[1st Draft] Understanding RPGs Part One

[herald]

I disagree. In fact, improv is more of a game than RPGs are. Actors who improv sometimes compete with one another. Try to put the other actors off-balance. Try to "win". RPGs lack that one-upsmanship. In fact, it's outright discouraged by referring to such players as problem players (or munchkins).

I've been a semi-professional Improv actor for over 20 straight years. Professional improv is not done for competition reasons. If that was the case, actors would simply not respond to the actor they wanted to one up to make them look bad.

Improvisational acting is about trust and being willing not to be the one who gets the uper hand. I could recommend some books that I use in the process in teaching Improv if any one would like, but to continue discussing it right now would hijack the thread. I'll be glad to go into more detail on another thread if some one would like.

Suffice it to say, I would recommed jettosoning the ties to Improvisational Theatre ideas and go with the original ideas.

 

[Bhaal]

I think we need to get some agreement on definitions.

set in the real world, but with fictional counterparts.

Or in other words, it's an imaginary setting. In the context the words are being used, imaginary and fictional are synonyms. Prove that they don't cover the same concepts (in the context, I know there are imaginary numbers but not fictional ones). Also to back my point, dictionary.com uses the word imaginary in the definition of fictional. The words are interchangable.

I disagree with the idea of "winning" the game as part of the definition; it's a dictinction between different styles of RPG's, but is not a fundamental aspect of RPGs. Or as some may put it: it's not necessarily the destination that interests them, but the rather journey they take. And the concept of competetive vs. cooperative playing is also a distinction to be made later. Ever played an evil campaign where half the party is constantly trying to put a knife in the back of eachother? What about paranoia? Is that suddenly classified as something other than an RPG? Also with the improv, one of the key rules is to never negate what the other person is doing; you always accept what the other person gives you and use it. The idea is to work with them, not trip them up. Though you can have that style of improv where the goal is to trip the other person up, but that is by far in the minority.

 

[herald]

Ok fine.

Peral Harbor, Hawaii December 6th, 1941.

Your characters are trying to survive the Japanise attack.

Here is some definitions to back up what I say.

syn·o·nym Pronunciation Key (sn-nm)
n.
A word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language.
A word or an expression that serves as a figurative or symbolic substitute for another.
Biology. A scientific name of an organism or of a taxonomic group that has been superseded by another name at the same rank.

fic·tion Pronunciation Key (fkshn)
n.

An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
The act of inventing such a creation or pretense.
A lie.

A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.
Law. Something untrue that is intentionally represented as true by the narrator.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Middle English ficcioun, from Old French fiction, from Latin ficti, fictin-, from fictus, past participle of fingere, to form. See dheigh- in Indo-European Roots.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
fiction·al adj.
fiction·ali·ty (-sh-nl-t) n.
fiction·al·ly adv.

i·mag·i·nar·y Pronunciation Key (-mj-nr)
adj.
Having existence only in the imagination; unreal.
Mathematics.
Of or being the coefficient of the imaginary unit in a complex number.
Of, involving, or being an imaginary number.
Involving only a complex number of which the real part is zero.

As you can see synonym doen't always meen equal to. It could mean alike. Fictional, could mean imaginary, but it can also mean not quite the truth. Hence Fictional is stronger that imaginary. It is more inclusive.

On the subjest of Improvisation. The concept of Negation is only really used in Improvisation Exercise, not actual threatre. There are time in which certain "assumptions" give earlier in the scene must not be revoked.

Once again, it is a mistake trying to mix Improvisational Theatre into an explaination of Role Playing games.

If you do mix the terms then you run the risk of fully explaining Improvisational Acting. More times than not you run the risk of just making peoples eye glass over.

 

[Agback]

RPGs are not games in the common understanding of the word. Games have winners and losers and a strict set of rules that determines which group the participants fall into.

I'm not sure I can agree. 'Spin the bottle', 'Post Office', 'Doctor', 'Make-believe' and so forth are all games without winners or losers, and certainly without strict rules determining which group players fall into. And in the mathematical Theory of Games it is possible to have 'win-win' outcomes.

Regards,


Agback

 

[herald]

I'm not sure I can agree. 'Spin the bottle', 'Post Office', 'Doctor', 'Make-believe' and so forth are all games without winners or losers, and certainly without strict rules determining which group players fall into. And in the mathematical Theory of Games it is possible to have 'win-win' outcomes.

I would also have to agree.

 

[mythusmage]

how can you include "imaginary" and "assumed role" and then say not all sessions need to include creativity?

It's possible, sometimes you find yourself going through the motions, or your imagination doesn't kick in. This is getting into another essay, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[mythusmage]

RPG

why not define it as "a Game where someone Plays a Role"????

Because game is a loaded term. All will become clearer in a later essay.

(Doncha hate foreshadowing.)

 

[mythusmage]

because that's not defining a Roleplaying Game, that's just rearranging the words. There's a word for using the term itself to define the term, but I don't remember what it is.

But Clay, Thanee and jmucchiello force me to address an interesting point. In order to define Roleplaying Games, you have to analyze the words role, play/playing, and game.

Improvisational theatre was mentioned, but you need a definition that does not include acting, because that is not the same as roleplaying games; thus, you need to make a distinction that this is a game, not merely playing a role.

Most often with table-top RPGs, the player is merely describing his/her character's actions, not actually acting out. Sometimes playing an RPG doesn't involve playing a role at all, but playing with a role.

If this turns out well, you'll become the Scott McCloud of RPGs.

EDIT: I went through this many times.

Actually...

This effort was inspired by McCloud's Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics. My goal is to establish a good foundation for the understanding of RPGs, what they are, how they work, and to use this foundation for the reinvention, the recreation of RPGs in order to expand on what RPGs can be and do. There is a lot more to be said on this subject, but that will have to wait for another essay.

(Please note, the order in which the essays are presented here won't, necessarily, be the order in which they are presented as chapters in the book. BTW, if you know where McCloud's web site can be found (I lost the URL), you can drop him a line to tell him about this thread. He does role-game the last I heard.)

 

[Umbran]

Wow, I didn't know we had quite so many lawyers here. With so much nitpicking, I'm surprised nobody has pointed out the most simple error in the definition: "people assume the role of another person".

Multiple people assuming the role of one person?

Now, here's a note - exactly how nitpicky we need to be on definitions really depends on what purpose this definition will serve. For instance, to be 100% accurate, the person need not assume the role of a person. I've seen games where a person takes on the role of an internal bodily organ, or a person takes on the role of a nation-state.

Should we revise the definition one more step, though? Who is the target audience? If it's folks who have never played the game at all, probably not. Take one step at a time - introduce them to the concept of playing a person, the more odd things can come later. If the target audience is people who already play, though, then rewording to break them out of old trains of thought might be worthwhile.

 

[mythusmage]

My apologies, but I will not be able to reply to every posting, the thread has gotten too long for that. Sorry.

Be assured I have read them all and have found lots to think about, even when I disagree with what has been said. You have all been a great help.

I must say something about the great Fictional vs. Imaginary feud now a' brewin' in this discussion.

In this context, Fictional and Imaginary are synonymous. That is, where RPGs are concerned the two words essentially mean the same thing. But, since Fictional has other meanings in other contexts that Imaginary does not, and so could confuse the good reader, I will stick with Imaginary. Hope that makes things clear.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled embryonic flamewar.