Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[EzekielRaiden]

I did notice your efforts back then! I can't answer @Campbell's question, but the outcome of your efforts at least suggests one heuristic. The replacement label needs to be one proposed by those who find the existing label pejorative.

The burden rightly falls on them, and they are in the best position to know that their concerns are dissolved.

Okay. That burden involves more than I have seen others be willing to do. Because, instead of pursuing neutral language, once someone has claimed the right to redefine the terms of the discussion, they almost invariably do so in a way that wins the argument before it even begins.

Hence why the debates about the terms get so heated. You give someone an inch, they are nearly guaranteed to take a lightyear. You don't give someone an inch, you're a horrible awful person persecuting their beliefs or preferences. That's not reasonable or appropriate debate tactics; it is weaponizing grievance about other people trying to win the debate before it begins in order to win the debate before it begins.

There has to be a way to meet in the middle. There has to be responsible use of terminology on both sides. There has to be give AND take. Otherwise we end up with...

Spoiler

Part of the issue with "MMI" is that, to an extent, some amount of negativity in the label is relevant: the person in question is usually commenting on a difficulty that speaks to them, that they have run into logjams with previously. It would seem, to me, that the same sort of thing applies to whatever amount of "guessing game" is implied by "map and key." I, personally, think that "map and key" is not merely neutral (I had heard the term for years without anyone saying anything that sounded negative about it) but one of the more positive ways to view things. Specifically, the whole idea with "trad" D&D was that the map and its key represent the concrete, one might say "earned," player knowledge about the world. The parts that are not and cannot be "guessing," because they are established. That knowledge might be revealed to be misunderstood or deceptive. For example, adding more symbols from the key to the map due to the discovery of a previously-missed secret door. But in some sense the map is the stuff the players know and can reason from, even if it is incomplete. Hence, hearing that this term is inadequate makes me scratch my head; I am confused as to why it's a problem, because I've seen it in so many places, used by fans and critics alike, without issue. I want to know why it's a problem.

But, on that subject...

To reiterate - you agreed that at least to some extent that the term map and key was about a 'guessing game'
To reiterate - you gave the proposed explanation that people in general just don't like D&D's potential fail states to be pointed out.
To reiterate - i pointed out that this was nonsensical sense they see and interact with others experiencing D&D's fail states.
To reiterate - i asked you what else it could be? and you responded with - I don't know.
To reiterate - i then provided an alternative explanation for what the objection is and you reject it because 'i've not argued it'

I agree that there is some kind of conceptual connection, yes. I don't agree that it is "about" a "guessing game." For contrast, "FFV" is very clearly about portraying lethality as pointless and even inappropriate (given how most folks view the Vietnam War today), where "meatgrinder" is not, because that phrase is used in all sorts of places (not just TTRPGs) to refer to destructive processes and to war specifically, and strongly resembles the self-chosen (and not to my taste) label of "Combat as War."
I think people in general don't like any game's failure states being pointed out, when they are fans of that game. It just happens that we're talking about "trad" D&D here. (I say "trad" D&D because there are other approaches to D&D proper besides whatever we're calling this one.)
I don't think it is nonsensical, because I have seen lots, and lots, and LOTS, of efforts to (as I said above) "win the debate before it starts" by setting the terms in such a way that the failure states have been defined out. Consider, for instance, how readily people whip out the "well don't you TRUST YOUR DM?" or "Jeez, if you can't trust your DM, you shouldn't be playing!" arguments, which are straight-up an effort to pretend the failure states were never up for discussion to begin with--winning the argument before it even begins.
I said I don't know because I was hoping to hear more from you. You then re-stated what you had said before, which I had tried to dig into and analyze, but without actually responding to any of the things I had said. Hence, un-argued.

I'm sorry, but my argument is simple - in absence of a better explanation for what is being objected to, the only one that makes any sense is mine.

Abductive logic already isn't convincing, and I don't believe this is even the best explanation. It is simply an explanation that has been offered. I don't know why people enjoy ultra-high-lethality TTRPGs; that doesn't mean it is best for me to go with the first explanation someone offers simply because I don't have one myself.

