Authenticity in RPGing

[Malmuria]

No. RPGing is not the only way to engage in conversation. But some RPGing takes the form of genuine conversation, and some doesn't. To state the more obvious contrasts, a script of a conversation is not a conversation; an interviewer working from prepared questions is not engaged in conversation; putting together a bike we bought at the local department store isn't a conversation, although we might converse while doing it.

What if you chat with your friends about the best way to assemble a pool of six-sided dice? Is that a genuine conversation?

 

[Lanefan]

That's a consequential choice, but not necessarily a meaningful one. The way I understand the use of meaningful here is the person making the choice knows, at least in general, what they are choosing between - fortune or tragedy. Absent that knowledge, the choice made at that time has no real meaning - though it may have eventual consequences. Basically, if you have to use hindsight to determine if the choice was meaningful or not, it wasn't really meaningful.

To me the two bolded words are synonymous here, in that IMO a choice without consequences cannot be meaningful. That the consequences (or lack thereof) might not become apparent until later doesn't change this.

Some in this thread seem to want to synonymize meaningful with informed, which is a different thing entirely.

 

[Lanefan]

No. RPGing is not the only way to engage in conversation. But some RPGing takes the form of genuine conversation, and some doesn't. To state the more obvious contrasts, a script of a conversation is not a conversation; an interviewer working from prepared questions is not engaged in conversation; putting together a bike we bought at the local department store isn't a conversation, although we might converse while doing it.

If one takes 'conversation' to mean two (or more) way communication between two (or more) people, then the interviewer is very much engaged in coversation. She might not be inventing the words she says, but she is the one saying them in order to glean responses from the interviewee.

Same goes for the script of a conversation - it becomes a conversation once two (or more) people say the words to each other as the script intends. Whether said scripted conversation has either meaning or relevance to its participants, however, is another question entirely.

 

[clearstream]

I mean, sure. If we are to assume that the OP was not inventing new pejorative jargon, and was not using the jargon that people already used ("meaningful choice"), but was instead borrowing jargon that is occasionally used in UK eduation papers ... maybe? Color me unconvinced.

The whole point of jargon (technical language) is that it allows people to be precise with the use of fewer words. This is the exact opposite; it is obfuscation for the sake of obfuscation.

Good times!

While I feel the wording choices are unfortunate, I don't think it is right to cast it as jargon. The third bullet in the definition of "authentic" that Google returns with is

• (in existentialist philosophy) relating to or denoting an emotionally appropriate, significant, purposive, and responsible mode of human life.

And we do commonly speak of a person as being "authentic" in that sense. @pemerton explained they meant

"Authenticity: the property of being authentic. Authentic: issuing from and being true to the self; thus, revealing (something about, some aspect of) the self."

The vital and interesting question then seems to be contained in your comment that

Of course, the educational use of "authentic choice" which requires, inter alia, an authentic self making an autonomous conscious choice is ... not really a focus of roleplaying, which acts at a certain remove from that. So ...

If we can take "genuine choice" to be necessarily an "autonomous conscious choice" and therefore one that could foreseeably benefit from mechanics around player agency (player ability to narrate what follows) then we can reasonably ask - can it be "a focus of roleplaying" - and therefore challenge the assumption that RPG is an activity which always "acts at a certain remove".

To be authentic to ourselves - responsible, emotionally appropriate, significant, purposive - we would presumably need to express ourselves via autonomous conscious choices, that are not overridden as they are implied to be in some traditions of RPG. In this thread some have noted that our form of "let's pretend" can even lead to preferring the inauthentic to ourselves in order to be authentic to our character (and I would add, authentic to our world). Is that our dichotomy?

Can game rules serve such ends? What do they look like when they do? What is it about other rules that may get in the way? The OP doesn't make the case in full (doesn't show the putative implication to be necessitated.)

@Manbearcat BitD is setting-prescriptive and that's really kind of the point, but that has little to do with what @pemerton is saying because IMO it is less about finding ourselves in distinct settings that emphasise certain themes, and more about how we play in those settings and address ourselves to those themes, according to the game's rules... and let's not forget principles.

