Roleplaying Games Are Improv Games

[Emberashh]

Sorry, I meant to say “affirming the consequent”. It doesn’t follow that games are a storytelling medium just because stories can be produced by games. A trivial counterexample is playing a game to establish who advances in a tournament. It may be possible to turn certain moments into a story (e.g., Daigo vs Justin Wong in Evo 2004), but the purpose of that game is not to tell a story.

The middle ground I would draw is to say that games can be used as a storytelling medium, but they aren’t necessarily a storytelling medium. For example, I think people trying to play a pawn-stance hexcrawl in Moldvay Basic (or Dolmenwood if one wants something contemporary) would bristle at the suggest they’re playing to tell a story. On the other hand, those doing Actual Plays (or playing a game like that) might not like the suggestion they aren’t playing for the story they create.

Right yeah I agree with that. The statement probably ought to be that they can be a medium for it, not that they strictly are.

My point with these other examples is that they also have narrow premises. If you eschew the dice mechanic of Fiasco (or the card-based replacement in the second edition), then the game isn’t Fiasco anymore. It’s something else. The section read like more like a veiled attack on PbtA games rather than a discussion of types of railroads (though that’s a bit of RPG jargon I don’t particularly like much either since any utility it provides is outweighed by its negative connotation).

Well thats what I'm saying makes Fiasco exceptional. And as for PBTA, I think a lot of that perception goes towards how certain fans of those games position them in relation to trad games. Much of what those games do is actually in-line with what the essay constructs as a better ideal, so pointing out how and why they aren't already the answer is apropros.

I was trying to get at the jargon overload that happens in RPG discourse. Adams and Dormans describe a particular design pattern for the purpose of encouraging specialization via rewarding avatar customization, but this is something else. Admittedly, this particular pattern is obscure as far as the discourse is concerned, but being familiar with it, I found the difference confusing.

To put it another way, if it takes that much to explain the difference to someone familiar with the pattern, maybe the process deserves its own name? (In fairness, the name given is not exactly the same, but it’s close, and it reminded me of the original.)

Probably yeah. I grabbed reinforcment in the essay because it felt I like I needed to put a name to it, beyond the ambiguous "G", and it seemed apropros. Arguably roleplaying might have been the most appropriate, but that term has been muddled over time.

But I should also say that as influential as that book has been on my thinking, game patterns aren't a standardized thing nor for the matter even a widely recognized tool or framework with which to approach game design. While we can get into the weeds over where the term comes from, I think Playstyle Reinforcement works to describe what the dynamic does in a concise way.

And think thats additionally supported given how much discourse in the hobby is about playstyle and how games can support it; reinforce it, if you will.

I don’t really think of this as having the Game as a player because the Game on its own doesn’t do anything. It’s a procedure the group follows (with the GM supporting) to achieve the intended result of the game’s design.

I think a lot of readers have kind of taken the idea too literally, which to be fair is partially my fault as the phrase is misusing terms to be provocative.

The idea is more accurately put as the Rules are a Participant in the Improvisational Process. Aka, a Player in the improv vernacular.

The idea isn't that the Game is a sapient entity like the two human roles are, but that by and through mechanical design it can still participate in the dynamics of improv so long as the humans continue to play. Approaching this design as though the game is a Participant, a Player in the improv vernacular, is how we can shape the game towards the themes and experiences we desire (eg, epic fantasy versus cyberpunk, save the world adventuring versus heists, and so on), but without disrupting the improv dynamic, and improving on them in turn in a way that would require very specificially talented and knowledgeable humans to pull off without it.

It reminds me of the one poster here on EnWorld whose a really big advocate for FKR (name escapes me). In FKR, that expectation is just baked in, and the game only serves a minimal purpose in providing some mechanical structure to resolving actions in the game. If I were to play FKR with some of my like-minded friends, we could probably get a pretty good run going at something akin to Lord of the Rings.

But, that would ultimately be down to us being big enough Tolkien fans and hobbyist writers that we could organically emulate the elements of his stories without needing much mechanical guidance to structure and guide it.

It'd be unreasonable to expect that of others though, and arguably, the appeal in games that push this kind of mechanical minimalism is probably rooted in becoming so familiar with the kinds of game experiences they enjoyed over time, that they developed the knowledge and know-how to recreate those experiences with minimal or no guidance.

For me at least, I just know that after a point, the idea of having interactivity gets superflous if we're that close to just doing improv outright but also intentionally focusing it towards a preconceived idea.

Its like I related once upon a time about how I like games that just let me play in them, and why I can burn out on certain video games if I let my writers brain get antsy and start trying to force a story out of the mechanics. If I just stop and play normally, the fun comes back, and I start generating more organic experiences as stories instead.