One other question - why am I getting the Spanish Inquistion over stating I didn't like the term 'map and key' despite using it in discussion. Why does it really matter whether I like it or not? Why do I have to prove it's a bad term instead of just explaining why I dislike it? Why is this that important?

It wasn't my intent to. I tend to over-analyze; I tend to dig in any time I have something I don't understand and ask questions to try to determine exactly what the issue is and how it can be addressed. Since this is the first time I had ever heard such issues about this term, I admit I have some bias against your position; when I have heard even stridently pro-("trad"-)D&D folks use this phrase without a second thought as to the term being pejorative or connoting something they dislike, I start primed to wonder why it is a problem here, for you, when it has not in my experience been a problem for anyone else.

As for why it matters? You brought it up. I was addressing what I thought was an intentional discussion point, as others had also done. I really don't care that much about it, despite my logorrheic torrent above. I almost never use the term myself because I'm not really in the business of analyzing that particular aspect of TTRPG play, whether in D&D or anywhere else.* I'm perfectly fine just not using it, I just thought that this was a chance to dig into a terminology discussion and make it productive. Hence why I tried to get really specific, and technique-focused, with my discussion of what this sort of play entails and why people find it valuable and engaging (but also why it can easily run into trouble, which I genuinely do think fans of early/"trad" D&D have a tendency to overlook.)

It's a form of familiarity blindness. You see something very similar from people immersed in video games when talking to people who have genuinely zero experience with them. Concepts as foundational and nearly-universal as "there's a button you press to jump" or "you can control your motion in midair" or "you don't keep moving if you release the directional controls" are emphatically not trivial, but most gamers think they are. Or if we delve into MMO specifics, the idea of something like "auto attack" is a no-brainer for any MMO fan, but can be a totally unexpected thing for someone who's never touched an MMO in their life. These are points of failure, ones that can be easily overlooked by people who are deeply immersed in a particular method or approach or genre...which are the people we generally expect to design such games.

I see "map and key"--which, again, I'm not attached to so I will gladly stop using it after this post--as being similar to "coming of age novel" or "romcom." It is both a description of what is involved in such a work, and a reminder of what responsibilities the creator has when making such a work. A "coming of age" novel is often at increased risk of "Mary Sue" type characters (regardless of gender), because adolescent wish-fulfillment fantasy is a common theme addressed by the process of coming of age, especially since most fiction is focused on protagonists who are special in some way and thus more interesting to read about. Or consider "slice of life" works, which are often maligned for being dull or boring or not going anywhere; one could argue that "slice of life" is pejorative because it puts front and center the lack of coherent plot or any conclusive ending, because a slice out of a real person's life doesn't have a "plot" or an "ending" (other than "person dies" by whatever thing, which will usually be unsatisfying!) Yet that is the accepted, sometimes even celebrated label. Should we stop using it if fans of (say) The Fault in Our Stars dislike the connotation that "slice of life" means lacking in plot, conflict, or satisfying endings?

*For the record, I find that "map and key," used slightly more loosely, applies to a ton of other games that emphatically aren't D&D, like most White Wolf adventures I've played. There are right and wrong answers, there's secret knowledge the Storyteller knows and the players are obliged to extract from them, and ultimately the goal is to make the best judgments you can, hopefully with all the pre-existing information actually available to you.

 

[clearstream]

Okay. That burden involves more than I have seen others be willing to do. Because, instead of pursuing neutral language, once someone has claimed the right to redefine the terms of the discussion, they almost invariably do so in a way that wins the argument before it even begins.

Hence why the debates about the terms get so heated. You give someone an inch, they are nearly guaranteed to take a lightyear. You don't give someone an inch, you're a horrible awful person persecuting their beliefs or preferences. That's not reasonable or appropriate debate tactics; it is weaponizing grievance about other people trying to win the debate before it begins in order to win the debate before it begins.