 

[pemerton]

What if you chat with your friends about the best way to assemble a pool of six-sided dice? Is that a genuine conversation?

Maybe. But if it wouldn't be radically different if it was about dice or a bike, then the RPGing seems secondary.

I can chat to my friends in the course of (collectively) solving a crossword, or playing Forbidden Island. I don't think that makes crossword puzzles, or playing cooperative boardgames, activities that might manifest authenticity in the way that RPGing can and sometimes does.

 

[clearstream]

Maybe. But if it wouldn't be radically different if it was about dice or a bike, then the RPGing seems secondary.

I can chat to my friends in the course of (collectively) solving a crossword, or playing Forbidden Island. I don't think that makes crossword puzzles, or playing cooperative boardgames, activities that might manifest authenticity in the way that RPGing can and sometimes does.

I feel like your thesis might be getting at a special mode of authenticity. Consider "Adderson brings tremendous personal authenticity to everything they do." I think I don't want to say "Except when solving a crossword with a friend or playing Forbidden Island."

I think you may be identifying special opportunities for authenticity. One can reflect in that respect on Nordic Larp.

 

[clearstream]

If one takes 'conversation' to mean two (or more) way communication between two (or more) people, then the interviewer is very much engaged in coversation. She might not be inventing the words she says, but she is the one saying them in order to glean responses from the interviewee.

Same goes for the script of a conversation - it becomes a conversation once two (or more) people say the words to each other as the script intends. Whether said scripted conversation has either meaning or relevance to its participants, however, is another question entirely.

I feel like almost any situation gives us opportunity to be authentic - including interviewing and traditional RPG. What I might think about are the differences between kinds of opportunity.

I find a thesis that - to be authentic to ourselves (responsible, emotionally appropriate, significant, purposive) we need to be able to express ourselves via autonomous conscious choices - plausible. And I find a thesis that - some lusory arrangements can be predicted to offer more or special scope to explore and challenge how we construct ourselves - equally so.

It's a shame that using words like "authentic" and "genuine" cloud the picture with a sense of casting shade on other modes of RPG, which are then presumably inauthentic and disingenous. To resolve that, I would differentiate between normal modes of authenticity, and special modes afforded by play. Thus mooting (and yet to be concretely argued) that the latter can be designed for (and is designed for, more for some modes of RPG over others.)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's a shame that using words like "authentic" and "genuine" cloud the picture with a sense of casting shade on other modes of RPG, which are then presumably inauthentic and disingenous. To resolve that, I would differentiate between normal modes of authenticity, and special modes afforded by play. Thus mooting (and yet to be concretely argued) that the latter can be designed for (and is designed for, more for some modes of RPG over others.)

In response to your earlier reply to me, I am going to bold this.

A shame? This isn't a bug of this post, this is a feature.

As I wrote some time ago in a thread specifically about this topic-

Jargon (or any kind of specialized language... you can put in Thieves' Cant if you want) is both helpful and unhelpful. If you think of any specialized field- medicine, law, banking, computer science, and so on, it will have jargon. Jargon can serve a very useful purpose- it can allow people with a shared interest in something technical or specialized to describe something quickly without having to use regular language each time and "re-invent" the wheel. At its best, jargon is a linguistic shortcut used by people with a shared interest.

Of course, there are other instances of jargon as well, outside of technical fields. Think about almost any area- when there is a shared group, there is often a shared vocabulary. This gets down to the smallest groups- I am sure that all of us have friend groups, and in those groups we have verbal shortcuts from shared events or people we have known! If everyone remembers that terrible night in Toledo, then it would be normal for someone in the group to say, "We don't want another Toledo" and for everyone to nod in agreement. (I am sure that someone is getting ready to start typing, Shakra, when the walls fell.)

