D&D 5E [+] Explain RPG theory without using jargon

[Ovinomancer]

@Umbran, I'm unclear as to what moderation action I am to follow with the above. Can you clarify so that I can be in compliance?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Reading The Elusive Shift by Peterson is really eye opening. I’d recommend it to anyone with even a slight interest in RPG history and/or theory. Or even anyone curious about why we’re seemingly stuck having the same dozen or so conversations ad nauseam. The theory related to the hobby has existed as long as, if not longer than, the hobby.

Again, a lot of people’s first blush with RPG theory comes from the Forge. Granted. But conflating that with spearheading or inventing theory is like conflating your weird uncle who introduced you to Pink Floyd with Pink Floyd. Just because the Forge is the first place people came across theory doesn’t mean the Forge invented it.

Narrativism as a stated concept didn't exist prior to the Forge. Some people did things that resembled it, but the concept was created at the Forge. This is the huge thing credited to the Forge -- it didn't actually exist prior to the exploration and formulation of it at the Forge.

Your argument is akin to saying that theories that expand upon and let us actually understand how gravity works are useless because gravity always existed. Except that it's dubious that the thing you're claiming actually existed prior, so not at all like gravity. I get that you want to argue that the discussions about how games work haven't changed, but they have, and a major inflection point was the Forge. The discussion looks similar because few people involved in the hobby really care and many fewer of those that do ever get out of the mainstream box to look at a broader application of RPGs. Those that do run almost immediately into the ideas of the Forge because they have so much weight in how they changed the conversation and provided new ideas.

 

[Umbran]

@Umbran, I'm unclear as to what moderation action I am to follow with the above. Can you clarify so that I can be in compliance?

Mod Note:
1) I answered in-thread previously, for sake of speed. But, in general, the thread is not the place for discussion of moderation. Take it to PM in the future, please.

2) You publicly asked me to do a thing for you. I said no.

3) The only thing that I've asked folks not to do is to invoke tone policing over issues of minor actual import. So, don't do that.

4) IF you choose to go back to the main thread topic (this is not a requirement, it is a choice you get to make), then if folks continue to pepper you with questions about Edwards' rhetoric, that might be considered a problem. If, instead, you are going to continue talking about Edwards, then questions about his rhetoric should be fair game.

 

[Malmuria]

My overall thoughts on the use of jargon is better expressed here:

Third, the author will claim to be a "big tent" and unbiased observer of the typologies seeking only to end the prior debates, while actually the author of the theory is looking to continue the debate and, more often than not, delegitimatize other methods of play through the seemingly-neutral goal of helping people design and play 'better.' Fourth, and finally, the author will inevitably make the act same points that were made years or decades ago.

I suppose if I were to add anything it would be to say that showing that your theory/criticism/general thoughts operate from a particular perspective does not diminish that theory; rather it strengthens it. In other contexts this is what is known as “positionality.” So, in this (comparatively low stakes) context, instead of making claims as to what Vampire or CoC players like, and calling that participationism or gmstorytime or zero agency or whatever, you might just say, ‘I have no idea why Vampire players like that terrible game, but here’s why I don’t’ and go from there. In other words:

But pretending that its not a criticism is bizarre, not only because it clearly is, but because the fact that it is a swipe at Vampire is what makes it an insightful point in the first place. Perhaps there was an idea that a theory needs to be abstract and neutral, devoid of historical context; certainly theory in other fields operates under this assumption. But I think you can admit that theory is motivated (the definitely not that aspect of it) and not only is it not a problem, but is helpful.

I did not quote Edward’s incoherence essay to shut down conversation. Other people cite and quote articles from Edwards or Baker at length and discuss them, so I thought that was an ok thing to do. I think I had read it before, but it was instructive to read it again. I think it’s pretty clear, at least in that essay, that he thinks that incoherence—>dysfunction and that it is a thing to avoid in design, with Vampire being patient zero. Perhaps I’m misreading it, or there is context from his other essays, but nowhere does he suggest that incoherence leads to ‘functional’ gameplay or that incoherence is a design goal, and if it was, it wouldn’t be called that, it would be called ‘hybrid.’ That’s a very clear position—incoherence is to be avoided, or at best reconciled into a game that is hybrid. So I don’t understand why people would use ‘incoherence’ as a theoretical term but erase the positionality that gives that term meaning.

That said, if you really want to communicate with other people, people with different positionalities, it takes a certain amount of work. For example, in OSR groups, there is a strong sentiment of 5e (or 3e, or 4e) sux. Which in one sense is fine, as it helps them sharpen their own gaming preferences, but it doesn’t do much to communicate with existing 5e players. If you don’t do that, you can be prepared for responses like this:

My god is his writing off-putting. It’s like he’s actively trying to signal that I am not welcome, and that the the things I like are awful and wrong.

