Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="JAMUMU" data-source="post: 8929799" data-attributes="member: 7035709"><p>This is such an interesting, thought-provoking thread. I come down on the side of the RPG hobby being a very difficult beast to critique, for all the reasons given up-thread. To sum up my immediate thoughts, we can all agree on what a film "is" in terms of the medium of delivery (moving images and possibly sound) and the circumstances of consumption (you watch and listen), and so it's possible to deploy appropriate critical language. But simply defining what constitutes an RPG is still something that leads to heated discussion. </p><p></p><p>To strain the analogy further, how people consume a film (cinema, home cinema, 24" B&W television, on a phone, displayed on the back of a car headrest) may give rise to arguments of preference, but there's no doubt that a moving image is being viewed. Different critical approaches can be deployed (formalist, psychoanalytic etc), but they're all agreed on the fact that a film is being analysed.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand, four groups of RPG hobbyists playing the same game might be consuming the product/exploring the experience in radically different ways (e.g. wargame-adjacent miniature activity, strictly RAW with no IC dialogue, as improv theatre, homebrewed beyond recognition). These groups might be "playing the same game", but the process in each case is radically different for each group. </p><p></p><p>So my rambling point is that I think that a) the processes around playing a game are grounds for theoretical analysis, especially where different processes emerge from the same set of rules, b) the RPG text itself is a separate area for criticism, both in terms of rules and procedures and any implications arising from the setting and that finally c) unifying jargon is perhaps of lesser importance, as it constitutes a space where people get into all sorts of arguments.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JAMUMU, post: 8929799, member: 7035709"] This is such an interesting, thought-provoking thread. I come down on the side of the RPG hobby being a very difficult beast to critique, for all the reasons given up-thread. To sum up my immediate thoughts, we can all agree on what a film "is" in terms of the medium of delivery (moving images and possibly sound) and the circumstances of consumption (you watch and listen), and so it's possible to deploy appropriate critical language. But simply defining what constitutes an RPG is still something that leads to heated discussion. To strain the analogy further, how people consume a film (cinema, home cinema, 24" B&W television, on a phone, displayed on the back of a car headrest) may give rise to arguments of preference, but there's no doubt that a moving image is being viewed. Different critical approaches can be deployed (formalist, psychoanalytic etc), but they're all agreed on the fact that a film is being analysed. On the other hand, four groups of RPG hobbyists playing the same game might be consuming the product/exploring the experience in radically different ways (e.g. wargame-adjacent miniature activity, strictly RAW with no IC dialogue, as improv theatre, homebrewed beyond recognition). These groups might be "playing the same game", but the process in each case is radically different for each group. So my rambling point is that I think that a) the processes around playing a game are grounds for theoretical analysis, especially where different processes emerge from the same set of rules, b) the RPG text itself is a separate area for criticism, both in terms of rules and procedures and any implications arising from the setting and that finally c) unifying jargon is perhaps of lesser importance, as it constitutes a space where people get into all sorts of arguments. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs
Top