My Attempt to Define RPG's - RPG's aren't actually Games

[Hussar]

As I said earlier. The difference between Monopoly and an RPG is that the set-up portion of the RPG is much more involved. That extra involvement, though, doesn't mean that it still isn't just set-up. Monopoly and RPGs have the same play procedure. Rules-->set-up-->play.



The equivalency is not false at all. Both a bicycle and a Ferrari are vehicles. I'm comparing set-up = set-up. That's equal. The scope is all that is different and I've already acknowledged that RPGs are much more involved with set-up.

Set-up =/= scenario creation. You are creating nothing when you set up a board game. Zip. Zilch. Nada. You are following the set up rules for that game to play that game. Here is the set-up rules for Catan:

S
SET-UP, VARIABLE
Assemble the frame as outlined on pages 2-3.
Note:
If you want to vary relative harbor locations slightly, just
shuffle the order of the frame pieces AND do not place the random harbor pieces as outlined below in point 2.

Turn the terrain hexes face down. Shuffle the terrain hexes.
1. Randomly place the terrain tiles face up inside the frame arranged as shown in Illustration L.
2. Now take the 9 harbor pieces (the small 5-sided pieces with ships on them) and randomly place one on top of each harbor on the frame. See
Illustration M.
3. Place the 18 number tokens as shown in Illustration N:
• Sort the number tokens beside the board.
• Place 1 token on each land hex.
Start at a corner of the island. Place the number tokens on the terrain hexes in alphabetical order, proceding counter-clock-wise
toward the center. Skip the desert.
Important:
Alternatively
you can use a fully random set-up. Place 1 token on each land hex. Start at one corner of the island, and place the number tokens in random order. In such case, the tokens with the red numbers must not be next to each other. You may have to swap tokens to ensure that no red numbers are on adjacent hexes.
Note:
The desert never gets a number token. It should be skipped.
More set-up instructions can be found in “Set-up Phase.”

Now, what is being created there? The game, while randomizing the board, will be pretty much exactly the same as any other game of Catan. Nothing is being created. Nothing is being added or taken away. There is no actual scenario here. You're just setting up the board for play. But, play is exactly the same no matter what the board looks like. RPG's REQUIRE scenario creation. You can't just make characters and play. Heck, even at it's most basic - the random dungeon crawl - will likely require more than just going on https://donjon.bin.sh/d20/dungeon/ a random dungeon generator and playing. No one actually does this and, let's be honest, anyone who did would barely be considered playing an RPG at all.

Without that Scenario Creation step, the game doesn't happen and RPG's don't actually tell you what that scenario is. Sure, some come with canned examples, and there's always modules, but, even then, SOMEONE created that scenario before you could play.

 

[billd91]

Set-up =/= scenario creation. You are creating nothing when you set up a board game. Zip. Zilch. Nada. You are following the set up rules for that game to play that game.

Psst. There are board games out there with scenario design options - I'm just sayin'.

 

[Maxperson]

Set-up =/= scenario creation. You are creating nothing when you set up a board game. Zip. Zilch. Nada. You are following the set up rules for that game to play that game. Here is the set-up rules for Catan:

This is flat out wrong. Scenario creation does = set-up. It's part of setting up to play the game, ergo it's set-up. That you don't create when setting up a board game(and I'm pretty sure you do with a few) is irrelevant. Every game has a different way to set-up. Monopoly set-up doesn't involve setting up hex tiles. Catan set-up doesn't involve handing out fate tokens. Talisman set-up doesn't involve selecting home boards. Wizwar set-up doesn't involve setting up money. D&D doesn't have a board. It's all set-up of various types.

 

[Hussar]

Psst. There are board games out there with scenario design options - I'm just sayin'.

Sure. But, again, they're just variations on the basic game. Heck, even the Catan example I gave a few posts ago has that. But, at no point can you add a volcano to your Catan board. You don't actually create anything - just rejigger what's already there.

This is flat out wrong. Scenario creation does = set-up. It's part of setting up to play the game, ergo it's set-up. That you don't create when setting up a board game(and I'm pretty sure you do with a few) is irrelevant. Every game has a different way to set-up. Monopoly set-up doesn't involve setting up hex tiles. Catan set-up doesn't involve handing out fate tokens. Talisman set-up doesn't involve selecting home boards. Wizwar set-up doesn't involve setting up money. D&D doesn't have a board. It's all set-up of various types.

