Chess is not an RPG: The Illusion of Game Balance

[prosfilaes]

So, literary recognition of the distinction of Space Opera from other forms dates to about 1941.

As a distinct set of literature, maybe, but not as distinct from science fiction.

We can argue about whether Space Opera (or Science Fantasy, for Star Wars) is a sub-genre or a parallel genre. That argument will be academic, and largely unconstructive. Kind of like the argument about "Story Game" and "RPG".

In the English language, space opera is a subset of science fiction, at least outside specialized context. Claiming it isn't is like me pointing out that English wasn't around in AM 1929, during the reign of Senusret III, because we can argue about whether 1929 means AD 1929 or AM 1929.

It's not much like the argument about "story game" and "RPG", since the majority of people using the term RPG have never heard of "story games" and have no real opinion on the subject.

 

[Umbran]

It's not much like the argument about "story game" and "RPG", since the majority of people using the term RPG have never heard of "story games" and have no real opinion on the subject.

I don't think the majority of folks who partake of scifi know what "space opera" is either. It isn't exactly a household term, and most of the works for which the term most solidly holds are out of vogue.

But, I think it is more properly akin to discussion of whether modern birds are dinosaurs than your year-distinction. Yes, some folks, coming from one point of view, will say that, having an origin in the older classification means that older classification will hold forever. Others, take a more functional view - Space opera and science fiction have differentiated trope-sets, and should be considered parallel at this point.

But, see my previous note about how arguing over this would be academic. It serves no practical purpose. Nothing is gained by wrangling over it.

 

[Janx]

I don't think the majority of folks who partake of scifi know what "space opera" is either. It isn't exactly a household term, and most of the works for which the term most solidly holds are out of vogue.

But, I think it is more properly akin to discussion of whether modern birds are dinosaurs than your year-distinction. Yes, some folks, coming from one point of view, will say that, having an origin in the older classification means that older classification will hold forever. Others, take a more functional view - Space opera and science fiction have differentiated trope-sets, and should be considered parallel at this point.

But, see my previous note about how arguing over this would be academic. It serves no practical purpose. Nothing is gained by wrangling over it.

Yup.

What are we going to call Science Fiction or Space Opera when we've colonized 20 other star systems? When does Starship Troopers go from Science Fiction to War Story. Alien becomes a man vs. nature story.

 

[prosfilaes]

What are we going to call Science Fiction or Space Opera when we've colonized 20 other star systems?

What do we call Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea today?

 

[Hussar]

But, see my previous note about how arguing over this would be academic. It serves no practical purpose. Nothing is gained by wrangling over it.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Illusion-of-Game-Balance/page40#ixzz3HOJmQ01w

I'm not sure that it serves no practical purpose. For example, for all the problems with Forge criticism, it has given people a set of tools with which to talk about RPG's. Now, I'm not saying that Forgisms are right or they should be taken as gospel. Of course they shouldn't. But, to simply dismiss it as "academic" is a disservice as well.

When Robin Laws comes along and talks about the different kinds of players you find around an RPG table, that's no different. No one is 100% one kind of player or another, but, it is useful, both as a self reflexive tool and as a means for resolving table issues, to be able to point to some fairly commonly accepted definitions of play style and talk about them.

I think it's very useful to have these sorts of classification discussions. It forces people to examine pre-conceptions about different games. In particular, it can really shine light on why a game might be better or worse at some kinds of activities.
[MENTION=40166]prosfilaes[/MENTION] - why wouldn't Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea be considered Science Fiction. It's got all the basic themes right there - an examination of how man fits in with his world through technology. That's fundamental SF right there. To be fair, some of the really early SF, particularly the Pulp stuff, is kind of its own thing. Much of it is simply an adventure story with some ray guns and space ships tossed on. None of the SF themes are there. Compare to H. G. Wells, where, even though it's very negative towards science (after all, the only thing that saves mankind is a microbe), it's still a story about what it means to be human in the face of the alien.

Rolling this back around to RPG's, you cannot ignore the text of the game if you are going to classify it.

I don't trust forewords to accurately reflect how the game is being played, or even necessarily how the game is designed to be played.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Illusion-of-Game-Balance/page38#ixzz3HOMBw6JJ

But, you trust purely anecdotal evidence that cannot ever be verified? How many people play in a certain way? Beyond, "Well, I know a guy (or guys) who do it this way, so, that's the way the game is played" is not terribly useful. It just comes down to dueling anecdotes. Your example of SUV's is a bit different because we can actually look at market research (if we had access to it) and find out how people are using SUV's. Although, even then, which people? Middle class American suburbanites or maybe people in Afghanistan. Do we include Range Rovers or not.

And, even a large segment of people are using SUV's as a minivan, what difference does that make? Other than, yes, you can use it as a minivan. It doesn't change what the car was designed for. I can use a Hummer as a minivan, but, again, I wouldn't say that's it's primary design goal.

