D&D General RPG Theory and D&D...and that WotC Survey

Ovinomancer · May 7, 2022

Lanefan said:
Well, there's no bias (in that regard at least) if one sees the survey as only asking about how people play D&D specifically rather than how they play whatever RPG(s) they happen to be playing at the time.

I don't, for example, think they cared overly much how people were playing Vampire; as that wasn't the game they were trying to redesign.

And can anyone explain to me how I ended up in the position of defending this awful survey?!?

You might want to go back a reread to find support it was only looking at D&D.

hawkeyefan · May 7, 2022

I’d think that after Vampire came on the scene in the mid-90s and made such a splash that they'd have been silly to not consider how other games were being played.

Ovinomancer · May 7, 2022

Bacon Bits said:
I'm not sure you understood that statement. Sean wrote, "Unlike some of the discussions which rage from time to time about the nature of game design paradigms, the above information was extracted from general market research data that had as much bias as possible removed."

So he's not claiming it's without any bias. Quite the opposite. He's just saying it's actually had some control for bias, whereas anything else was barely above speculation and rumor and anecdote.

Now, yes, the research study was just done on D&D players. WotC just bought TSR, so it makes sense that they study who their customers are and what they want, especially because TSR had absolutely no information at all. Which is kinda why they imploded.

However, as far as I'm aware, it remains still the largest professional market research ever done on the TTRPG industry that we have any information about. In spite of its flaws and age, it's still the best thing we really have.

Bias isn't removed by market research. I find the claim that bias was removed or even reduced because survey data to be fairly ridiculous.

Bacon Bits said:
I don't understand. Are you claiming that PbtA players don't fall on a strategic-tactial axis or that they don't fall on a story-combat axis? Or that there are zero PbtA players who could be Thinkers, Power Gamers, Storytellers, Character Actors, or generalists?

Yes. Maybe they do, but those clusters don't describe anything to do with how PbtA is even organized -- they don't make any sense in that context.

Bacon Bits said:
Like I get that PbtA doesn't have a lot of mechanical tactics, but you can still be a tactically minded player in the typically very combat focused Dungeon World. A player can still interact with a PbtA scene tactically.

Not really. There's no real tactics to deploy as every combat is unique (or should be) and you have address the moves made by the GM. That isn't to say that there usn't some Skilled Play involved, but it has nothing to do with tactics.

I'm a very tactically oriented person. I adore wargames. That itch it not scratched by PbtA for me at all. Further, there's little strategic play involved. These aren't the point.

Bacon Bits said:
Or are you just not happy that a study done in 1999 on D&D didn't account for a 2010 game system? I don't think that's seriously what you mean, but you kind of skipped the part where you explained it.

The play approach that PbtA exemplifies was in the wild in '99. A study purporting to capture the scope of play that missed it missed some things happening at that time and that would continue to grow and be highly influential. PbtA is an easy handle for people to grasp the concepts. Easy being entirely relative as it's still most often just denied.

Malmuria · May 7, 2022

Theory is not just abstract categorization and lots of proper nouns. Theorizing happens anytime you sit back and think about what you are doing and why. For us, that means thinking about our games, how they went, what we liked and didn't like about them, etc, and going from there. For hobbyists, a lot of those things won't show up as captial-T Theory, but rather just look like advice on how to play, reviews of different games, complaints, arguments, etc. But all of that counts as knowledge about how and why we do whatever it is we do.

Personally, I like something like the six cultures of play (to link to it for the 1000th time), because it reads to me as very open-ended and historically situated. It's a rough heuristic rather than a programatic categorization, and it traces the way each "culture" of play evolved from and reacted to the previous cultures, both building upon them and rejecting certain aspects. It's relatively clear about at least some of its own limitations, namely that it focuses on English language and European-North American contexts. Also, there could and probably will be a 7th and 8th and 9th culture of play that evolve from these.

I think it could go further in ways that would require more research. Specifically, rpg "theory," like the hobby itself, is white, male, and western-dominated. What does a theory of games look like for female, queer, POC, and non-Western players? How are the aims, interests, and styles of play affect by these real-world dynamics? (fwiw, personally, I'm not sure that "social contract" adequately covers these dynamics (either in gaming or political theory...))

Oofta · May 7, 2022

Helldritch said:
I am fully on your side here. At one time I was answering all surveys and in some I was going very deep into what I would like to see. But as the game evolves, I get the distinct feeling that my voice does not matter one IOTA simply because I am no longer the target audience. Or at least, I feel that I am no longer a target audience...

It's typical marketing think, which may or may not apply to RPGs. Basically, after a certain age people are more likely to stick with brands they know. They don't care what you think because you're already stuck in your ways. They want to focus on the younger crowd that's more open to changing brands.