The trouble with jargon, however, is that while it can help in-groups communicate more effectively, it is also incredibly off-putting to other people; in fact, it is can be considered both a feature and a bug. If you've ever spoken to a professional (a doctor, a lawyer, a banker) who can't be bothered to explain things and "dumb it down" for a "mere layman" or dealt with a close group of friends that talks entirely in "in-jokes" and doesn't explain them, you understand what this means. When you have invented terms, people will use them as a weapon to exclude others- "Oh, you don't understand what I mean by XXXXXX? Well, obviously you just don't get it."

Given that the people here are not using agreed-upon academic terms, but are using terms invented by hobbyists for other hobbyists, many disagreements about RPG theory are just arguments over what jargon is being used. "Oh, that's not a railroad. That's player agency!" Or, "That's not skilled play, because other types of play have skill." Or "My game has a strong story component, so it's Story Now, right?" And so on.

As you probably notice, this problem is most acute because most of these terms are borrowing and appropriating from actual language for slightly different purposes; to use less-loaded examples, a lot of people get confused by legal terms like "actual malice" (which has nothing to do with malice) or medical terms (like then the doctor says your test result is positive, and the patient replies, 'Positive, that's great!").

So to go back to the main point- yes, jargon does have its place, but people who are used to the jargon usually do not realize that it can be incredibly off-putting. As a general rule, when people are saying that they don't want to engage in the jargon, that's not an attack on everything you hold dear- it means that they usually can't get an entry point to the conversation because the terms are obfuscating what is being discussed. At that point, you can either argue about using jargon, or try and explain the concepts.

Now, look what we have here. The thesis of the OP (such as it is ... I mean, from what little I have seen, I don't see a thesis) is the following:

For me, what those RPGs {the RPGs that the OP enjoys discussing, such as PbtA, FitD, etc.}- with all their variations in details of technique, principles, etc - is authenticity. That players and GMs make genuine choices, in play, that say something - individually and, if it's working properly, together.

The flipside of this {all other RPGs, such as the ones many people enjoy playing} is that the effect of railroading and all its variations (the "three clue rule", GM-enforced alignment, adventures that work by the players figuring out what the GM has in mind as the solution, etc) is to squelch authenticity. The parameters of play have already been set.

(My emphasis added).


So, what is really the grand thesis? Once we remove the loaded language, the grand thesis is this-

The RPGs that I like allow players and GMs to say "something," individually and together. What is this something? Well, the OP calls it a "genuine choice." The RPGs I don't like don't allow players and GMs to say something, either individually or together. Because they don't allow "genuine choice." What is this "genuine choice?" As later alluded to, it's ... truth. And geunine conversation.

Cool, right? I mean, if the OP was American, I'd expect the thesis to say, "My RPGs are authentic, which allows for truth, justice, the American Way, apple pie, and kittens. Other RPGs, of course, don't allow for that."

Now I appreciate that those who want to dive down into some esoteric idea of what the OP might mean or salvage the thesis are looking for educational papers in the UK and/or the definition of authenticity in existentialist philosophy in order to salvage some non-pejorative meaning out of all of this. Which ... I mean, wow? Like the most common and accepted meaning of authetic is "of undisputed origin, genuine," or "done in the traditional or original way."

So to reiterate- not only is a term being highjacked in a way that is non-intuitive to both support a thesis (when other terms that are intuitive would suffice), and not only is that term being grossly misused as it necessarily is pejorative to other playing styles, but the term in its most natural meaning that everyone would understand it would use it to refer to "traditional or original ways" of playing.

...but I wouldn't troll people by using the accepted definition of authentic to refer to games, and using inauthentic to refer to other games.

 

[aramis erak]

Some in this thread seem to want to synonymize meaningful with informed, which is a different thing entirely.

Informed is a prerequisite for meaningful.
It is not a prerequisite for consequential.
Consequential is a prerequisite for meaningful as well.

 

[pemerton]

I think you may be identifying special opportunities for authenticity. One can reflect in that respect on Nordic Larp.

Yes to both points, though I'm far, far from any sort of expert on Nordic LARP.