Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[Emoshin]

Because I can read the OP.

Oh good! So you assert that the OP advocates for a wide-open non-exclusive discussion? And this is contradicted by their use of the ignore option on Enworld? Therefore it is ironic?

 

[chaochou]

Oh good! So you assert that the OP advocates for a wide-open non-exclusive discussion? And this is contradicted by their use of the ignore option on Enworld? Therefore it is ironic?

Why do you ask? I thought you weren't sticking around.

 

[Emoshin]

Why do you ask?

Fact-finding. You chose to write "It's ironic that the OP sought to have the 'debate' in an echo chamber by sleazing the way opening posts and the block feature interact." Now that you put that out into the universe, I am asking you because I want to understand better where you got this assertion/inference from.

I thought you weren't sticking around.

I probably won't be, but I'm here for now.

 

[Umbran]

I'm going to suggest that this is unnecessary limiting and perhaps dangerous critically (ooh, danger!), as it can lead to misreadings.

Perhaps. It was, however, notably less limiting than what had been suggested, so it seemed a good starting point. I'm not bound to limiting criticism to only what the author intended, I just think it is a good starting point most of the time.

The author may attempt to accomplish something. And may tell us what they're trying to do and how. And good for them. But people lie to themselves and others, so who cares? The text is doing something regardless.

Critics lie to themselves, too, though. See Mr. Scorsese's discussion of Marvel movies for an example. There does need to be a sanity check on whether the criticism is validly applied.

 

[Thomas Shey]

What I would personally ask is for people to leave room for games and more importantly players/GMs with different play preferences to feel welcome in the hobby. A game can be well designed without serving your personal needs or preferences. I would also ask for people to strive for accuracy and specificity in their takes as much as possible.

Just thought I'd mention that this paragraph expresses my views on the matter probably more succinctly than I would.

 

[FrogReaver]

Just thought I'd mention that this paragraph expresses my views on the matter probably more succinctly than I would.

Agreed. It’s a great take and one I agree with as well.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This prompted the following thought:

In most fields, those who are interested in the margins have also had some exposure to the maintream, whereas the opposite is often not the case. This is an almost inevitable consequence - a tautological one, even - of there being a mainstream and margins at all.

One common reason for exploring the margins is dissatisfaction with - or, at least, less than satiation from - the mainstream. Which means that reports from the margins back to those in the mainstream will often (i) involve expressions of dissatisfaction with, or at least of a desire to go beyond, what is happening in the mainstream, and (ii) will do so by reference to preferences, and to things that satisfy those preferences, which the mainstream is not very familiar with.

This is likely to upset some of those who are comfortable in the mainstream. Of course, it can provoke the curiosity of others of them.

This is why I pay some attention to what's going on in various side-alleys in the hobby, even though I'm (mostly) a pretty trad player for all of being outside the D&D-sphere; I sometimes find things I think can be usefully cannibalized into otherwise more trad games that address limitations I see in them without haring completely off into games that really aren't going to serve my purpose (and I'll sometimes venture into some just to see; I concluded that Cortex actually doesn't quite do it for me (other than perhaps in a superhero context, and probably not even then) but it was worthwhile to explore what it was doing a bit to find out).

 

[MGibster]

One issue that comes up a lot is that a flaw or multiple flaws doesn't necessarily mean that a product isn't good - pretty much everything has tons of flaws, but you have to consider which matter to you. This is particularly true with TTRPGs! And I like to know about those flaws.

One of my favorite set of rules to use is Savage Worlds. Pretty much any time I want to adapt some oddball setting, I'll use Savage Worlds. Not only do I have my own criticisms of the system, but I agree with many of the criticisms coming from those who don't particularly care for the game. One of the most common complaints is that it's too swingy. i.e. Sometimes you just explode with successes and do tons of damage. As a GM, I've seen my big tough bad guy get taken out by a lucky damage roll from a player. And I've set up a mildly challenging encounter for a group only to nearly end with a TPK because I rolled so well for damage.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm going to suggest that this is unnecessary limiting and perhaps dangerous critically (ooh, danger!), as it can lead to misreadings. The author may attempt to accomplish something. And may tell us what they're trying to do and how. And good for them. But people lie to themselves and others, so who cares? The text is doing something regardless.

While true, I'm not sure the fact the obviously-intended-to-be-a-screwdriver can function as a vaguely functional hammer is anything particularly useful to know.

 

[Umbran]

Most definitely! I agree that we don't necessarily need to agree to the significance of a game when it comes to applying critical frameworks and these various critical frameworks can be applied to insignificant games. However, IMHO, the common use of discussing significant works is, IME, often about providing a conversational starting place or even historiographical benchmark

Sure. However, it also introduces a stake in the ground around which we are going to expect the criticism to be based. If you open with "Apocalypse World is one of the most significant games of the modern era," or something similar, that will seem to set the tone for the analytical approach, up to possibly introducing bias.

A clever critic who is looking to stir things up at the start of the piece might go with, "AW is one of the most significant RPGS of the modern era... but in final analysis it is kind of crap and here's why..." But that's less bout criticism and more about presentation to get eyeballs on the criticism.

To be honest, I don't think that Apocalypse World was ever trying to be Finnegan's Wake.

The Finnegan's Wake thing was just an illustration of a literary work that's been subjected to a lot of what I referred to colorfully as "hifalutin'" literary criticism. It was a reference to style of criticism, not to AW, or any other game.

I feel a need to be clear - I am not engaging in criticism of AW. I am trying to engage in criticism of how criticism is done here - AW and its significance just happened to be the example at hand.

In a thread about criticism, it was asked whether we could all agree that AW was a significant game. I asked why we needed to agree on that to engage in criticism. The need to agree is the question, not anything about AW.

I definitely agree with you here that what Dick & Jane books are trying to do is different than what Finnegan's Wake is. I also think that point gets lost when it's applied to non-mainstream TTRPGs. They are not trying to do what D&D or Pathfinder are doing. So why are they being criticized for not doing things the way that D&D or more traditional games do them?

Are they?

Remember, most of the language we have for RPG theory and criticism doesn't come from D&D circles. It came out of the reaction to D&D, such that judgement against how D&D does things tends to be baked into the language with negative connotations. If anything, what passes for formal criticism in RPGs seems, from where I sit, is biased for non-mainstream games, not against them.

This being separate from folks who look at or try a non-mainstream game, don't personally like it, and express negative thoughts about it for not being like D&D. That's less formal criticism, and more engaging in personal expression - and that may lean toward D&D simply because there's lots of fans of D&D out there, who like what it does.