I regularly do actual, pure Improv these days (took a couple classes and have a regular group for it now), and I do greatly enjoy it, but engaging in it requires a very different headspace from what something like FKR calls for, and without the structure of something more robust than that, I'm likely going to get antsy if I don't get bored out of my mind first. Using FKR to pull off LOTR might be initially interesting as an intellectual exercise, but as a game I don't think i could cope for too long lol.

Many games don’t work like PbtA games (particularly PbtA games that use moves). Given your past criticism of PbtA in general, it’s a little surprising that it seems like an important element in your structure of Game as Player.

Well it can get lost in the petty arguments and sniping, but I've said before a lot of my game design does more or less do some of the same things as those games. My contention with them was mostly due to how those designs are used, and not that they were fundamentally bad ideas in of themselves.

The nature of the Events system and how its presented to the player was actually directly inspired by Moves, for example, they just work differently in that Events don't require you to acknowledge them or only do what they say. Its a prompt rather than a command, in other words, but mechanically its not all that different from a Move.

 

[Piperken]

I think that there are a lot of games that rely on "improv" skills- some are more codified improv by rules, some are more codified by consistency with genre or shared fiction, but understanding the rules and assumptions behind improv is helpful to engaging in this play, and that a lot of the players of these games are actually using improv heuristics even if they are not aware of it.

I appreciated this piece of writing; I feel at the end, I lean towards what Snarf says here.

There are constellations within each person that they bring to the table. A game, depending on intents of designer and how well it is built to emphasize those intents, will either highlight or minimize how brightly those sets of stars shine. One of those could be, at any moment, improv.

Improv, as a whole, is its own genre in a subset of different modes used by actors or on the stage. There are definitely strong parallels between it and in an rpg setting, depending on the player, their interaction with others, and the game, one could argue they're engaged in doing improv.

Experiences at the table can be made better by looking to improv. Absolutely. In the end, that's what participants desire.

The overall purposes between improv (whether short, long or narrative as mentioned) and ttrpgs in their respective disciplines though, are vastly different. We have to acknowledge that.

 

[gorice]

I don't think so, in either case, even if overlong internet arguments can make it seem that way. I think it ultimately comes down to consent, because these particular kinds of RPGs, especially in the PBTA style, are enforcing a very specific railroad of thematic premise. It doesn't always produce a feeling of unwelcomeness, but its pretty normal to see how blocking manifests; its an expected part of these games to stop the game, disrupt the flow, and hash out how things work out, either in the narrative specifically or due to some mechanics issue, if not both. This is where the "Writer's Room" idea comes from, as this process often feels less like two improvisers smoothing over a hiccup and more like you're writing the scene.

It's a long essay, and there's more going on than I can respond to, but I wanted to get to this point specifically. Played properly, I don't think Apocalypse World should have a 'writers' room' feel, at all. Everyone at the table has a clear role and responsibility to speak about certain things at certain times -- the MC about the world, players about their characters, various people about various outcomes, depending on the move and the dice. The jargon for this is 'authority'.

Like, if I say 'my character picks up the gun', and then everyone stops the game and has a conference about whether I really pick up the gun and what that looks like, then either the system hasn't sufficiently defined what the game's authorities are, or my group is being extremely rude and not respecting my authority over my character's actions. This is a failure-state, not a problem caused by the game not being sufficiently railroaded, and absolutely not a virtue.

 

[Emberashh]

It's a long essay, and there's more going on than I can respond to, but I wanted to get to this point specifically. Played properly, I don't think Apocalypse World should have a 'writers' room' feel, at all. Everyone at the table has a clear role and responsibility to speak about certain things at certain times -- the MC about the world, players about their characters, various people about various outcomes, depending on the move and the dice. The jargon for this is 'authority'.

Like, if I say 'my character picks up the gun', and then everyone stops the game and has a conference about whether I really pick up the gun and what that looks like, then either the system hasn't sufficiently defined what the game's authorities are, or my group is being extremely rude and not respecting my authority over my character's actions. This is a failure-state, not a problem caused by the game not being sufficiently railroaded, and absolutely not a virtue.

The issue is due to the nature of Moves. If a Move imposes something in the fiction that you didn't actually want to do, the game has to stop to hash that out. Go Aggro as a go-to example doesn't allow for the nuance that a character could be perfectly willing to kill someone and could even go through the motions to do so, but still choose not to for one reason or another. If Go Aggro has been triggered as a result of doing this, and you roll 10+, you're killing somebody, or least maiming them severely, and the game literally tells you can't take it back.