You make a good point. There may be a helpful distinction to be made here between label and definition. The interlocuters are likely focused on debating some definition and its supposed consequences. The label is getting in the way, probably because it is drawing into the debate some semantic loading that one side find pejorative.

I think your concern implies that what that side found pejorative is in fact definitionally important to the other. Very well then, we should relabel and transition any semantically loading into an articulated element of the definition. That is, if those on the other side really did all along intend that to apply (which they might well not!)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You make a good point. There may be a helpful distinction to be made here between label and definition. The interlocuters are likely focused on debating some definition and its supposed consequences. The label is getting in the way, probably because it is drawing into the debate some semantic loading that one side find pejorative.

I think your concern implies that what that side found pejorative is in fact definitionally important to the other. Very well then, we should relabel and transition any semantically loading into an articulated element of the definition. That is, if those on the other side really did all along intend that to apply (which they might well not!)

Which, for me, is one of the reasons why terms that are ready to hand and do not have obvious faults are at least worth being considered, even if they are imperfect or carry some connotations that are undesirable. My "FFV" vs "meatgrinder" example seems productive here.

"FFV" ("Fantasy F#$@ing Vietnam") clearly has issues. It's vulgar, for one, and it makes a direct and explicit comparison between an entertainment activity that (ideally) should be fun for everyone involved, and an incredibly ugly, pointless, horrific conflict that ultimately achieved absolutely nothing beyond killing a lot of people and causing future problems (e.g. the claimed association between Agent Orange and birth defects.) I don't think there's any way one can use "FFV" and not mean something pejorative by it.

By comparison, "meatgrinder" (sometimes two words) is a term used by the general public for all sorts of violent and/or destructive things. It is usually associated with war, but not always. Metaphorically, an office job (say, at a call center) with an extremely high turnover rate may be referred to as a "meatgrinder," because one can draw an analogy between it and sending soldiers out to their doom. The term "bloodbath" is another one frequently used metaphorically to refer to something highly destructive/damaging even though no literal violence is involved. Generally, while "meatgrinder" has a negative connotation in the sense that it is implicitly needless death/destruction/damage, that connotation surely must be lessened in the context of a game, where the entities killed/destroyed/damaged are not actual people.

Hence, if someone were to complain about the use of the term "meatgrinder" because it has negative connotations, I would feel justified in responding that the term is both common use, and appropriate to the context; it is impossible to talk about the high and random lethality of early editions without recognizing that it is both high and random, and it is that very combination which is captured by "meatgrinder." To remove the negative connotation (the element of "needless/pointless/unsatisfying") would be to remove a key part of what makes it descriptive in the first place.

 

[Manbearcat]

I do strongly disagree with @Manbearcat that guesswork is somehow dysfunctional. It’s pretty much standard exploration in nearly any dungeon scenario.

It’s one of the big reasons I’m such a strong advocate for dropping maps as treasure or letting npcs give information about what is nearby.

Most of the time, IME, pcs are flying mostly blind. Isn’t that the whole point of “what’s around that hill” style hexploration? That no one knows the answers and you are the ones learning.

A couple of clarifiers (though I'm not sure this will put us in the same camp):

* When I'm talking about "guesswork", I'm adding an implicit "blind" to it. Basically, "guesswork where the decision being made is consequential but not meaningful because the player is neither capable of building out a base of inference nor drawing upon a suite of knowledge/resources to inform their line of play." As such, I'm talking about instances where the chosen line of play in question is unmoored from any indexing of skill (both in the way it impacts the present gamestate and the throughline of the gamestate); you cannot contrast it against an alternative chosen line of play and say "yeah...should have seen that coming" or "should have made that move/charted that course instead."

* This "blind guesswork" might come up (go right at the fork instead of left) but it is both (a) rare that this type of uninformed decision governs play and (b) the stakes of such stray uninformed decisions aren't sufficient to perturb the gamestate brutally (death traps that are unrecoverable, nigh-unrecoverable, or the only way to recover is by spending resources that dramatically impact the course of the delve/crawl). Putting it together, significantly consequential yet uninformed lines of play/decisions are somewhere between extreme anomalies or fundamentally don't occur.

