Authenticity in RPGing

[Crimson Longinus]

Generally I would frankly prefer if people would just say "your preferred way of playing games sucks," instead of trying to wrap the sentiment in a verbose cloak of pseudo-intellectuality. At least the former more readily comes across as just a personal opinion, while the latter tries to present the judgement as some sort of an objective analysis.

Sorry for being blunt, but it's not like this is the first time this has happened, and I'm a tad tired of it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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

I think I take a couple of issues with the OP, if I understand the OP's argument (which admittedly I may not). The first is it kind of creates a false dichotomy between games that are non-GM driven* as non-railroads and all other games being railroads. There is a big difference between a traditional* game that is on a set of tracks the players can't escape from and traditional game where there is a vague outline of a track but the players can go in any direction they want if they choose, versus a game where there is no track and the GM uses restraint in order to maximize a sense of fairness. So I think there is a bit of a false division here

On authenticity I think it is a very loaded word, but taking it in the existential sense and in the sense of being true to yourself, the argument of the premise could also be used to make the case that the most authentic people are those who have the most power and money (which I find deeply unsatisfying). I realize Pemerton didn't make this argument in particular, but by equating the amount of power players have in the game*** itself with their ability to be their authentic selves, I think that misses the fact that authenticity can very much exist within constraints (i.e. the GM being able to fiat an Owl Bear encounter doesn't nullify my authenticity, my authenticity is in my reaction to that owl bear encounter).

I may be missing something here or projecting assumptions about systems so perhaps I am wrong.

*Unless by GM driven he just means railroads but I got the sense he was talking about games that empower players mechanically
**Not hung up on this word, just trying to make the point
***Again if I am correctly following his argument which I might not be

 

[pemerton]

the GM being able to fiat an Owl Bear encounter

I don't even know what this means.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't even know what this means.

The GM being able to decide by fiat that an owl bear encounter takes place

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Well, I wouldn't argue that meaningful and informed are synonymous, but I would argue that an uninformed choice is meaningless in the sense that we are discussing here. If you come to the proverbial T in the corridor and NOTHING is known about either branch, nor can be inferred, etc. then no meaningful choice of direction to take can exist, the whole exercise is pointless. The most you can salvage out of it is some sort of statement about the utter helplessness of people and the ultimate futility of free will or some such. I guess that's a legit thing to do in an RPG, but there's little to say about it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The GM being able to decide by fiat that an owl bear encounter takes place

I would note that there are relatively few RPGs where this is not the case, and that RPGs @pemerton normally mentions as being amenable to the sort of experience of play he is presumably talking about here (if I may so presume) are ones in which a GM saying "As you walk through the woods you hear a strange hooting sound!" would generally be quite appropriate, though perhaps the GM will ask a different set of questions in order to decide the appropriateness of such in, say Burning Wheel, as opposed to Moldvay Basic D&D.

For example, such a move in Dungeon World would simply be a 'Soft Move' on the part of the GM. You are now framed into a scene containing a dangerous fantastical magical beast. How will you react? Play to find out! Now, this scene might not be the most appropriate if the PCs were coming out of the local dive bar on a mission to find the halfling's sister, although even here we'd have to know more context to say exactly why the GM brought in this element, etc.

 

[kenada]

I think I take a couple of issues with the OP, if I understand the OP's argument (which admittedly I may not). The first is it kind of creates a false dichotomy between games that are non-GM driven* as non-railroads and all other games being railroads. There is a big difference between a traditional* game that is on a set of tracks the players can't escape from and traditional game where there is a vague outline of a track but the players can go in any direction they want if they choose, versus a game where there is no track and the GM uses restraint in order to maximize a sense of fairness. So I think there is a bit of a false division here

On authenticity I think it is a very loaded word, but taking it in the existential sense and in the sense of being true to yourself, the argument of the premise could also be used to make the case that the most authentic people are those who have the most power and money (which I find deeply unsatisfying). I realize Pemerton didn't make this argument in particular, but by equating the amount of power players have in the game*** itself with their ability to be their authentic selves, I think that misses the fact that authenticity can very much exist within constraints (i.e. the GM being able to fiat an Owl Bear encounter doesn't nullify my authenticity, my authenticity is in my reaction to that owl bear encounter).

I may be missing something here or projecting assumptions about systems so perhaps I am wrong.

*Unless by GM driven he just means railroads but I got the sense he was talking about games that empower players mechanically
**Not hung up on this word, just trying to make the point
***Again if I am correctly following his argument which I might not be

The way I understood it is that a distinction is being made between play where the group decides in the moment versus deciding ahead of time (“railroading”). I would expect a traditional game could thus be “authentic” if the group were committed to deciding in the moment.

The question I would ask is if this is all-or-nothing, or can it be a toggle? If I see a “railroad” and derail the train, has play become more “authentic” if we decide to see where that goes? Or if everyone agrees to a constraint (e.g., playing in a particular sandbox), can play still be “authentic” within those constraints?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The way I understood it is that a distinction is being made between play where the group decides in the moment versus deciding ahead of time (“railroading”). I would expect a traditional game could thus be “authentic” if the group were committed to deciding in the moment.

The question I would ask is if this is all-or-nothing, or can it be a toggle? If I see a “railroad” and derail the train, has play become more “authentic” if we decide to see where that goes? Or if everyone agrees to a constraint (e.g., playing in a particular sandbox), can play still be “authentic” within those constraints?

I, personally, would think that authentic play in the sense discussed here revolves around exploring characterization and character experience as opposed to an exploration of, say setting and backstory. Not that any game is likely purely one or the other, but there is primary focus in one area or another.

 

[Willie the Duck]

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.

I don't feel that this illuminates a central point very well, specifically because those examples are such extreme cases of activities-that-only-emulate-the-thing-they-resemble. Scripts of a conversation or reading prepared questions are straightforwardly not a conversation. You don't mistake one for the other in the same way you don't (if working in good faith) mistake Ralph Fiennes' lines while portraying a Nazi in Shindler's List as his own opinions, or the like. This doesn't really tell me what you think are genuine conversation in RPG gaming, and what aren't. Are the genuine conversations those done in character (with our without accents and special voices)? Are they ones that are about weighty subjects? This is the same problem I have when a critic reviewing a movie says something like, "______ brings real authenticity to the role of _____" -- it seems to be trying to say something, but I'm not sure what.

Honestly, I think the interests of moving us all to discussing what you had intended this conversation to be would best be served by you starting over and re-stating a premise (feeling free to find alternate terms if they better apply) and us all starting from there. There's already a huge amount of thread baggage around the original post.

 

[kenada]

I, personally, would think that authentic play in the sense discussed here revolves around exploring characterization and character experience as opposed to an exploration of, say setting and backstory. Not that any game is likely purely one or the other, but there is primary focus in one area or another.

I’m inclined to agree, but consider the following example.

Suppose we sit down to play Moldvay Basic. The DM puts a hex map of Mystara on the table, telling us that this is where the game take place, but they commit to using nothing but the game’s procedures and tables to determine what is there and what happens. They also commit to the principles of being a neutral referee, so they can’t put their thumb on the scale surreptitiously. Does the resulting play have authenticity?

If the answer is “no” or even just “not necessarily”, then there is an issue. “Railroad” was presented as the flipside of “authentic”, but I don’t think one could reasonably construe the above play as form of railroad.

I don’t actually know what the answer should be. Intuitively, such a sandbox approach suggests an orientation of play towards basking in the setting. However, since the setting is unknown until it is revealed, it seems like how the characters react should say something about them.