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A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto
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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9246758" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>Based on my reading of what you say here, I believe that you are understanding what I'm getting at.</p><p></p><p>The only slight adjustment I would make is this. 5e has a thin incorporation of "neotrad" elements (TIBFs/Inspiration, Social Interaction, "consequences resolution", possibly Background Features). However, these are usually thoroughly squashed under GMing norms. Thus 5e exemplifies both a (weakly) "neotrad" design, and what happens when the manifesto isn't observed. 5e APs doubly so.</p><p></p><p>Some groups could be playing an AP with their focus locked to "overcoming challenges in a combat minigame"; but generally I agree with your analysis, especially the part about not promoting the lusory-duality or shifting the GM role. To be a neotrad design fitting my manifesto, there would be <em>words in the game text</em> repositioning GM etc.</p><p></p><p></p><p>So far as I know, a duality in player identity and perception was noted (although not under that label) by Sherry Turkle, Ron Edwards, Miguel Sicart, Laurie Taylor and others around twenty years ago. It takes two forms</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><strong>Player is simultaneously author and audience. </strong>Arguably this is true of all audience experiences, but certainly in game play, players are more overtly authoring stuff. Additionally, there is usually a game interface that makes player authorings available to each other (i.e. they are each audience for each other, as well as themselves.) In video games this is the scene rendering. In TTRPG this is the conversation. Playing solo-RPGs (such as Ironsworn solo) may give insight into the experiential qualities of this duality.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><strong>Player is simultaneously person and person-subject-to-game.</strong> Players must make themselves subject to the game in order to play it, but that doesn't result in them ceasing to also be themselves. What Sicart and others observe is that players develop a split personality, doing things in game that they're well aware they wouldn't do "themselves". For example, murder-hoboing. Safety principles, or "lines and veils" implicitly acknowledge this duality.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p><p>I coined the term "<strong>lusory-duality</strong>" to describe the former (author/audience), not the latter (player-subject), based on remarks by Edwards in his <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html" target="_blank">landmark essay on narrativism</a>. I chose the word "lusory" to connect with the philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusory_attitude" target="_blank">Bernard Suits' description of play</a>. Thus, players adopt prelusory-goals, enter play equipped with enabling lusory-attitudes (which is to adopt inefficient means to achieve their goals), employing and within the ambit of the lusory-means (<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/supposing-d-d-is-gamist-what-does-that-mean.687974/post-8628797" target="_blank">the wherewithal of play</a>.) Joining the dots from there to "ludonarrative" (<a href="https://eolt.org/articles/narratology" target="_blank">the form of narrative in games</a>), I suggest that in TTRPG's they do all that as simultaneously author and audience. I liberated "ludonarrative" from "ludonarrative dissonance" where it has a different implication.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 9246758, member: 71699"] Based on my reading of what you say here, I believe that you are understanding what I'm getting at. The only slight adjustment I would make is this. 5e has a thin incorporation of "neotrad" elements (TIBFs/Inspiration, Social Interaction, "consequences resolution", possibly Background Features). However, these are usually thoroughly squashed under GMing norms. Thus 5e exemplifies both a (weakly) "neotrad" design, and what happens when the manifesto isn't observed. 5e APs doubly so. Some groups could be playing an AP with their focus locked to "overcoming challenges in a combat minigame"; but generally I agree with your analysis, especially the part about not promoting the lusory-duality or shifting the GM role. To be a neotrad design fitting my manifesto, there would be [I]words in the game text[/I] repositioning GM etc. So far as I know, a duality in player identity and perception was noted (although not under that label) by Sherry Turkle, Ron Edwards, Miguel Sicart, Laurie Taylor and others around twenty years ago. It takes two forms [INDENT][B]Player is simultaneously author and audience. [/B]Arguably this is true of all audience experiences, but certainly in game play, players are more overtly authoring stuff. Additionally, there is usually a game interface that makes player authorings available to each other (i.e. they are each audience for each other, as well as themselves.) In video games this is the scene rendering. In TTRPG this is the conversation. Playing solo-RPGs (such as Ironsworn solo) may give insight into the experiential qualities of this duality.[/INDENT] [INDENT][/INDENT] [INDENT][B]Player is simultaneously person and person-subject-to-game.[/B] Players must make themselves subject to the game in order to play it, but that doesn't result in them ceasing to also be themselves. What Sicart and others observe is that players develop a split personality, doing things in game that they're well aware they wouldn't do "themselves". For example, murder-hoboing. Safety principles, or "lines and veils" implicitly acknowledge this duality.[/INDENT] [INDENT][/INDENT] I coined the term "[B]lusory-duality[/B]" to describe the former (author/audience), not the latter (player-subject), based on remarks by Edwards in his [URL='http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html']landmark essay on narrativism[/URL]. I chose the word "lusory" to connect with the philosopher [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusory_attitude']Bernard Suits' description of play[/URL]. Thus, players adopt prelusory-goals, enter play equipped with enabling lusory-attitudes (which is to adopt inefficient means to achieve their goals), employing and within the ambit of the lusory-means ([URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/supposing-d-d-is-gamist-what-does-that-mean.687974/post-8628797']the wherewithal of play[/URL].) Joining the dots from there to "ludonarrative" ([URL='https://eolt.org/articles/narratology']the form of narrative in games[/URL]), I suggest that in TTRPG's they do all that as simultaneously author and audience. I liberated "ludonarrative" from "ludonarrative dissonance" where it has a different implication. [/QUOTE]
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