Nope. It really doesn't. Creation =/= set up. Sorry, but no. If you're honestly going to equate laying out a chess board with creating a scenario for an RPG, then, well, we're not going to agree here. We're not even speaking the same language.

See, in an RPG, I could add hex-tiles to Monopoly. I could add money to Wizwar. I could set up pretty much any scenario using the game system, and the only limit, generally, is the genre of the game. I'm probably not going to run a Feudal Lords type game with Traveler rules. Fair enough. But, I certainly might go from a dungeon crawl scenario to a hexploration scenario to an economic simulator scenario of running a kingdom within the span of three D&D scenarios. And, in each case, even though the players are doing entirely different things, they are all still playing D&D.

Laying out a game board requires zero creation. You can't have a scenario without creating something. Thus scenario creation is not the same as setting up a game board.

Creation is THE ENTIRE POINT OF THIS DISCUSSION. Apparently you missed that. Going all the way back to my first post, my distinction between RPG's and other kinds of games is that you must create a scenario to play. No other games have that requirement.

 

[billd91]

Sure. But, again, they're just variations on the basic game. Heck, even the Catan example I gave a few posts ago has that. But, at no point can you add a volcano to your Catan board. You don't actually create anything - just rejigger what's already there.

You're completely underestimating what I'm getting at and considering you're so entrenched in your position that RPGs are wholely unique in this, that I'm not surprised. Dig into some Advanced Squad Leader, particularly Chapter H, and you'll have a better understanding of just how similar the game is to RPGs when it comes to designing scenarios and how analogous the published scenarios and campaign games are to adventures and adventure paths.

The options in ASL are more limited and structured, yes, but that just reinforces the idea that these games are on a continuum of customizability rather than proving RPGs are in some kind of unique space all on their own.

 

[Maxperson]

Nope. It really doesn't. Creation =/= set up. Sorry, but no. If you're honestly going to equate laying out a chess board with creating a scenario for an RPG, then, well, we're not going to agree here. We're not even speaking the same language.

Set-up = set-up. It equates on that level. Where it doesn't equate is in the scope of the set-up.

But, I certainly might go from a dungeon crawl scenario to a hexploration scenario to an economic simulator scenario of running a kingdom within the span of three D&D scenarios. And, in each case, even though the players are doing entirely different things, they are all still playing D&D.

And I could go from a game with Cities and Knights to a game with Seafarers to a game with just the base set and they are all Catan.

Laying out a game board requires zero creation. You can't have a scenario without creating something. Thus scenario creation is not the same as setting up a game board.

You're fixated on creation like it means something. In the context of set-up, it means nothing. Creation is just a type of set-up that happens in RPGs and some board games.

Creation is THE ENTIRE POINT OF THIS DISCUSSION. Apparently you missed that. Going all the way back to my first post, my distinction between RPG's and other kinds of games is that you must create a scenario to play. No other games have that requirement.

Sure, but it's irrelevant to whether or not RPGs have the same three steps as every other game. Rules-->Set-up-->Play. RPGs and board games all use those three steps. Creation is simply a type of set-up.

 

[pemerton]

That's my point that scenario creation is part of the game. It's only part of the game for RPG's. RPG's are the only games where it's required that you must create a game before you can play

You keep focusing on the prep side. That's largely irrelevant. It really doesn't matter.

Well, I only focus on it because you keep mentioning it - see eg the above quote: You must create a game before you can play.

What matters is the scenario creation. You cannot play an RPG without creating a scenario. Full stop. When you create that, who cares? That's not important. The fact that you HAVE TO CREATE A SCENARIO is the important part. Board games and other games do not have this step.

<snip>

There are no "set up" rules for an RPG. There are some guidelines, sure, but, the scenario you create, whether as the GM or collaboratively as in some other RPG's, MUST BE CREATED before you can play.

It's not (necessarily) a step. Again, that's framing it as prep. It's not something that must be created before you can play. I gave examples - ]url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?530990-Into-the-North-Cortex-Plus-Heroic-Fantasy-actual-play]the Cortex+ Heroic[/ur] is the best - where the "scenario" (ie significant parts of the shared fiction) was established as part of the back-and-forth of play.

