A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[pemerton]

You can describe virtually any play style in dismissive or negative terms.

It's not dismissive to describe what is going on in that sort of play. You said it yourself - Bill's thoughts about the setting are the setting. Exploring the setting = learning Bill's thoughts about it. What is being dismissed?

this thread, was started as an attack on one of my posts in that thread.

It was started to express disagreement with you saying that a certain playstyle is no more mother may I than real life.

Real life does not involve a world whose content and behaviour is chosen by someone in expression of creative inclinations. Whereas that is central to the playstyle you are describing - it is Bill's creative inclinations that establish the gameworld.

Expressing that opinion isn't an "attack" on anything or anyone.

 

[Imaro]

I think for [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], though, the draw isn't to just "see what's around the next corner." There's exploration-for-exploration's sake, and there's exploration-for-the-sake-of-revealing-character-driven-stakes.

And even in spite of my love of exploration in gaming, I can sort of see his point. Exploration-for-exploration's sake in TTRPGs is ultimately a zero sum game. The very open-ended nature of the enterprise basically ensures you'll never run out of un-poked corners. I think for anyone other than a very small subset of gamers who are wholly committed to "The Sandbox" as an end of its own, this kind of exploration-for-exploration's sake gameplay wears thin rather quickly.

See and here I'd strongly disagree. I'd say for the vast majority of players, and especially casual players that don't hangout on rpg forums dissecting roleplaying games and learning forge terminology and so on... exploration is the driver for their fun, whether that is exploration of a setting, the DM's plot or a pre-written module that is what they expect and have fun with. In fact I would say it's a smaller subset that are interested in character-driven-stakes (oe would even know what you are talking about if you said that).

TTRPG play becomes more interesting when there's something of value at stake for the characters within the fiction, and the pursuit of those stakes gets expressed by the players.

If that's your preference then cool but for some/many... maybe most it doesn't necessarily make it more interesting. If it did I doubt inspiration would be forgotten so often in games of D&D and background (outside of mechanical abilities) would be referenced much more. Just saying...

 

[Imaro]

Exploration is such a weird, interesting thing for me, because I've always LOVED the sense of exploration in every aspect of gaming.

Take two recent video game examples:

I've been playing through the nearly-25-year-old game, Crusader: No Remorse which I picked up on GOG.com a while ago. I played it waaaaay back in the day when it first game out, and from the first time I played it, THE MOST ENGAGING THING about the whole experience was the sense of exploration. How did I get from A to B? Where did that blind hallway actually go? The whole idea was just to poke into every corner I could, because . . . it made me happy.

Reading through some GameFAQs walkthroughs, several of the guides pointed out that you can totally "shortcut" through the levels to get to the end faster. Which is the exact OPPOSITE of the type of experience I was wanting to have with the game.

I'm also a big fan of the Trine game series (Trine 1 and 2). A few days ago I was playing while two of my daughters watched and hung out with me, and there were several moments where they were saying, "Dad, you don't HAVE to get every single flask of XP in the game!" To which I immediately replied, "Yes, I do!" I would spend 15-20 minutes trying to figure out how to capture one small, relatively insignificant item in the game, but just HAD to prove to myself that I could do it.

So I am completely drawn in by the concept of exploration in pen-and-paper RPGs as well.

I just wanted to comment here as well and say perhaps your videogame examples are a little outdated. Grand Theft Auto Online a game where you explore an online virtual world with no character driven stakes has 90 million sales worldwide and over 6 billion in revenue. It is a sandbox and it is one of the most profitable entertainment products of all time... not videogame... products.

Edit: This also ignores the rise in populareity of MMO lites with open worlds such as Destiny & Destiny 2, The Division and the upcoming Division 2 & Anthem. These games are wildly popular and have little if any character driven stakes... just exploration, looting and combat. The fact that these games are so popular always makes me wonder at people who claim D&D is only dominant because it was first... no it basically created this style of play that is the blueprint to making tons of money for a videogame when done right... and D&D has a content generator that can actually keep up with it's players.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's not dismissive to describe what is going on in that sort of play. You said it yourself - Bill's thoughts about the setting are the setting. Exploring the setting = learning Bill's thoughts about it. What is being dismissed?

You can't possibly believe this. This is always what you keep claiming. You say you are simply describing things. You are simply stating what is occurring. But you'er are not simply describing, you are describing in a way that consistently paints these styles and approaches in an inferior or undesirable light. Why is this dismissive? Because 'learning Bill's notes' is the most boring way, the least accurate way to describe the style. Learning Bill's notes doesn't exactly sound like fun. And it isn't what is going on. The notes are tools. But they are about 30% or less of what is going on at the table.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It was started to express disagreement with you saying that a certain playstyle is no more mother may I than real life.

Real life does not involve a world whose content and behaviour is chosen by someone in expression of creative inclinations. Whereas that is central to the playstyle you are describing - it is Bill's creative inclinations that establish the gameworld.

