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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shane H not Hensley" data-source="post: 6754529" data-attributes="member: 6798889">"Empirical" means "related to experience or experiments." I admit I haven't conducted experiments as to whether my proposition that a TRPG *product* (as a single book or product line) consists of three components: 1) rules system, 2) setting, and 3) aesthetic (visual presentation). Yet isn't that a self-evident experience? Aren't I stating the obvious?I suppose someone could wrangle and argue that RPG products consist of length, height, width, weight, colors, paper, glue, molecules, and atoms...but that is not a meaningful breakdown.I am using the word "scientific" in the wider sense of being "systematic", "thorough", and "finely tuned". Not in the most narrow sense of "peer-reviewed publications in an academic journal, using double-blind controls." Some of the scientific examples you gave aren't "scientific" in that sense either.The visual aesthetic may not be particularly important for the in-game play experience. Yet the aesthetic is very relevant to the actual RPG book/product...the "thing." The Aesthetic/Trade Dress is a salient component of that.The primary purpose of this "experience/experiment/project" isn't about analyzing the soul (the likes and dislikes) of gamers. It's not about a customer survey or customer profiling. It's about perceiving and mastering, in a methodical way, whatever is essential to each TRPG system and setting. A byproduct of that is a Total TRPG Corpus series of texts.Okay, I overstated that. You're right. It sounded like I was discounting all other scientific approaches to RPGs (ENWorld's studies, WotC's marketing study, the various academic papers which have been written about RPGs). It would be better to say:"If there really were a cadre of persons who desired to have a thorough experience of how all TRPG settings would be rendered via all TRPG systems, then isn't it self-evident that the ultimate picture would be to methodically go through every TRPG ever made, and strip out the aesthetic component...and then recombine all of the systems and settings in every possible combination?"Your feedback helped affirm that recombining the Aesthetic components of different settings is not a primary purpose of this proposed experience. (It wouldn't be so interesting to put Star Wars trade dress on the D&D Players Handbook, for example.)Such a project wouldn't just be about analysis ("breaking down"). Analysis would also be followed by *synthesis* (putting back together). The breaking down into the three components would always be paired with resynthesizing and recombining...with a clear, concrete fruit in mind: producing a professional quality text that mimics exactly what each world/setting would look like if it were to have been "officially" licensed to be rendered in each rules set.Yet I partly agree with you. This Total TRPG Corpus would only be Phase One.Phase Two would be to take the fruits of this experience, and then write an archetypal TRPG (or a suite of TRPGs) which is meant to be the most fun and satisfying TRPG "ever made." For Phase Two, the likes and dislikes of player experience (including ourselves) would now come into play. For example, even if some aspects of OD&D were to be incorporated into our new system, we would, of course, ditch THAC0.In my (admittedly uber-completist) view, to focus only on player satisfaction without having developed a conscious path and goal in regard to system-and setting-mastery, is one-sided and incomplete.The analogy is not perfect...but it'd be something like trying to reach the World Series by commissioning academic studies as to what baseball fans like and dislike about baseball games. Granted, such studies could contain much useful information, but without developing a team of persons who had methodically mastered the on-the-field "baseball game system", the team would not reach the goal.There would be at least three fruits from the experience:1) There would now exist a professional quality Omni-Statted, Omniversal Total RPG Corpus, where "all" (or many) TRPG worlds and adventures are rendered in "all" (or many) TRPG systems. We'd have not only an "all system" conversion guide (which would be an awesome thing in itself...think Peter Atkinson's Envoy metasystem, but to the nth degree)...but we'd also have fully-converted texts. That is a concrete, practical fruit. (Though due to legal constraints, this might have to be an largely private corpus for the time being.)2) The person or persons who had enacted this would have developed a certain mastery in this regard. Their conceptions, perceptions, and artistic-technical skill would be honed.3) There would be a social/community-building aspect to traversing this experience as well.If such an endeavor were to actually embark on the path of an all-system/all-setting conversion, there could be prioritization, so as to minimize busy-work. We could cover the key systems and settings first: the largest currently active TRPGs (e.g. the ones on ENWorld's "what's hot" lists), along with some less-popular, but representative, "gems" from the OSR and Indie RPG world.Yes, it's a cool article and diagram, which could be useful in Phase Two. I dig Ryan Dancey's contributions.C'mon Umbran...science is about questions. My questions are:QUESTION ONE: "If ordinary practicalities were not a hindrance, what is the ultimate expression of TRPG system+setting conversion and localization?"QUESTION TWO: "What components need to be separated (analyzed) and recombined (synthesized) in order to realize that ultimate expression?"QUESTION THREE: "What is essential to each TRPG setting, and what is essential to each TRPG system?"Granted, conventional academic journals do not care about those questions. But they're my questions. And "scientia" (in the widest sense of the word) is a tool for answering questions...what other way of knowing is there?I admit I put the cart before the horse by not sharing in my OP the background for how I came to the Threefold Components (the answer to my Question Two), which I needed in order to answer to my first question.Question Three can only be realized by a hands-on, experiential path.Your reply helped me express this more articulately.I'm not talking about some academic experiment conducted in a vacuum. I'm using "science" in a wider sense of "methodological thoroughness", and in a specific sense as it relates to this project: "a finely-tuned honing of one's perception of what is essential to each system and setting."  If my using the word "scientist" is irksome--fine, I could use some other word. Yet no one has a monopoly on the word "scientist." <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Science is always about human perception and human experience.***A bit of biographical background...my main D&D world was Mystara, and it always intrigued me how Mystara would be depicted via its two rule sets: Classic D&D and AD&D 2E. In the CD&D system, a famous NPC would be Thief or a Fighter...while in the 2E the same NPC is a Bard or Ranger! I really enjoyed trying to discern how the rules systems served as two different lenses for the same world. That is where I developed my special interest in the questions: What is essential to the system, and what is essential to the setting?That this question has some relevance to the wider world is evident in the ongoing production of "localized" versions of settings, such as Freeport's conversion from its original 3.0E, into Pathfinder, FATE, Savage Worlds, and Fantasy AGE.I'm just taking the question and magnifying it to its ultimate conclusion...all systems + all settings.</blockquote>

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