Brief personal intro and a vaugely on-topic question

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hey there.

I haven't been here much because I've always understood that EN World was focused on d20. That's all well and good, but since I don't truck with d20, I didn't come here much. That's just as well. No one needs anymore "d20 suxxors" posts.

Anyway, I hear that lately EN World has been slowly broadening in scope beyond d20, which is more my speed. So, I decided to test the waters a bit.

Which brings me to my vaguely on-topic question.

What is roleplaying at its irreducible? What is the activity of roleplaying at it's most basic?

I look foreward to the responses. Hopefully it won't be the tired analogy to "Let's Pretend"

 

[Crothian]

Not vagueluy on topic by any means, perfectly fitting.

It is a group of people, playing with an agreed upon ruleset, forming a collective story.

What's wrong with the "let's pretend" analogy?

 

[fafhrd]

I live in South Florida and was hit by two of the hurricanes this season. As Frances came in, my SO and I headed over to a friend's house who had shutters. I brought my gaming bag since the folks who live there comprise the rest of the group. The storm really picked up and we sat glued to the TV. Then the power went out. And stayed out. And the storm stayed. For two days.
So we started gaming by candle light, all four of us nervously huddled about a the table while the winds roared incessantly. At around 2 in the morning a thought struck me, and it must have showed because my friends asked me what was wrong. So I said, "Here we are no different from the caveman. Sitting about fire in a cave, telling stories to comfort ourselves in a frightening universe."

 

[Turjan]

What is roleplaying at its irreducible? What is the activity of roleplaying at it's most basic?

I look foreward to the responses. Hopefully it won't be the tired analogy to "Let's Pretend"

You prefer a GNS debate a la Forge ? You want to include family therapists? You're aiming at games like Amber in order to show that you don't need dice? You want to bring us to the Dying Earth RPG in order to show that being at the losing end of a die role can be as much fun as the opposite?

If you don't spill out some more beans the "Let's Pretend" of our "cowboy and indians" days will be a valid answer, even if you don't like it .

 

[Jack Spencer Jr]

What's wrong with the "let's pretend" analogy?

A reasonable question.

Two things are wrong with the let's pretend analogy. One is for the purpose of this thread. The other is wider in application. (can I possibly sound more pretentious? Great gravy!)

First, giving the let's pretend analogy as an answer here is not helpful to my goal here. I had said I wanted to test the non-d20 waters, as it were, and answers to this question are to provide insight for how people think. If someone were to say, for example, that roleplaying is an activity were you enter a fantasy world and can take on the roles of a mighty warrior or a powerful mage (etc, etc) and go fight monsters (etc, etc), then we would know this person pretty much thinks D&D is roleplaying, or that this person does not think enough about roleplaying to separate the fantasy genre conventions fron their answer.

But, an swer using the let's pretend analogy tells me very little because this has been used in the "What is Roleplaying?" section of many, many games and it is as likely as not that a person is just parroting this answer and is not giving us any insight at all.

Which brings me to the second reason, which is the let's pretend analogy is a good example of knowledge without understanding. Someone parroting the let's pretend analogy from some game book usually has trouble elaborating when asked "and what does that mean?" Often they get defensive and start attacking me because I am just being dense and of course I know what it means to play let's pretend. I played it as a child. And so on.

I've run into (and demonstrated, unfortunately) this sort of thing all the time and not just the let's pretend analogy, either. I once had a chat in IRC with a nice fellow making his own homebrewed RPG. He had a list of traits he wanted his game to have. (I don't recall off-hand what the list was, so I'll make up an example) One of the traits was "intuitive." I said, "Splended. What does that mean?" He guffawed a bit and finally said, "I'm not sure."

It is interesting to be able to corner people so easily simply by saying: "What you just said, what does it mean?" Interesting, but ultimately frustrating.

And since it has, in my view, a high chance of, well, the above, I figured it would be best to remove it from the equation.

The Forge is a whole different ball of sour earwax that I would rather not go into in public. I suppose that if you're burning with curiousity, you can PM me about it.

 

[Nifft]

Well, even in the example of "intuitive" above, it actually *does* mean something, even if the guy using it was unable to articulate that meaning to you in a form that you found acceptable. Humans learn by association and example as well as by dictionary, so it's entirely possible that he found games that others described as "intuitive" as enjoyable, and thus identified a common trait -- without himself having formulated that trait.

So, we see it's possible to usefully use a word, without knowing precisely what it means. You say "parrot", I say perhaps definition-by-exemplar. Whatever.

On to RP'ing. IMHO, it's a balance between resource management and improv.

-- N

 

[Jack Spencer Jr]

So, we see it's possible to usefully use a word, without knowing precisely what it means. You say "parrot", I say perhaps definition-by-exemplar. Whatever.

Perhaps, but I don't wish to argue since this is really besides the point.

 

[Rel]

What is the activity of roleplaying at it's most basic?

This is.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

"Let's Pretend" is roleplaying at its most basic - but I think you're not actually looking for the most basic, but a more in depth explanation.

Most RP'ers game in order to take on aspects of things other than themselves - its the basics behind acting, film, music, even a child's pretend games. RP codifies the inherent rules of Pretend in order to structure the interaction so that the game is fair to all participants.

Folks like to pretend all kinds of different things - that they're romantic heroes, action powerhouses, wise-cracking butt-kickers, etc. Some get into it for the tactical end of things, some for the immersive roleplay, some just for the exhiliration of action without consequences.

There's a basic need for people to take themselves out of themselves for a period of time, and RP does that. For six to eight hours one can utterly forget all the issues that afflict you on a day-to-day basis.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

This is.

How dare you, Rel.

That looks an awful lot like Let's Pretend, to me.

And it has fantasy elements, too! Gah!

You Philistine.