If you find yourself still shaking your head in disagreement, then we're at a <shake hands> and "good thing we aren't at the same table" crossroads @Hussar !

 

[clearstream]

Which, for me, is one of the reasons why terms that are ready to hand and do not have obvious faults are at least worth being considered, even if they are imperfect or carry some connotations that are undesirable. My "FFV" vs "meatgrinder" example seems productive here.

What counts as an obvious fault?

 

[Hussar]

I wrote the post and am looking at it in a standard browser on a laptop. Four asterisks:
Does that present better for you?

Yup. All three asterisks are there.

Must be a phone Tapatalk thing. Not a worry.

 

[Hussar]

A couple of clarifiers (though I'm not sure this will put us in the same camp):

* When I'm talking about "guesswork", I'm adding an implicit "blind" to it. Basically, "guesswork where the decision being made is consequential but not meaningful because the player is neither capable of building out a base of inference nor drawing upon a suite of knowledge/resources to inform their line of play." As such, I'm talking about instances where the chosen line of play in question is unmoored from any indexing of skill (both in the way it impacts the present gamestate and the throughline of the gamestate); you cannot contrast it against an alternative chosen line of play and say "yeah...should have seen that coming" or "should have made that move/charted that course instead."

* This "blind guesswork" might come up (go right at the fork instead of left) but it is both (a) rare that this type of uninformed decision governs play and (b) the stakes of such stray uninformed decisions aren't sufficient to perturb the gamestate brutally (death traps that are unrecoverable, nigh-unrecoverable, or the only way to recover is by spending resources that dramatically impact the course of the delve/crawl). Putting it together, significantly consequential yet uninformed lines of play/decisions are somewhere between extreme anomalies or fundamentally don't occur.

If you find yourself still shaking your head in disagreement, then we're at a and "good thing we aren't at the same table" crossroads @Hussar !

I might agree or disagree if I could actually make heads or tails of what you just wrote.

It seems you are making this way more complicated than it is. In map and key play players rarely have enough information to make actual informed decisions.

Most decisions are made more or less blindly. That’s the point. Why does the party go over that hill or down that corridor?

To see what’s there because it might be interesting.

Heck there are more than a few play reviews I’ve seen that complain about empty room syndrome. The party is exploring the dungeon but because they are making mostly random choices, they have a fairly empty session with nothing but empty rooms.

It does happen. And it happens because of mostly random chance. Ie. guesswork.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What counts as an obvious fault?

I think we both know that only discussion can actually bear that out. As in, this question is EXTREMELY easy to turn into a catch-22 trap against me, and I think we both know that. However, as a very loose heuristic, a term has an obvious fault if it is:

1. Actively vulgar or uses actual terms of abuse (epithets, insults, etc.), because that's always a problem.
2. Directly comparing to something objectively really bad (like specific actual wars, genocide, racism, etc.) and an element of game design, because it's pretty much impossible for an element of game design to be THAT bad without, y'know, being actual racism (warning! Contains actual racism!), genocide denialism,or the like, in which case, don't compare, just call a spade a spade.
3. Openly pejorative in some other way that isn't the above, e.g. calling something "training wheels" is pretty openly saying that it's for immature players who haven't learned to play the proper way.
4. Clearly leaving no room for positive alternatives, e.g. if some style is being called "honest X," the only meaningful alternative to "honest" is...well, a lack of honesty. It's one thing to explicitly say one considers a particular approach to involve deception; it's quite another to say that all alternatives to a given approach must be deceptive.

And, for a negative example (since I gave a positive example of "obvious fault" above): "Combat as War" vs "Combat as Sport."

I heavily do not like these terms. They have been heavily used by people who love what they call "CaW" and dislike what they call "CaS," usually (and rather blatantly) over the protests of those who like what is being called "CaS" and do not like it being referred to by that term. However, these terms are not obviously faulty. Calling something a sport is not on the same level as calling something "training wheels," even though to my ears that is the intent of the term (because "war" is serious, while "sport" is just a lark, something casual.*) "CaW/CaS" is clearly not a term of abuse in general, it isn't referencing anything objectively really bad, and it is at least prima facie allowing that approaches other than "Combat as War" are legitimate. Hence, as much as I dislike this pair of terms, they do not have an obvious fault; it requires significantly more effort to articulate whether they are faulty, why, and what should be done about it.

