differences don't exist. Its like a perfect little capsule of the whole thing. Are you REALLY asserting that system doesn't matter? I mean, I'm sure you've been around this community a long time. You must have some sense of the long history and salient factors in that 'debate'. I personally don't find that kind of position really tenable.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The problem Pemerton ran into right out the gate here is that for simple functionality, he had to use a definition of a term for what he was talking about out the gate. But the word choice suffers from the curse of almost all word choice in such things; it has semantic loading beyond its literal meaning or even the specific definition he provides. So people are going to, to one degree or another, react to it on that level (specifically the premise that some play styles provide it better than others) and that's going to fog the ability to have the discussion.

That's always going to be a problem, as any attempt to separate denotational from connotational meanings is, outside of very narrow contexts (which are essentially impossible to produce in a forum thread) a doomed enterprise.

You understand that taking your statement literally amounts to "we interpret any term you can use to describe X in a loaded fashion such that it is impossible for you to ever assert, in any language, your opinion about X." I'm not convinced that you've thought that statement through entirely. I would think if we were 'going at it' that the response might be "why are you gatekeeping discussion like this?" Honestly, I'm not trying to be confrontational like that, I'm just pointing it out so I can ask; How are we permitted to have this discussion? I mean, I am entirely certain that there are real, genuine points to discuss on this topic.