To get over the hiccup you have to either ignore the trigger so you can just dictate what happens, or you disrupt the game and have a negotiation over what happens. Neither is particularly ideal, as the latter can be unwelcome and the former makes the Move superflous if we're just going to ignore it like that.

A lot of the issue with that specific example could be fixed by just deleting that stupid ass line, but even without it its still the same kind of dynamic being produced, just not as severe, in the other outcomes of the Move.

 

[gorice]

The issue is due to the nature of Moves. If a Move imposes something in the fiction that you didn't actually want to do, the game has to stop to hash that out. Go Aggro as a go-to example doesn't allow for the nuance that a character could be perfectly willing to kill someone and could even go through the motions to do so, but still choose not to for one reason or another. If Go Aggro has been triggered as a result of doing this, and you roll 10+, you're killing somebody, or least maiming them severely, and the game literally tells you can't take it back.

To get over the hiccup you have to either ignore the trigger so you can just dictate what happens, or you disrupt the game and have a negotiation over what happens. Neither is particularly ideal, as the latter can be unwelcome and the former makes the Move superflous if we're just going to ignore it like that.

A lot of the issue with that specific example could be fixed by just deleting that stupid ass line, but even without it its still the same kind of dynamic being produced, just not as severe, in the other outcomes of the Move.

I'm not sure I understand. Is the problem that the system creates an outcome that is unwelcome, or that there is some sort of disjuncture between what you intent your character to do and what the move says should happen?

Regarding the move itself: personally, I like it, but I can see how it might annoy some people: it slightly upends the normal authority structure, robbing you of agency over your character, just for a split second (a lot of moves in AW play games with authority). In this case, I think the authors were making a statement: if you shove a gun in someone's face, you might end up killing them.

 

[Umbran]

Since the beginning, going all the way back to Braunstein, roleplaying games (RPGs) have had at their core, most often unintentionally, an improv game. Why this is is pretty simple to understand: if the game allows an open ended possibility space, its fundamentally incorporating improv.

Problem: You have not established that a role-playing game requires an open-ended possibility space.

Example: Choose your own adventure books. You make choices per your role, but the space of choices and resulting possibilities is extremely limited.

 

[Emberashh]

I'm not sure I understand. Is the problem that the system creates an outcome that is unwelcome, or that there is some sort of disjuncture between what you intent your character to do and what the move says should happen?

Regarding the move itself: personally, I like it, but I can see how it might annoy some people: it slightly upends the normal authority structure, robbing you of agency over your character, just for a split second (a lot of moves in AW play games with authority). In this case, I think the authors were making a statement: if you shove a gun in someone's face, you might end up killing them.

Its both.

Problem: You have not established that a role-playing game requires an open-ended possibility space.

Example: Choose your own adventure books. You make choices per your role, but the space of choices and resulting possibilities is extremely limited.

You are correct, I did not at any point establish that RPGs require an open-ended possibility space.

(Aka, I didn't say that in the first place)

 

[pemerton]

Problem: You have not established that a role-playing game requires an open-ended possibility space.

Example: Choose your own adventure books. You make choices per your role, but the space of choices and resulting possibilities is extremely limited.

But a choose-your-own-adventure is not really a RPG, is it? It's a device for generating a story via an algorithmic method. But the fiction is never part of the resolution.

 

[gorice]

Its both.

Hmm, OK. The second problem (not liking the loss of agency in that moment) is a systemic one. You can fix that by changing the move. Not a big problem.

The first problem is the bigger issue, I think. There's nothing wrong with changing an outcome if everyone decides in that moment that the system isn't doing what they want. If this is happening frequently, then either the game isn't for you, or people have a problem with accepting limitations on their agency. I don't think you can roleplay if people aren't willing to respect limitations on their agency and unwelcome outcomes.

 

[kenada]

Well thats what I'm saying makes Fiasco exceptional. And as for PBTA, I think a lot of that perception goes towards how certain fans of those games position them in relation to trad games. Much of what those games do is actually in-line with what the essay constructs as a better ideal, so pointing out how and why they aren't already the answer is apropros.

That’s fair, but I’m having trouble reconciling this with your later take on FKR. You seem to conclude that you need more structure than just relying on you and your group’s experience with and knowledge of the game’s subject. Is what you seek a middle ground between a game that is laser-focused (e.g., AW on the characters’ relationships in a post-apocalyptic world) versus one that is less so (an FKR game set in the Mad Max setting with no specific idea what the characters are about)?

As an aside, PbtA is a pretty broad category. Baker has a nice series (“What Is PbtA”) on their design that discusses design but also discusses how many things associated with PbtA games are actually just conventions. I’ve been meaning to (re)read it to kickstart my game’s design back into gear. Development has been slow (beyond various musings on our Discord) due to various IRL things (Origins, burnout, open-source work, having a baby, etc).

