Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[Lanefan]

I would probably do pretty shoddy work as a political scientist if I thought that the only way that liberal democracies can work is if I only had working knowledge of the United States and presumed that all liberal democracies must be structured like the USA, or a Constitution and Bill of Rights, in order to function. If I ignored all the liberal democracies and democratic republics outside of the USA but stated that all liberal democracies in the world were fundamentally the same, including Canada's, I would be ignoring some key structural differences. I would likely be accused of trying to universalize the American democracy.

Most replies I could possibly write to that would probably trample all over the no-politics rule.

The one thing I can point out is that while Canada functions (more or less) as a liberal democracy in practice, it is in fact still technically a monarchy, answering to King Charles. Which means, where the deeper you dig into the foundations of TTRPGs the more similar they come to look (culminating in their all meeting at the baseline play loop I posted upthread), the deeper you dig into the foundations of Amreican and Canadian political systems the more different they become at their core.

Put another way: in TTRPGs you've got surface-level differences but the deep-lying foundation under it all is similar. In politics you've got the reverse: surface-level similarities built up from very different foundations.

 

[Aldarc]

The one thing I can point out is that while Canada functions (more or less) as a liberal democracy in practice, it is in fact still technically a monarchy,

This is a pretty good case in point, as I think you are getting your terms confused, and I'll leave it at that.

 

[pemerton]

With one exception, the current state of the fiction follows on from whatever it was before. That one exception is the very start of the campaign, at which point someone kinda has to set a genre-appropriate scene as a backdrop.

This doesn't seem correct. In the sort of RPGing you prefer, the GM is quite often introducing new content - eg wandering monsters, or deciding that a NPC turns up, or whatever. You also make random weather rolls. And I'm sure many other similar things.

 

[pemerton]

The world's first liberal state was a (constitutional) monarchy: namely, Britain. Identifying states as democracies is tricky, but Australia and NZ have some claim on being early examples of electoral democracies. Both were, and remain, constitutional monarchies. There is no general tension between being a monarchy and being a liberal electoral democracy. (I could also point to Belgium, Holland, Denmark etc if wanted to further emphasise the point.)

 

[pemerton]

@Baron Opal II

I'm not expressing a general view about what can be done with some junk and a welder. Nor about what can or can't be modified.

I've made a concrete statement: I don't think 5e D&D can emulate Apocalypse World. I gave some examples to illustrate the point: Seduce/Manipulate, Go Aggro, the use of basic moves to carve out thematically salient "domains" of fiction in which resolutions will take place.

What does all of this look like in 5e D&D? I'm waiting for someone to actually show me the work.

 

[Aldarc]

The world's first liberal state was a (constitutional) monarchy: namely, Britain. Identifying states as democracies is tricky, but Australia and NZ have some claim on being early examples of electoral democracies. Both were, and remain, constitutional monarchies. There is no general tension between being a monarchy and being a liberal electoral democracy. (I could also point to Belgium, Holland, Denmark etc if wanted to further emphasise the point.)

Yeah, I suspect that Lanefan wanted to say that Canada was a constitutional monarchy and technically not a republic. But I chose my words carefully when I spoke of "liberal democracies," as there are a variety of broad typological structures: e.g., constitutional monarchy, presidential republic, parliamentary republic, presidential constitutional republic, parliamentary constitutional republic, semi-presidential republic, etc.

 

[Aldarc]

I absolutely have. The phrase "Yeah, its a metagame thing" comes up when discussing aspects of games with a number of game groups I've been with. Not all of them were big online discussion types, either. It just was a phrase that had spread from contacts.

As more of an aside: I don't really think that TTRPGs has a good understanding or usage of the term "metagame." I personally prefer its usage or application outside of TTRPGs, particularly in video/computer games, card games (e.g., poker), and sports. The metagame, IMHO, refers to the approaches, strategies, or other aspects of the game that exist outside of the prescribed rules. This definition is also a far more neutral term and not the "naughty word" that it has become in more insular TTRPG circles where it's used almost to be analogous with a wide variety of associations (1§) such as "cheating," "BadWrongRPG," or "non-diagetic mechanics." I think that reframing "metagaming" in terms of its understanding elsewhere and then filtering out the separate issues that get lumped into the more negatively-framed sense of "metagaming" (see 1§).

 

[Hussar]

Most replies I could possibly write to that would probably trample all over the no-politics rule.

The one thing I can point out is that while Canada functions (more or less) as a liberal democracy in practice, it is in fact still technically a monarchy, answering to King Charles. Which means, where the deeper you dig into the foundations of TTRPGs the more similar they come to look (culminating in their all meeting at the baseline play loop I posted upthread), the deeper you dig into the foundations of Amreican and Canadian political systems the more different they become at their core.
.

Just because I’m feeling pedantic. Canada has not been a Constitional monarchy since 1984. The Governor General does not report to Westminister nor is appointed by the sovereign of England.

 

[niklinna]

I would likely be accused of trying to universalize the American democracy.

Oh that never happens.

 

[niklinna]

As more of an aside: I don't really think that TTRPGs has a good understanding or usage of the term "metagame." I personally prefer its usage or application outside of TTRPGs, particularly in video/computer games, card games (e.g., poker), and sports. The metagame, IMHO, refers to the approaches, strategies, or other aspects of the game that exist outside of the prescribed rules. This definition is also a far more neutral term and not the "naughty word" that it has become in more insular TTRPG circles where it's used almost to be analogous with a wide variety of associations (1§) such as "cheating," "BadWrongRPG," or "non-diagetic mechanics." I think that reframing "metagaming" in terms of its understanding elsewhere and then filtering out the separate issues that get lumped into the more negatively-framed sense of "metagaming" (see 1§).

My memory of "metagame" from mid-80s tabletopping was that it referred to knowledge about the game that player characters shouldn't or wouldn't be expected to have: monster stats or special abilities, spells they hadn't encounted yet, stuff other PCs had discovered while the party was split, and amongst all that, the rules themselves and how to take advantage of them. That latter is what became more salient as computer games became more common and tabletop systems more varied (and, perhaps, exploitable!).