I don't think it makes sense for RPGs but you see it everywhere. Same reason popular shows get canceled if their demographics skew older.

Bacon Bits · May 7, 2022

Lanefan said:
A sad commentary in and of itself, to quote Jack Sparrow.

I would have to think that WotC has done follow-ups, especially before 4e. They spent a lot of money on 4e. I honestly hope they didn't just wing it based on feedback from the official community forum alone.

Charlaquin · May 8, 2022

Reynard said:
That is interesting. I might be inclined to suggest that while these two things CAN be related, they don't HAVE to be related. If you have a one shot, for example, you can have a high degree of immediate character interaction with next to no long term narrative. Similarly, in a megadungeon campaign with high PC death rates you might have a long term narrative independent of immediate character interaction. That isn't necessarily a refutation. I am sure there are wargame models that fit with that paradigm.

That’s also true of strategy and tactics. In fact, they are sometimes even at odds with each other - sometimes you have to make short-term tactical concessions for long-term strategic gain.

Parmandur · May 8, 2022

Charlaquin said:
I think there’s an interesting idea here in using the wargame concept of strategy vs. tactics as an analogy for the interplay between long-term narrative vs. immediate character interaction. But as a model of RPG theory, I think it’s pretty severely lacking, and even as a breakdown of D&D player demographics it’s rather weak.

I dunno, I think there may be some serious explanatory power here, and would explain the failure points of both 3E and 4E, and why 5E managed to succeed wildly where they fell down...

Lanefan · May 8, 2022

Bacon Bits said:
I would have to think that WotC has done follow-ups, especially before 4e. They spent a lot of money on 4e. I honestly hope they didn't just wing it based on feedback from the official community forum alone.

If they did, I missed them; and I was paying at least some attention during that time.

AbdulAlhazred · May 8, 2022

niklinna said:
In light of the...somewhat heated discussion about whether D&D is gamist and if so how, I've been digging a little into the history of RPG theory leading to the rise & fall of the GNS (Gamism/Narrativism/Simulationism) model, since I missed out on that drama when it happened. My exposure to GNS theory had been limited to Edwards's original articles on the topic, which I didn't find that problematic taken on their own (although they were very compact and assumed some experience with particular games). However, reading about the context of the theory's creation, and more importantly, how it was promulgated and "elaborated", gave me much insight into its reputations and the different ways different people react to it today.

And yet people continue to use the three principal terms of GNS theory, tacitly accepting the premise of a three-way split, but often without having read those original articles, or with different definitions and applications, in spite of the precedent Edwards established—or perhaps "appropriated" would be a better term, since he himself took the earlier Threefold Model's terms and redefined them (and redefined them further as his stance became more and more contentious). GNS may have died, according to some, but its embalmed corpse lingers on the Web and its ghost in the minds of those who've read about it. All that's to say that basic GNS terminology is now very loaded, and use of those terms more likely than not results in Huge Misunderstandings and arguments, largely split between those who are not versed in GNS theory and those who are (to whatever degree). For better or worse, undead though it be, GNS theory is basically what we have to work with.

Or is it? That history I linked above made reference to a survey WotC themselves did about types of gaming. It took some further digging to find a working (archive!) link, and it seems that survey has very nearly vanished from gamer memory. But it was a thing, and I have to wonder what influence those survey results had on the development of D&D and possibly the industry at large. Did WotC also forget about it? Did they actually use it for particular editions of D&D? Or did they just put this together and then bin it all? More relevant to those discussing theory, does it give you any new insights into designing, running, or playing D&D, or any other RPG, today? What do you think of it? (I have a few thoughts already but will save them for later, it's really late.)

There are other models/theories out there, of course, and feel free to discuss them here too if you like. But I'm mildly fascinated at this near-lost bit of RPG history.

Of course they used it. I mean, if you could dredge up the old WotC forums you would find them replete with discussions of 'Timmies' and such. They VERY VERY definitely took it to heart! It was definitely in their minds and being discussed in terms of what it might say about game design, or at least play, as late as the 'playtest period' of 5e. What they have thought subsequently is impossible to say since WotC clearly decided that it was a bad idea to dialog with the community at large! Can't say they were wrong from a business standpoint, as those forums basically served as a rotten pit of complaining and criticism of the design of the game, demands for changes, etc. I don't think that was really about 4e either, as the same forums in the 3.x days were an equally vial pit of scum and villainy.

So, yeah, there's not a shred of doubt. Its just that this was now 10 years ago, and thus only people who have a bit longer memories and have stuck around that long are still going to remember all that.