*Worth noting, "casual" is sometimes used as a term of abuse in video gaming circles, to indicate that the person/group labelled "casual" does not have valid opinions or doesn't actually care about the game, just playing for trivial jollies rather than "real"--challenging--gameplay. You see it mostly in competitive gaming and MMOs, but it also shows up in stuff like FromSoft's "we made this to be super hard" games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Stuff in the vein of the infamous "you cheated not only the game, but yourself" meme.

 

[clearstream]

For instance, one of my favourite moments in BW play is when my PC Thurgon persuaded his sidekick Aramina to mend his armour. This was resolved as a Duel of Wits. For this to really carry weight in a RPG, there have to be a number of system features:

I feel that this example poses challenges to skepticism, and perhaps as a result says something revealing about what we can and can't know.

*The system has to track and care about damage to armour;​

I think "care about" implies that there must be arrows from system-to-system or system-to-fiction that are driven by damage to armour. Those arrows make it part of ongoing play. It is implied that the consequences will be hindrances, seeing as if they were benefits then players would prefer to keep their armour as damaged as possible.

​

*The system has to have a meaningful system for repairing that damage, where ability matters (in BW this is the Mending skill on the PC sheet);​

I note the word "meaningful" here. Setting it aside for the moment, the game must contain a system for repairing the damage. My guess is "ability matters" implies that prior player choices about their characters should be inputs to that system. It could also invoke player skill.

*The system has to have a satisfactory way to resolve the argument about whether or not to mend the armour (in BW this is Duel of Wits);​

I note the word "satisfactory" here. I think what is implied is that supposing players can disagree on courses of action, there should be a mechanical (system) method for one player's preferences to prevail over the other.

It could imply that norms of play that may be deemed virtuous are expected to apply (e.g. fairness among participants, advantages and disadvantages accruing to prior and in-the-moment choices, processes as streamlined as their scope allows, etc.)

*The whole discussion has to matter, in a thematic or emotional sense, so that it is meaningful rather than just indulgent or piddling around to spend time on it (in BW this heft is provided by the relevant Beliefs, which in this case weren't about armour or mending but each character's Belief about their relationship to the other).​

To me, Beliefs, and rules like them, are a complex and powerful technique. To try to summarise, I think what is implied is that the game rules should have brought players to voice commitments relating to recognisable fictional positions, that on being invoked and fulfilled or defied, drive arrows (to system, to fiction.) However, I also note "indulgent" and "piddling around" here.

We can then see that Torchbearer has the first two, but downplays the prospect of PvP arguments by giving these a high cost in the game's action economy, and also doesn't have the fourth feature - TB doesn't encourage character-to-character relationship as the content of Beliefs, where as these are the bread and butter of BW.

Reflecting now on my conversation of yesterday, the only other RPG I can think of at the moment that would support the argument about armour repair is MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, which can handle damage to gear (this is s stepped down trait), and has a system for repairing that damage (ie restoring a stepped down trait), and can resolve PvP easily enough (complications or emotional stress will do the job), and can make it matter in terms of character milestones.

The point of this post is to show that critical analysis of RPGs seems to me to be not that hard.

The critical analysis above has focused on describing technical features, and predicting game play expected to result where these features are all present. The analysis suggests a bar for adequacy (the prediction applies iff all four are present.) If I assume that "satisfactory" in fact implies no wider attempt to say what is virtuous, it all seems to be on solid ground.

To me, it demonstrates that one can develop knowledge about the technical features of games. In predicting the consequential gameplay, it supplies a "why" in the sense of what will be seen, while being rightly silent on one's motives for wanting to see that. It is perforce silent on how the technical features will mesh with other technical features to serve the whole game. Where the analysis is descriptive (of technical features) and predictive (of game play) and made either expressly within a paradigm, or without prescription, and makes no wide claims as to virtue (it might well say something about norms of virtue within a paradigm it has situated itself within) then it is well justified.