Which is unfortunate? I would never want to make someone feel not welcome to that degree, especially over a topic like gaming. But then, I suppose if you see trad games as so much shadow play against the cave wall, then there’s no way to communicate what true light looks like; they have to leave the cave. But hey, if you are content to being chained up in a cave watching illusions, have fun!

 

[hawkeyefan]

What I find unfortunate is that people choose to disregard everything else that Edwards said to instead focus on the brain damage comment. I get it was a bit insulting, but given the kind of hyperbole folks tend to use around these parts, is it really that much of an insult? Really?

I was one of the people he was talking about. I was entirely unaware of this at the time, as the Forge came and went before I was even aware of it. I had only ever played traditional RPGs, and so when I started discussing them online in about 2015 or so, I was absolutely proceeding with cognitive bias. I fit his description to a tee.

I remain uninsulted by what he said. Like, I just don't care enough to whine about it years after the fact.

I feel like if people would just shrug off the brain damage comment.... like just don't pay any attention to it.... and look at the other things he has to say, we'd all be far better off. It actually seemed like the conversation was taking a positive turn. Folks were discussing these things, and doing so productively.

It'd be awesome to go back to that. Let's just accept he worded an idea poorly, and not dwell on it. Or else we should collectively hold Gygax and every other major figure in the hobby to the same standards.

 

[Malmuria]

Or else we should collectively hold Gygax and every other major figure in the hobby to the same standards.

We should! That would be a very long thread though, unfortunately…

 

[overgeeked]

Narrativism as a stated concept didn't exist prior to the Forge. Some people did things that resembled it, but the concept was created at the Forge. This is the huge thing credited to the Forge -- it didn't actually exist prior to the exploration and formulation of it at the Forge.

Please define narrativism in plain English, in your own words, without resorting to tautology or quoting Edwards.

Your argument is akin to saying that theories that expand upon and let us actually understand how gravity works are useless because gravity always existed. Except that it's dubious that the thing you're claiming actually existed prior, so not at all like gravity.

Not at all. My argument is pointing out that lots of people have worked on understanding how gravity works and that fans of a particular scientist are wildly overestimating his importance when they wrongly claim that their guy was the first to do something when we have the receipts pointing to others having done the same and better decades earlier.

I get that you want to argue that the discussions about how games work haven't changed, but they have...

They really haven't. Go read The Elusive Shift.

a major inflection point was the Forge.

Not so much. The Forge was a gathering place for a lot of more recent designers and conversation about theory, yes. But the majority (all?) of the theory talked about there has been talked about since the late '60s, if not since the 1800s. At absolute best, Edwards gave old theories new names.

The discussion looks similar because few people involved in the hobby really care and many fewer of those that do ever get out of the mainstream box to look at a broader application of RPGs.

The discussions look similar because they are similar, if not identical to conversations that have swirled around the hobby since at least the beginning, if not much further back.

Those that do run almost immediately into the ideas of the Forge because they have so much weight in how they changed the conversation and provided new ideas.

Even a bad examination of the history of the hobby shows this is patently false. People who care about RPGs and theory run into Forge jargon because fans of it think it's the beginning and end of theory. They're explicitly wrong. We literally have documentation of fans talking about these exact same things since the late '60s.

 

[overgeeked]

We should! That would be a very long thread though, unfortunately…

Right. What a silly argument. "You don't hold these other toxic people to this standard!" Yeah, actually we do. There are long, long threads spread across many RPG sites about just how toxic some of the people listed are or were. If someone thinks the fandom doesn't hold them to the same standard it's because that person isn't paying attention.

 

[Charlaquin]

What I find unfortunate is that people choose to disregard everything else that Edwards said to instead focus on the brain damage comment. I get it was a bit insulting, but given the kind of hyperbole folks tend to use around these parts, is it really that much of an insult? Really?

I was one of the people he was talking about. I was entirely unaware of this at the time, as the Forge came and went before I was even aware of it. I had only ever played traditional RPGs, and so when I started discussing them online in about 2015 or so, I was absolutely proceeding with cognitive bias. I fit his description to a tee.

I remain uninsulted by what he said. Like, I just don't care enough to whine about it years after the fact.

I feel like if people would just shrug off the brain damage comment.... like just don't pay any attention to it.... and look at the other things he has to say, we'd all be far better off. It actually seemed like the conversation was taking a positive turn. Folks were discussing these things, and doing so productively.

It'd be awesome to go back to that. Let's just accept he worded an idea poorly, and not dwell on it. Or else we should collectively hold Gygax and every other major figure in the hobby to the same standards.

The thing is, when I look at the rest of what he has to say, I get exactly the same impression the brain damage comment gives, just under a veneer of pseudo-academic impartiality. That’s why people don’t just ignore the brain damage thing and focus on the rest of his writing: the brain damage thing is characteristic of what they perceive in the rest of his writing. They don’t trot it out to say “look, he said the problematic thing, so we can ignore everything else he says,” they bring it up to illustrate that no, they’re not just imagining the vitriol they perceive in his less openly-resentful writing. Underneath the mask, he really does hate the games we enjoy and look down on us for enjoying them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's somewhat interesting to note that Edwards has been invoked by detractors before being mentioned by anyone more favorable to his essays in every case in this thread.

