Sorry but ENWorld has met many needs in my life since I quit politics: community, vibrant discourse and brutalizing people in debate. I am going to fulfil this latter desire this morning, contrary to the very best efforts of Sweeney to head me off. Oops. As I'm writing this, I see he's been sucked in by the temptation too.
mythusmage said:
statements re RPGs is based on first hand experience. I have found that relying on what someone else says about a phenomenon leads to error and misunderstanding.
This, right here, is the essential problem with your approach, mythusmage. What this restricted data set allows you to do is make generalizations about the kinds of games you have played. It does not permit you to make generalizations about types of games that others have played and you have not. But let's look at where you take your worldview:
The fact there are Narrativist RPGs around does nothing to support the claim RPGs are a form of story telling... RPGs do not model story, they model real life. The events in an RPG are imaginary, but they more closely resemble real life than story.... Storytelling certainly has a place in RPG, but it's not during actual play.
You see, most people with an empirical approach to the world would, at least for a moment, ask themselves, "If all these people are reporting experiencing gaming differently than I do, might it be possible that they are having types of gaming experiences I have not had?" You don't do that. You assume, "My experience of gaming contains the full range of all possible experiences of gaming. Therefore, when somebody reports having a different experience than I have had, they must be mistaken about what they have experienced." I suggest that you visit a professional to have your ego boundaries checked. You have never played an RPG that seeks to model story nor will you accept the accounts of people who play them about what they are like; so how can you possibly declare that RPGs cannot model story as a matter of definition?
My goal is to change how people see RPGs, not how they play them.
But if you won't accept people's evidence when they tell you how they experience RPGs, how can you propose to change their experience of them?
You appear to assume I'm a simulationist, when I've said nothing about simulating anything. To clarify, I've said nothing about how RPGs simulate life. I have said on a number of occasions that RPGs are like life for thus and such reason
Further evidence that you haven't read the GNS theory. Now, granted, like you, I don't hold with the theory in its entirety; for instance, narrativism is too narrow a category and effectively defines a bunch of game dynamics/mechanics that act directly on story as simulationist rather than narrativist; for another thing, the language is occult and judgemental (your literal interpretation of what simulationism means being another expample of this flaw). But, at least I know the theory when I debate people about it. If you understood Edwards' definition of simulationism, you would know that your view of RPGs is nothing short of an archetypal case of it. It seems you have little business suggesting a theory should be supplanted by your own if you haven't bothered to discern what the theory is even saying. In the same vein, you say,
As far as I can see, the Narrativist meme is based on the supposition that RPGs are like, analogous, to stories. Since RPGs by their very nature cannot be like stories, the Narrativist Stance has no real validity. There are games that treat RPGs like story, but when you observe what goes on in a session you'll note that what happens is nothing like a story.
Again, I can criticize you and Edwards at the same time, Edwards for using terms with counter-intuitive definitions, you, for obviously not bothering to read and understand his definition of narrativism and, for assuming that it is impossible by definition for an RPG to fit into your definition of storytelling (Edwards actually characterizes this type of game as
Illusionism rather than
Narrativism but, at least he recognizes that it is possible for such games not only to exist but to be fulfilling).
My statements re RPGs is based on first hand experience. I have found that relying on what someone else says about a phenomenon leads to error and misunderstanding. And that the conclusion arrived at very often depends on the author's starting assumptions.
Have the conclusions reached by those stuidies on story telling and RPG theory been tested? Or is it a case of, "That sounds good, we'll go with it."? Are they, in other words, good science?
So, let's compare the amount of testing Edwards & Co. have done to develop their theory to the amount you have done to develop yours. Now, I'm the first to accuse Edwards of a strong theoretical bias but may I ask how you can feel so certain that your own starting assumptions aren't getting in the way of your understanding of things? It seems to me that accusations that someone is not practicing good science hold a lot more water when you can show that you have practiced or at least intend to practice better science.
I note that you would not answer my question about storytelling in oral tradition cultures, in which more than one narrator works together to improvisationally generate story. I note, in your response to Umbran's account of making up a story to tell a friend's child, you responded,
Sometimes the plot is laid down before the telling, sometimes it's laid down during the telling. Now, while you were telling the tale when did the characters have any opportunity to change the course of events of their own accord?
Mythusmage, in narrativist and other games in which mechanics act directly on story, the
characters don't change anything. The players do. And that certainly could have happened in Umbran's annecdote. What if Umbran's friend's son had said at some point during the tale, "Is this when he met the Ninja-Bison?" If Umbran had not been thinking of a Ninja-Bison but then promptly included one, the storytelling would have been both unpredictable and collaboratively narrated. (I personally find this an unfulfilling way to generate story but for many people who play narrativist games, it can be great fun if done right.) Now, I think I'll conclude by just repeating myself in response to your last statement to me:
Sometimes things are what they are. African-Americans have dark skin. A fact that has lead no small number of people over the years to grossly underestimate African-American capabilities. A 'what is' leading to many a fallacious 'must be'. In the case of RPGs we get something that one could characterize as; since what happens in an adventure is imaginary, it must be like a story.
My argument is, no it doesn't. What we have with RPGs is something new. Something that is imaginary, something that contains what are by any definition fictional events, but is not a story. What happens during a session is make believe, and yet true. (Aint that a bundle of contradictions? ) I submit, sir, that by trying to make RPGs fit the story paradigm one is limiting what RPGs could be, and limiting enjoyment of the hobby. It is, in short, limiting the audience and thus limiting the viability of the hobby and industry.
Now, speaking of things with darkly-coloured surfaces, I think the kettle has something to say to you. Your argument is that because it is possible for RPGs to not be storytelling, it is therefore impossible for them to ever be storytelling. Talk about limiting possibilities. The majority of RPGs do not generate story by engaging in storytelling; but a minority do. I am not trying to make RPGs fit into any paradigm, story or otherwise.
You are the one insisting that all RPGs must be
NOT STORY. It is you, not the rest of us, who is seeking to jam the entire range of possible RPG play into your sorry excuse for a paradigm. You may recall, I entered this debate agreeing with you that I approach the rules as the physics of the world, just as you do. Your problem is that you have intellectually limited yourself so you cannot conceive of a system of physics in which narrative structures are part of the inherent nature of reality and people can act directly upon them.
) does is dictated by the player...or author. The character in an RPG has no more freedom of action than a character in a story.