It’s funny, but according to Baker’s definition, I could probably call my game a PbtA game even if it eschews most of the mechanical conventions. The key points in my mind are that it’s heavily influenced by how AW orients the GM role (as support, or what Baker calls MC-style GMing) and “play to find out what happens”.

Probably yeah. I grabbed reinforcment in the essay because it felt I like I needed to put a name to it, beyond the ambiguous "G", and it seemed apropros. Arguably roleplaying might have been the most appropriate, but that term has been muddled over time.

But I should also say that as influential as that book has been on my thinking, game patterns aren't a standardized thing nor for the matter even a widely recognized tool or framework with which to approach game design. While we can get into the weeds over where the term comes from, I think Playstyle Reinforcement works to describe what the dynamic does in a concise way.

And think thats additionally supported given how much discourse in the hobby is about playstyle and how games can support it; reinforce it, if you will.

Ultimately, I think I’m just tired of the jargon in RPG discourse. I think we agree that this flow (of participants working together¹ to advance the game state) is preferable to an adversarial flow that is sometimes advocated. I feel like there is a name for it, but I’ll be damned if I can think of what that would be right now.

I think a lot of readers have kind of taken the idea too literally, which to be fair is partially my fault as the phrase is misusing terms to be provocative.

It did succeed at provoking.

The idea is more accurately put as the Rules are a Participant in the Improvisational Process. Aka, a Player in the improv vernacular.

The idea isn't that the Game is a sapient entity like the two human roles are, but that by and through mechanical design it can still participate in the dynamics of improv so long as the humans continue to play. Approaching this design as though the game is a Participant, a Player in the improv vernacular, is how we can shape the game towards the themes and experiences we desire (eg, epic fantasy versus cyberpunk, save the world adventuring versus heists, and so on), but without disrupting the improv dynamic, and improving on them in turn in a way that would require very specificially talented and knowledgeable humans to pull off without it.

It reminds me of the one poster here on EnWorld whose a really big advocate for FKR (name escapes me). In FKR, that expectation is just baked in, and the game only serves a minimal purpose in providing some mechanical structure to resolving actions in the game. If I were to play FKR with some of my like-minded friends, we could probably get a pretty good run going at something akin to Lord of the Rings.

But, that would ultimately be down to us being big enough Tolkien fans and hobbyist writers that we could organically emulate the elements of his stories without needing much mechanical guidance to structure and guide it.

It'd be unreasonable to expect that of others though, and arguably, the appeal in games that push this kind of mechanical minimalism is probably rooted in becoming so familiar with the kinds of game experiences they enjoyed over time, that they developed the knowledge and know-how to recreate those experiences with minimal or no guidance.

For me at least, I just know that after a point, the idea of having interactivity gets superflous if we're that close to just doing improv outright but also intentionally focusing it towards a preconceived idea.

Its like I related once upon a time about how I like games that just let me play in them, and why I can burn out on certain video games if I let my writers brain get antsy and start trying to force a story out of the mechanics. If I just stop and play normally, the fun comes back, and I start generating more organic experiences as stories instead.

I’m including this because it ties into the first part of my response, but I don’t think I have anything further to add to those comments.

I regularly do actual, pure Improv these days (took a couple classes and have a regular group for it now), and I do greatly enjoy it, but engaging in it requires a very different headspace from what something like FKR calls for, and without the structure of something more robust than that, I'm likely going to get antsy if I don't get bored out of my mind first. Using FKR to pull off LOTR might be initially interesting as an intellectual exercise, but as a game I don't think i could cope for too long lol.

How would you describe it in relation to other kinds of gaming (not just FKR)? I have assumed that, e.g., experience playing D&D (even in a highly theatrical game) doesn’t exactly transfer over to pure improv.

Well it can get lost in the petty arguments and sniping, but I've said before a lot of my game design does more or less do some of the same things as those games. My contention with them was mostly due to how those designs are used, and not that they were fundamentally bad ideas in of themselves.


The nature of the Events system and how its presented to the player was actually directly inspired by Moves, for example, they just work differently in that Events don't require you to acknowledge them or only do what they say. Its a prompt rather than a command, in other words, but mechanically its not all that different from a Move.

Your Events system remind me of Kickers (from Sorcerer) in that if a player wants play to be about something important to them, they can use an event to do that, and the other people are expected to build on and contribute to it.

---

[1]: I’m defining support somewhat broadly as working together to play the game. That includes characters that don’t work together per se. They may have their own agendas and come into conflict. The point is everyone supports this play together (avoiding what you’ve termed Blocking).