My overall thoughts on the use of jargon is better expressed here:


I suppose if I were to add anything it would be to say that showing that your theory/criticism/general thoughts operate from a particular perspective does not diminish that theory; rather it strengthens it. In other contexts this is what is known as “positionality.” So, in this (comparatively low stakes) context, instead of making claims as to what Vampire or CoC players like, and calling that participationism or gmstorytime or zero agency or whatever, you might just say, ‘I have no idea why Vampire players like that terrible game, but here’s why I don’t’ and go from there. In other words:

This is an ad hominin attack. You're choosing to focus on the phrasing used by the person to discard their ideas. Essentially saying that a better person saying it in a better way makes the ideas better. I reject this concept.

It's entirely fair to say that the choice of wording makes it hard for you to engage with the ideas, but that's not what's happening. Instead we see strawmen erected for the ideas based on the dislike of the wording and then the entire concept dismissed. Edwards is going to piss some people off. I get that. I get that it's hard to engage something that pisses you off. You don't have to. But being pissed off doesn't enable you to claim that the entire idea provided is false, or misrepresent it to claim it's falsity.

I did not quote Edward’s incoherence essay to shut down conversation. Other people cite and quote articles from Edwards or Baker at length and discuss them, so I thought that was an ok thing to do. I think I had read it before, but it was instructive to read it again. I think it’s pretty clear, at least in that essay, that he thinks that incoherence—>dysfunction and that it is a thing to avoid in design, with Vampire being patient zero. Perhaps I’m misreading it, or there is context from his other essays, but nowhere does he suggest that incoherence leads to ‘functional’ gameplay or that incoherence is a design goal, and if it was, it wouldn’t be called that, it would be called ‘hybrid.’ That’s a very clear position—incoherence is to be avoided, or at best reconciled into a game that is hybrid. So I don’t understand why people would use ‘incoherence’ as a theoretical term but erase the positionality that gives that term meaning.

He wasn't saying incoherence --> dysfunction. He has other articles praising the use of incoherency in other games. So, that's not it. Instead, he's pointing out a specific case where the incoherence leads to the dysfunction. Specific case. You're reversing that argument to be a general one. It's not.

Incoherence in the essay means conflicting agendas. That's it. How that incoherence is resolved -- not fixed, but resolved in play -- can be really nice design. @Manbearcat wrote quite the love letter to Torchbearer in how it intentionally invites incoherency as part of it's design, and that an engaging part of play is to see how the players choose to resolve it. Edwards' comments on the Riddle of Steel are similar.

That said, if you really want to communicate with other people, people with different positionalities, it takes a certain amount of work. For example, in OSR groups, there is a strong sentiment of 5e (or 3e, or 4e) sux. Which in one sense is fine, as it helps them sharpen their own gaming preferences, but it doesn’t do much to communicate with existing 5e players. If you don’t do that, you can be prepared for responses like this:

Again, people are taking Edwards Forge essays out of their context and pretending as if he's explaining his ideas de novo in front of a general audience. It would be like taking your post I'm responding to and expecting it to be ready to read and fully understood in total context by a new audience that isn't familiar with the discussion it's embedded into. That you can take your post to a random high school classroom and expect it to be fully understood in all particulars by the students there, absent any other context or preparation. It's a ridiculous standard, and it's used to shut down discussion by making the discussion about the terminology and phraseology rather than the ideas. That the ideas are hard to get to is a given -- freely given by almost everyone in this thread (almost as a hedge word for something I've forgotten). But this difficulty is part of what's being used to dismiss the ideas. No amount of additional conversation seems to be moving the needle -- we can use plain language and explain the idea but that gets rejected for a return to the initial bad takes and complaints about terminology.

Which is unfortunate? I would never want to make someone feel not welcome to that degree, especially over a topic like gaming. But then, I suppose if you see trad games as so much shadow play against the cave wall, then there’s no way to communicate what true light looks like; they have to leave the cave. But hey, if you are content to being chained up in a cave watching illusions, have fun!

Well, Edwards doesn't see it that way, and I most certainly don't as I 100% embrace Trad (I don't like Neotrad) when I run 5e. This continued argument that there's other ways of playing being taken as saying that one way is lesser is building a strawman. It's like saying that you can get strawberry shortcake is offensive to people that like chocolate ice cream. That even suggesting that strawberry shortcake is a good desert, that it has features chocolate ice cream doesn't, is somehow saying that chocolate ice cream is bad or lesser. I happen to love both. Chocolate ice cream has features that strawberry shortcake doesn't. The requirement that I sufficiently praise chocolate ice cream to be able to mention strawberry shortcake is the actual gatekeeping that happens on these boards.