Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[Snarf Zagyg]

There's a disconnect because I feel nearly the same way about the other side of this discussion and honestly that just means it's probably never going to be resolved or moved on from. No worries. I can step out of the discussion.

EDIT: I do find it interesting that slowly but surely those firmly in the trad camp have chosen to participate less and less in discussions like this.

It's not just the "trad" camp. It's anyone outside of a certain circle.

It's almost like the same group gradually drive out all other voices until they are only talking to each other, and then the thread dies. And this happens over and over again whenever people want to talk about certain topics.

It's not just this thread either- it's now been several years of threads. I am working on a "+" thread so we'll see if that makes a difference.

 

[pemerton]

I do find it interesting that slowly but surely those firmly in the trad camp have chosen to participate less and less in discussions like this.

I don't know what "trad camp" means here: I mean, @Campbell does a lot of trad RPGing; @hawkeyefan is a regular 5e D&D player; I've posted about my use of map-and-key in Classic Traveller and Torchbearer.

 

[clearstream]

One thing it seems to say is that the discussion about terminology/"jargon" can be set aside. If everyone is agree that these are different allocations of authority, different approaches to how situations are established, different roles of (what I've called) evaluation/normativity, etc then that's the starting point for analysing different RPGs.

With the discussion around map-and-key, and @Campbell's remarks about "game world" that @clearstream reposted just above, we can also see that the differences I've described are connected to different ways that setting/backstory is established and then used in play.

Thus, if setting is established via map-and-key prep, then a significant amount of framing will be done by reference to that "game world", and that material will also provide the constraints for action resolution when players have their PCs move, search, etc. (As per some of my posts above.)

On the other hand, when setting/backstory is established using other techniques, such as by players as part of their PC build (see eg BW relationships) or as an outcome of the first session (see eg AW fronts and threats), then it functions differently in the procedures of play. It is conditioned by evaluation/normativity, and it is drawn upon with that evaluation/normativity in mind when used in framing and resolution. And when used in framing and resolution it does not constrain in the way map-and-key does. It provides content and possibilities that the GM draws on within constraints that come from elsewhere (like "say 'yes' or roll the dice" or the AW agenda and principles).

I think that is close to or maybe just what I had in mind with "contingent". For whatever reason, my intuitions are the when and who of authorship are not the crux of the matter. In fact, they put the cart before the horse, as the motive for the timing is to ensure / make available the conditioning or - as I call it - contingency.

I think with these distinctions in mind, significant features of a lot of different approaches to play can be described: classic D&D/OSR-ish play; PbtA; scene-framing in the style of Burning Wheel, In A Wicked Age, 4e D&D or Marvel Heroic/Cortex+ Heroic; the style of map-and-key discussed with @Hussar upthread, where the map functions mostly to parcel out the interesting encounters during the course of play.

I think these distinctions also provide a sound foundation for discussing particular techniques of action resolution, for discussing player resource recovery (eg how is this related to particular elements of framing and action resolution - such as the passage of ingame time - and who has authority over those matters) and other features of RPG systems.

I'd really encourage you to try "Ironsworn". It's foundations are in PbtA, to which it adds certain features that serve solo play. I am thinking not only of Oracles, which supply guided inspiration for imagination, but also the impartial tracking of progress in a fashion akin to clocks, with strong emphasis on Vows that keep you on / propel you along your dramatic arc. I suspect it would be a game you might enjoy (I know, huge risk my saying that!) and in any event, it's one that I found thought-provoking on these matters.

 

[clearstream]

It's not just the "trad" camp. It's anyone outside of a certain circle.

It's almost like the same group gradually drive out all other voices until they are only talking to each other, and then the thread dies. And this happens over and over again whenever people want to talk about certain topics.

It's not just this thread either- it's now been several years of threads. I am working on a "+" thread so we'll see if that makes a difference.

This is a troubled area for discussion, and I absolutely believe that there is validity in the views expressed by @Campbell and others. My personal experience is that, this is emphatically not a one way street. I sometimes reach a strong sense of "any game, but 5e"-ism in some threads.

I can see characteristics of 5e that just fail to deliver on what some folk are looking for, or are milquetoast in those regards. Additionally, 5e is the gorilla in the room, it scarcely needs defending. And I suppose that is where recently I have landed. If folk are punching upwards, then so what? Yes, the tail end of threads can start to feel like an echo-chamber, but on the other side 5e is kind of a 24/7, 120 decibel barrage.

And yet again, it really is fatiguing to have to shrug off denigration of a game you and your friends have gained years of enjoyment from. Particularly when some of the great commercial game design that produced 5e is woefully under-acknowledged. I find it depressing at a certain point in a thread to start feeling dogpiled by the likes button. (A feature I rather wish Enworld would abolish.)

So there is that...