You cannot ignore the text of the game when criticising that game. It would be like saying we can ignore the movie Star Wars when criticising the movie Star Wars.

 

[prosfilaes]

why wouldn't Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea be considered Science Fiction.

I didn't say it would or wouldn't, but it's an example of where technology in the fiction is completely here, which goes to the question I was responding to.

But, you trust purely anecdotal evidence that cannot ever be verified? How many people play in a certain way? Beyond, "Well, I know a guy (or guys) who do it this way, so, that's the way the game is played" is not terribly useful.

It could in theory be verified, and we certainly do know for some major games in what ways many people play them in off-brand ways.

And, even a large segment of people are using SUV's as a minivan, what difference does that make? Other than, yes, you can use it as a minivan. It doesn't change what the car was designed for.

In reality, it does change how the car was designed and natural selection will add more to that. If the producers of a car know that SUVs sell as SUVs and are used as minivans, they don't have to worry about making it a good off-road vehicle. It has to look like a good SUV, has to sell to the family who believes they're going to be exploring the wilderness every weekend, and work like a good minivan. And to the extent that the designers don't do, the market probably will. The stories in the air will be how the SUV did fail them, not how it would have had they gone off-road.

For RPGs? Again, I have to wonder if Werewolf and Vampire employees ever with forethought added the high-concept intro but wrote a decent part of the book for the people who wanted their characters to rip out human throats with their teeth. Even to the extent they didn't, I bet that was part of the thing that shaped the White Wolf market, that caused Changeling and Wraith to fail while Werewolf and Vampire raged on; that is, that section of the market supported those games that facilitated ultraviolence as well as the high concept and didn't support those games that supported only the high-concept genre all the White Wolf were seemingly designed for.

So, yes, I do believe it changes how they were designed, that they wrote books that would sell, which are those that support the styles the customers want.

You cannot ignore the text of the game when criticising that game. It would be like saying we can ignore the movie Star Wars when criticising the movie Star Wars.

To the extend I said you can ignore the text of the game, I repudiate that. (But I don't know where "criticizing" came from.) But the text of the game is more like the screenplay of the movie then the movie itself, since the game is not normally enjoyed by reading it alone (well, at least to the extent it is, I believe that's beyond the scope of the current discussion.) And certain movies and certain games may have inexplicable popularity until you understand what's going on. Rocky Horror Picture Show is a minor picture blown up by how the audience responded to it. I don't think you can truly understand any edition of D&D without understanding what came before it. Why the set of races in D&D 5? Not a single race could the developers really say "we needed this type of race of the type of fantasy we wanted" instead of "we didn't want the Gnomish Liberation Army to hit our houses again" and "we kept getting anonymous emails with pictures of dragons swallowing gnomes whole and the gnomes had the faces of D&D developers on them".

And who really cares how the game is supposed to be played? We're gamers, and good games are ones that play well in practice, and frequently even if the developer is there to explain how it's supposed to be played, maybe people like it better this way! Nothing really matters but the game in play.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not sure that it serves no practical purpose. For example, for all the problems with Forge criticism, it has given people a set of tools with which to talk about RPG's. Now, I'm not saying that Forgisms are right or they should be taken as gospel. Of course they shouldn't. But, to simply dismiss it as "academic" is a disservice as well.

Let us be clear about what I said - I said that argument over definitions would be academic, and non constructive. Not that definitions can't be useful, but arguing over them isn't.

Can you demonstrate to me that Forgisms were brought about through argument? As I know the history, it isn't the process that developed Forgisms. Yes, there was a lot of argument over them, but ultimately they came to be what Ron Edwards said they were, the argument over it was largely academic - the functional bits just came form Edwards, personally. Basically, for all the discussion, Forgisms are the construction of one man, not a committee.

And, as with Forgisms - you need a purpose to make the definitions useful. At the Forge, Ron Edwards, personally, had some goals in mind. I have asked repeatedly what the purpose here is, and nobody's given me a suitable answer. Until I am given a constructive purpose for them, I will view the discussion as academic.

 

[Hussar]

I didn't say it would or wouldn't, but it's an example of where technology in the fiction is completely here, which goes to the question I was responding to.



It could in theory be verified, and we certainly do know for some major games in what ways many people play them in off-brand ways.



In reality, it does change how the car was designed and natural selection will add more to that. If the producers of a car know that SUVs sell as SUVs and are used as minivans, they don't have to worry about making it a good off-road vehicle. It has to look like a good SUV, has to sell to the family who believes they're going to be exploring the wilderness every weekend, and work like a good minivan. And to the extent that the designers don't do, the market probably will. The stories in the air will be how the SUV did fail them, not how it would have had they gone off-road.