Expressing that opinion isn't an "attack" on anything or anyone.

You highlighted my post in its own thread for the purposes of disagreeing with it, when I said to you I had no interest in that discussion. And you mischaracterized my argument and created the whole straw man about real world processes versus fictional ones.

I get that you want to keep arguing the specifics of this. But You've already made your points, and they've been responded to (and in my view fairly conclusively defeated). You can keep making the same points, but we are just going around in circles at this point. I don't see any purpose in continuing to talk about this with you.

 

[pemerton]

you are describing in a way that consistently paints these styles and approaches in an inferior or undesirable light. Why is this dismissive? Because 'learning Bill's notes' is the most boring way, the least accurate way to describe the style. Learning Bill's notes doesn't exactly sound like fun. And it isn't what is going on. The notes are tools. But they are about 30% or less of what is going on at the table.

Given the number of people who buy RPG modules and setting books to read them (this is Paizo's subscriptin business model), it seems that a lot of people think it is fun to learn what someone else made up about an imagined world. I've read the Appendices to LotR more times than I can remember, and most of those are learning what JRRT made up about his imagined world.

As for the rest of what is going on at the table that is not related to Bill telling you the gameworld content - that happens at other tables too, so doesn't seem unique to playing in the Bill-driven style.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Given the number of people who buy RPG modules and setting books to read them (this is Paizo's subscriptin business model), it seems that a lot of people think it is fun to learn what someone else made up about an imagined world. I've read the Appendices to LotR more times than I can remember, and most of those are learning what JRRT made up about his imagined world.

As for the rest of what is going on at the table that is not related to Bill telling you the gameworld content - that happens at other tables too, so doesn't seem unique to playing in the Bill-driven style.

Pemerton. I am done having this conversation with you.

 

[Manbearcat]

Let me just say one thing.

This head-on-a-swivel, constantly fretting over shadows of Forge bogeyman framing of this conversation is completely absurd.

There is nothing I've written in here that is Forge inspired or really even relates to any "mainstream" (yeah, I know) Forge essays or posts.

The term "gamestate" isn't Forge jargon and is pretty universal in any game theory analysis (for any games, board, TTRPG, CRPG, sports, etc). "Shared imagined space?" Is that seriously triggering? What in the world would you like me to call it? I could use a hell of a lot more than 3 words if that wouldn't freak some people out because of their Forge hostilities that seem to be so central to analysis on these boards (and work to make analysis impossible).

How about:

"The imaginary stuff that we collectively talk about at our table?"

Just let me know. I'll scribe that monster on a notepad so I can Control C and Control V it every time I want to talk about "shared imagined space."

 

[Imaro]

Given the number of people who buy RPG modules and setting books to read them (this is Paizo's subscriptin business model), it seems that a lot of people think it is fun to learn what someone else made up about an imagined world. I've read the Appendices to LotR more times than I can remember, and most of those are learning what JRRT made up about his imagined world.

As for the rest of what is going on at the table that is not related to Bill telling you the gameworld content - that happens at other tables too, so doesn't seem unique to playing in the Bill-driven style.

Wait... this example seems to equate playing a traditional style rpg with the act of reading a book... is that the correct takeaway here? I hope not since I would argue they are totally different experiences. If that is the takeaway I would also say perhaps your view/descriptions/definitions of traditional styles of play just aren't nuanced enough to be useful.

 

[pemerton]

Wait... this example seems to equate playing a traditional style rpg with the act of reading a book... is that the correct takeaway here?

Or watching a film. Or being told a story. There are many ways to learn someone's ideas about something they made up.

Of coures in RPG it's a series of things that are said to the players by the GM, each triggered by a request (express or implied) that something be said.

I'm sure that many people would say that "I am learning how the sect members behave in Bill's world." Like I can say that, by reading LotR, I learn how elves behave in JRRT's world. But learning how elves behave in JRRT's world' is exactly the same thing as learning what JRRT made up about elves.

I would argue they are totally different experiences.

They clearly have some things in common that neither has in common with (say) changing a washer on a dripping tap. They clearly are different also - for instance, most of what you are calling "traditional" RPGing (I use scare quotes because Traveller is a very old RPG but doesn't tend to exhibit the features you are fastening on as part of the tradition) involves the solving of puzzles, by putting together clues or prompts that are obtained from the GM by performing the right moves to obtain them.

For instance, in the sect example, to learn where their PCs might find sect members the players the players have to obtain background information about the sect, which they obtain by declaring moves for their PCs which will trigger narration from the GM of the appropriate information - this could be anything from interrogating captives to searchingin libraries to casting Commune spells, depending on how the details of play and of system are interacting with the creative decisions that the GM has made and is making.

There is a large amount of evidence that many people enjoy solving puzzles as a pastime (eg newspapers the world over carry crosswords and sudokus in large numbers, but not so much poetry or randomly chosen encyclopedia entries), and I believe that this is what some people enjoy in "traditional" RPGing.