The GM/referee telling the players Here's what your PCs know and see and then asking What do you do about it? is part of playing the game. Just like throwing a ball in basketball isn't a step that you take before you can play the game. It's part of playing the game.

You read the rules of a board game, which tell you how to set up the board - even if the set up is somewhat randomized - and then you play THAT GAME. And, generally speaking, that game will be pretty close to every other game played with the same rules.

This is simply not true in an RPG.

<snip>

You could not play your Traveler game without you, as GM, creating the scenario that the players played through. The rules helped you create the scenario, but, certainly didn't tell you what that scenario had to be.

The rules of backgammon don't tell me what a good move is. I work that out through combination of mathematical reasoning and setting a floor on the risk I want to take.

Part of learning to play backgammon, and enjoying the play of it, is learning how to work those things out.

The rules of Traveller don't tell me exactly what I should tell the players about what their PCs know and see, though they give me useful resources for establishing some parts of that. Part of learning how to be a good referee for Traveller, or a compentent GM in general, is building up your ability to work out what to say in that respect; and working out what to say when they answer the question So, what do you do?

But that's all playing the game.

Some RPGs encourage working out the answers to those things in advance; and some RPGers strongly prefer that sort of approach. One could liken that to studying all the opening in chess, although the resemblance obviously is imperfect. But working that stuff out in advance isn't inherent to RPGing. Whereas the stuff that I've emphasised - the GM tellling the players what their PCs know and see, and asking them, on that basis, what they (ie what their PCs) do, and then responding to that - is inherent to RPGing (or at least all mainstream approaches to it).

 

[pemerton]

Without that Scenario Creation step, the game doesn't happen and RPG's don't actually tell you what that scenario is. Sure, some come with canned examples, and there's always modules, but, even then, SOMEONE created that scenario before you could play.

Again, you seem to equate telling other people some stuff (ie establishing a shared fiction) with something that has to happen before you can play a RPG. But that equation is false. I can establishe a shared fiction without preparing it - and doing that is (part of) playing a RPG.

 

[Sadras]

Again, you seem to equate telling other people some stuff (ie establishing a shared fiction) with something that has to happen before you can play a RPG. But that equation is false. I can establishe a shared fiction without preparing it - and doing that is (part of) playing a RPG.

Just playing a little bit of devil's advocate here as I have no leg in this discussion. Do you usually have a session 0? And if yes, what is its purpose other than to, at minumum, mentally prep you?

 

[pemerton]

Do you usually have a session 0?

No.

The last session I playd (and GMed) was a bit over a fortnight ago. I suggested Prince Valiant. The others agreed. They wrote up PCs. We started playing - two of the players decided that their knights were father and son, and that they were on the way to a tournament. The third player had decided that his knight was a member of a family renowned for its breeding of horses, and we came up with a reason why he was also heading to the tournament (it involved horses, but I can't remember now whether he was looking for buyers, or sellers, or just to admire the many horses that would be on display).

I used a total of three "episodes" - what in D&D terms would be considered "mini-scenarios" of 1 to 3 pages each - to provide material for the session (both fiction and stats). One I had read before and so knew what I was looking for when I hunted through the core rulebook to find it. The two others are in the "Episodes" supplement which I hadn't read before, and I chose one on the basis of authorship + theme (Kenneth Hite, "The Wild Hunt") and the other based on theme alone (it was a tournament scenario, and I can't remember the author's name but it wasn't someone I recognised).

Elaborating on the scenarios - eg providing NPC motivations and responses in the tournament - and connecting them together was something that I did as we went along.

Contra [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s claim, we were able to open the rulebook, read it, or at least the relevant bits of it - obviously it's longer than most boardgame rulebooks - and then start playing.

This is exactly the sort of play experience that makes me think that Hussar is write to focus on scenario as a key element of RPGing but is making a mistake in seeing it as an intermediate step that takes "game creation engine" to "game". Scenario is key because shared fiction is key - and the rules of a RPG can tell you when you need to establish some shared fiction, and they can tell you subject matters for that fiction, and they can even give suggestions for that fiction (eg as the Prince Valiant "episodes" do). But in the end the people at the table have to actually construct that fiction, because that's part of the core activity of playing a RPG.