 

[Grendel_Khan]

It's not just the "trad" camp. It's anyone outside of a certain circle.

It's almost like the same group gradually drive out all other voices until they are only talking to each other, and then the thread dies. And this happens over and over again whenever people want to talk about certain topics.

It's not just this thread either- it's now been several years of threads. I am working on a "+" thread so we'll see if that makes a difference.

If people don't want to engage in a thread about game criticism, or who drop out over of the course of more than 50 pages, what sense does it make to throw shade at the people who are interested enough to stick around and keep discussing it?

To whit: What observations do you have about anything talked about in the past 30 pages or so, other than to decry the sorts of interactions that you could only assume the thread would attract?

If you start a barroom brawl, then step out as soon as it gets going, I'm not sure you have the moral high ground when you lean back in and cluck at the behavior of all us savages.

 

[chaochou]

Yeah. Sorry for having a range of RPG experiences, and the theoretical language and mental frameworks to discuss them. That must be irritating for one-true-wayists and large swathes of the D&D population who want their illusionist play to remain unexamined.

 

[Pedantic]

I can see characteristics of 5e that just fail to deliver on what some folk are looking for, or are milquetoast in those regards. Additionally, 5e is the gorilla in the room, it scarcely needs defending. And I suppose that is where recently I have landed. If folk are punching upwards, then so what? Yes, the tail end of threads can start to feel like an echo-chamber, but on the other side 5e is kind of a 24/7, 120 decibel barrage.

That's a bit of a broad brush. 5e fails to deliver on basically all of the design points I care about (it fails to provide a robust game with specific, pre-defined player actions, and fails to provide meaningful progression/increases in agency as the game continues), but the structural comparisons we're making would lump it neatly in with the games I do like. Which is more than a bit frustrating. I don't particularly want to carry the rulings not rules people around with me, just because we both start with task based resolution.

 

[Pedantic]

Yeah. Sorry for having a range of RPG experiences, and the theoretical language and mental frameworks to discuss them. That must be irritating for one-true-wayists and large swathes of the D&D population who want their illusionist play to remain unexamined.

Well, this certainly does make it easier to see who's worth trying to engage with.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This is a troubled area for discussion, and I absolutely believe that there is validity in the views expressed by @Campbell and others. My personal experience is that, this is emphatically not a one way street. I sometimes reach a strong sense of "any game, but 5e"-ism in some threads.

I can see characteristics of 5e that just fail to deliver on what some folk are looking for, or are milquetoast in those regards. Additionally, 5e is the gorilla in the room, it scarcely needs defending. And I suppose that is where recently I have landed. If folk are punching upwards, then so what? Yes, the tail end of threads can start to feel like an echo-chamber, but on the other side 5e is kind of a 24/7, 120 decibel barrage.

And yet again, it really is fatiguing to have to shrug off denigration of a game you and your friends have gained years of enjoyment from. Particularly when some of the great commercial game design that produced 5e is woefully under-acknowledged. I find it depressing at a certain point in a thread to start feeling dogpiled by the likes button. (A feature I rather wish Enworld would abolish.)

So there is that...

If it was just 5e, that would be one thing. But, of course, it's not.

I tried to have productive conversations about FKR (I'm pretty sure you remember those!). That didn't work.

I've tried to engage in more conversation related to actual storygames (as opposed to PbTA or other derivatives). That doesn't work either.

I've had numerous threads related to the history of RPGs as it related to theory, and to the current academic interest in RPGs. Guess what? Doesn't work either.

So, yeah. You call it dogpiling. I think that there are other terms for it. I would certainly feel chastened if I kept invading their PbTA threads and BiTD threads and demanding that they talk about my topics instead, right? I wouldn't do that, because I'm not that type of person.

Everyone is different, I guess.

ETA- as I mentioned, I am writing the first attempt at a plus thread to deal with this. If it works, great. If it causes more problems, then I just won't bother with this. After all, it actually does take time to post new threads, and it's certainly not worth this aggravation.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

And yet again, it really is fatiguing to have to shrug off denigration of a game you and your friends have gained years of enjoyment from. Particularly when some of the great commercial game design that produced 5e is woefully under-acknowledged.

I get that it can be a bummer to see your favorite game slammed over and over. But a lot of what's happening in this thread, and in previous ones like it, isn't actual denigration of 5e, but merely discussions of other games and approaches, including sometimes pointing out things that 5e doesn't do well. No system can do everything well, though! So if we could spend less (or preferably no) time on preemptive caveats in any post that isn't gushing about 5e or that someone might think is a criticism of them as 5e players, we also wouldn't need to have recurring meta-discussions about how one should comport themselves and why one shouldn't praise one approach without singing the praises of every other, and why bringing up essentially anything is a potential insult to someone.

Basically we could just do stuff like critiquing lots of different RPGs.