For RPGs? Again, I have to wonder if Werewolf and Vampire employees ever with forethought added the high-concept intro but wrote a decent part of the book for the people who wanted their characters to rip out human throats with their teeth. Even to the extent they didn't, I bet that was part of the thing that shaped the White Wolf market, that caused Changeling and Wraith to fail while Werewolf and Vampire raged on; that is, that section of the market supported those games that facilitated ultraviolence as well as the high concept and didn't support those games that supported only the high-concept genre all the White Wolf were seemingly designed for.

So, yes, I do believe it changes how they were designed, that they wrote books that would sell, which are those that support the styles the customers want.



To the extend I said you can ignore the text of the game, I repudiate that. (But I don't know where "criticizing" came from.) But the text of the game is more like the screenplay of the movie then the movie itself, since the game is not normally enjoyed by reading it alone (well, at least to the extent it is, I believe that's beyond the scope of the current discussion.) And certain movies and certain games may have inexplicable popularity until you understand what's going on. Rocky Horror Picture Show is a minor picture blown up by how the audience responded to it. I don't think you can truly understand any edition of D&D without understanding what came before it. Why the set of races in D&D 5? Not a single race could the developers really say "we needed this type of race of the type of fantasy we wanted" instead of "we didn't want the Gnomish Liberation Army to hit our houses again" and "we kept getting anonymous emails with pictures of dragons swallowing gnomes whole and the gnomes had the faces of D&D developers on them".

And who really cares how the game is supposed to be played? We're gamers, and good games are ones that play well in practice, and frequently even if the developer is there to explain how it's supposed to be played, maybe people like it better this way! Nothing really matters but the game in play.

Criticised=analysed. Sorry, lit crit in me jumped into my fingers.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You cannot ignore the text of the game when criticising that game. It would be like saying we can ignore the movie Star Wars when criticising the movie Star Wars.

Why not? I mean all that matters is what the system is good for at the table. Sure we don't have peer reviewed studies on table styles but we do have our experiences at the table. Ultimately that is what is important because that is the experience one is seeking to enhance through discussion. I mean design goals and intent are important, they can matter, but game designers are not omnipotent, they design games and release them. Their mechanics often have unintended uses they never anticipated. Arguably the designers of 3E never truly intended for players to be able to optimize to the extent they did after its release. But optimization itself became a focus of play for many, many tables. One thing I have learned putting games out is you have to listen to what the fans are doing with your system, you can't just put it out with notes about how you want the game to be played and assume that is the only thing the book is good for. So I think one could ignore the text of a game while critiquing it to an extent, particularly if the text didn't foresee something that emerged later during play at different tables. I think this is particularly true of forewords, where the designers often see the game being used one way, but actual tables often have their own interpretation which differs from the stated purpose in the foreword but still naturally flows from the mechanics themselves. Obviously as a player I pay attention to what the designers state but I am also not going to limit play to that if other obvious things leap out at me.

 

[Hussar]

But, again, we're back to duelling anecdotes. "Many player", "many tables", "lots of people", who knows how many these actually are? Is the Charops board at the WOTC site indicative of how the mainstream player plays D&D? I don't know and neither do you. Voices of what fans? Fans who post on websites like En World? Good grief, we've seen poll after poll where the average age of respondents on EN World is about a decade or two older than the average D&D player. I mean, the average age of a Paizo Dragon reader was about 22 - at least according to their own magazine poll done a few years back. The average age here is darn near 40.

So, what's the truth here? Are gnomes a beloved element of D&D, or a minor element that got blown out of proportion? I don't know. And, again, neither do you.

As far as what the point of categorisation is, well, it provides tools in order to assess issues with a game. @Profislaes talks about Vampire, and I'm assuming OWoD here. Now, was original Vampire a story game or a traditional RPG? It billed itself as more of a story game, but, mechanically, it was pretty much stock standard trad RPG. And, IMO, therein lie the problems with the system. As a trad game, it lacked the rigourous math that trad RPG's need. It was ludicrously easy to break VtM during chargen. You almost had to actively try to not break the system, it was so easy to break. But, as a story game, it lacked all the elements that story games need - the devolution of power and authority over the game from the DM (or Storyteller in this case) to the players. It was too much of a traditional game to really work very well as a story game.

So, you wound up with a game that looked like an R rated Supers game. It was Watchmen with fangs. Not that that is a bad thing, but, it wasn't the goal that was being set out.

Having the categorisation and analytical tools that categorisation brings to the table means that you can look at a game and judge it's flaws and good bits much better than if you treat each game as a unique item with no relationship to other games. Further blurring the lines by adding in "well, this is how someone plays" just makes it that much harder to have a discussion about the game. "Well, in my game, PC's only gain levels every fifteen sessions, so, this game levels up really slowly", is not a useful bit of data to anyone other than a player at your table.