There is a catch, though. Predictions of game play depend on common interpretations of rules and principles and purposes for play. Coming back to "indulgent" and "piddling around"... who is to decide that? The determination that those labels apply is subjective... something like "X is indulgent iff there is a Y to whom X is indulgent, and then for that Y and not otherwise." I would remain skeptical of analysis settling what counts as indulgent or piddling around at all times for all cohorts, and therefore what counts as meaningful in contrast to those things. I believe there is an interplay between rules and cohorts that adopt them, such that what may have seemed meaningless outside the magic circle is meaningful inside it. What I here point toward will mostly arise due to exogenous rules or principles brought with players into the circle.

What the above is trying to suggest is that a picture emerges of what can be said on solid grounds, and what might be true according to one paradigm or set of norms and false according to another. This is a particular problem for minority groups, as they can't count on norms to endorse their viewpoint. I'm not, just for avoidance of doubt, trying to criticise the content of the quoted post. The example came up before in conversation and as a part of a detailed play report by @pemerton, and I found that the commentary in the new post really helped reveal how the technical features involved are distinct, putting readers in position to judge their value in their context.

I think the general structure

1. technical feature description
2. predicted game play

Works well, once setting aside or defining as clearly as possible what the boundaries are within which any wider claims to worth or meaning are made. It's really those wider claims that most often raise heckles and run into trouble. There should be some way to separate out such commentary - which can be very valuable - from other claims to knowledge.

 

[clearstream]

I think we both know that only discussion can actually bear that out. As in, this question is EXTREMELY easy to turn into a catch-22 trap against me, and I think we both know that.

Very true! On account of implications that I expect were made evident through my question's insouciance.

However, as a very loose heuristic, a term has an obvious fault if it is:

1. Actively vulgar or uses actual terms of abuse (epithets, insults, etc.), because that's always a problem.
2. Directly comparing to something objectively really bad (like specific actual wars, genocide, racism, etc.) and an element of game design, because it's pretty much impossible for an element of game design to be THAT bad without, y'know, being actual racism (warning! Contains actual racism!), genocide denialism,or the like, in which case, don't compare, just call a spade a spade.
3. Openly pejorative in some other way that isn't the above, e.g. calling something "training wheels" is pretty openly saying that it's for immature players who haven't learned to play the proper way.
4. Clearly leaving no room for positive alternatives, e.g. if some style is being called "honest X," the only meaningful alternative to "honest" is...well, a lack of honesty. It's one thing to explicitly say one considers a particular approach to involve deception; it's quite another to say that all alternatives to a given approach must be deceptive.

A heuristic that I understand from diversity and inclusivity training at work, is that it has to be up to the injured party to decide if and how they are injured. The other party has every reason to claim that no injury is being done. They have no personally-felt motive to desist as they are not directly subject to the harm. The doing of the injury may even rely on acts or views that suit them quite well. If the injured party are a minority, they often cannot rely on norms to help them (existing norms will often best support continuation of the harms.)

I see your heuristics as fair-minded and helpful. I don't feel able to go all the way to agreeing with you as I think that if I say something that offends another party, it is not up to me to deny that they are offended, nor am I best positioned to say what the cure should rightly be. It must be - as I believe you are emphasising - a negotiation... in my view one weighted in favour of the injured. There can as you point out be stakes on both sides: if a label suits me quite well, that is probably because I am relying on something that it implies, and it may not be fair to ask me to set that aside... although I believe it would be fair to expect me to say what I mean rather than relying upon a semantic loading.

Perhaps it's worth considering what is at stake, which is fruitful conversation. I believe the gains made by giving offended parties opportunity to put forward labels that are neutral - even though as you say that can't be done as a simple fiat - are worth giving ground for. If giving ground seems to have a cost, then perhaps as I say there really is a burden on the other side to articulate that cost, rather than rely on the label to do that work.