RPG Theory- The Limits of My Language are the Limits of My World

[Snarf Zagyg]

I've never really got this. Ron Edwards analysis of purist-for-system RPGing is brilliant - as a 19-year RM devotee far more insightful than anything to be found on the ICE messageboards! Likewise his analysis of 4e D&D, all the more remarkable for being written about 5 years before the game was published! He also explains other games I've loved really well - CoC, RQ, Prince Valiant, even - I would say - AD&D. I have never felt patronised or insulted: he takes my games and (by implication) my play seriously. And helps me better understand my own engagement with them.

Sure. And to employ the apocryphal Pauline Kael quote, "I don't know how Richard Nixon won. No one I know voted for him." I, too, don't understand how people could think differently than I do- yet they keep making new variants of elves, don't they?

It's a feature, not a bug, Some people believe that Derrida helps them understand things in way so profound, they can't help but push a copy of his work with one hand while a lit Gauloises dangles from the other, while others think he is a pile rancid brie atop a stale baguette. To each their own.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

If you want to successfully have theory discussion in a broad and open forum, there's a lot of work in establishing trust that has to go on. Making the scope of discussion (like what playstyles are you discussing, etc) clear is part of that. Minding how you speak about things is part of that.

You’re misrepresenting what I’m saying, and jumping to the same sorts of defensive conclusions that I was warning about and predicting. My comment wasn’t a broad takedown of D&D and/or D&D players, but an attempt to honestly surface a recurring issue, which is people rejecting the idea that any of this is worth talking about at the level of theory, especially in a comparative way. My point is that there is so much to talk about re: D&D that there’s no reason to try to shout down or reject the premise of a theory discussion.

Also, is it really an implicit barb to reference threads about death saves and psionics? Those are actual things that people post about, and they’re often interesting discussions. And they can happen without dealing with this apparent risk of being greatly offended by someone breaking down modes of play and different approaches to GM authority in a wide variety of games.

But you’re also reinforcing my comparison about these sorts of discussions and the oddly asymmetric nature of current political and even cultural discourse. Must remember to walk on eggshells around people who are threatened by any criticism—implied or direct, real or imagined—of whatever point of view they grew up with, or whatever popular IP is the source of their fandom. Discussions of the stifling effects of kneejerk anti-intellectualism shouldn’t, IMO, be forbidden for fear of someone deciding it’s a personal assault on their intelligence. It’s about whether and how you want to dig in, and none of us wants to dig into everything the same way.

Anyway my point in posting what you’re responding to was to note how those who don’t actually want to engage in these kinds of discussions, but are just chiming in because they feel slighted, often derail the whole enterprise. I know you’re interested in these kinds of discussions, but you’re also doing the exact thing I was talking about, though in this case on behalf of the presumably aggrieved parties. The result is the same.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So I've never had a class on critical literary theory so strike me down if this question is dumb but...

It seems like critical theory as articulated here has it's own basket problem as you describe it and if it does then doesn't that ultimately deconstruct to - any literature means whatever we want it to mean - because one can presumably just create a new framework/lens/critical theory with which to view it where it means exactly what the person say it means when viewed under that framework/lens/theory - and doesn't this same criticism (or a similar one) apply to what is being done in ttrpg theory? That we can map virtually any meaning we want onto it by choosing the appropriate lens/framework/theory.

The distinction that I was making is that (some) TTRPG theory attempts, like a scientific theory, to explain all of TTRPG. A grand unified theory of TTRPGs, if you will

The difficulty is that the mode of analysis will often determine the outcome- the whole, "If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Or, "If you decide that everything is A, B, or C, then you will categorize everything as A, B, or C." (the "baskets").

From experience, we should know that this will lead us to results that will derive meanings specific to an analysis. Looking at a work from a Marxist or post-colonialist lens, for example, will likely give us a very different result than looking at it from a traditional, "what was the author trying to accomplish" lens, which in turn would likely be different than a structuralist approach.

(As to the last thing you allude to- no. Yes, there are additional issues re: reader-response theory and other theories that assert the primacy of the audience either in the abstract or in the particular, but it should be error to simply state that meaning is derived independently of the work- you can apply these different approaches correctly or incorrectly, and the idea that people are just making stuff up is a caricature of what is going on. Although there are some truly bad takes ... just like anywhere else.)

 

[pemerton]

Most popular contemporary art depends, at least to some extent, on the prior efforts of the avant garde. But most people who enjoy that popular art hate the current avant garde. They may also hate the past avant garde (impressionism is no longer widely seen as outrageous; cubism still seems to be).

This is a deep asymmetry, which I think applies to RPGing as much as other creative endeavours.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Most popular contemporary art depends, at least to some extent, on the prior efforts of the avant garde. But most people who enjoy that popular art hate the current avant garde. They may also hate the past avant garde (impressionism is no longer widely seen as outrageous; cubism still seems to be).

For every Velvet Underground ("The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band." - Brian Eno), there are untold tens of thousands of avant garde music ensembles that disappear, never to be heard from again.

It is not enough to simply assert you are avant garde; otherwise, we would all be like Brad because he wore all black in 8th grade. Don't be like Brad.

This is a deep asymmetry, which I think applies to RPGing as much as other creative endeavours.

The issues of TTRPGs as a creative endeavor are different than most of the other examples we have. It neither sufficient nor necessary to just assert it is creative, therefore amenable to certain theory. Primarily because it is not like other "art."

It is not paintings. Or literature. Or movies. Because it is not a completed work meant to be consumed.
It is not just a set of rules meant to be designed, either.
Nor is it simply acting from a script, or improv.
Finally, it isn't just creative storytelling or world building.

The very nature of it (from the rules and design creation to the player-player interaction to the division of authority w/r/t rules to the varying degrees to which table might desire to "act out" or "role play") is so varied that easy categorization does not apply, and the type of analysis that might be very appealing to one set of consumer/players will be alienating to another.

IMO, YMMV, etc.

EDIT- to return the subject I mentioned in the OP, what was shocking is how un-avant garde most TTRPG theory is. This was all done and discussed in the 70s and early 80s. It's just a constant re-inventing of the wheel.

 

[pemerton]

For every Velvet Underground ("The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band." - Brian Eno), there are untold tens of thousands of avant garde music ensembles that disappear, never to be heard from again.

It is not enough to simply assert you are avant garde; otherwise, we would all be like Brad because he wore all black in 8th grade. Don't be like Brad.

Is that Brad who goes around randomly quoting lines from Wittgenstein, or a different Brad?

In any event, I think it's pretty safe to say that Edwards, Baker, Czege et al were part of an RPGing avant garde.

The issues of TTRPGs as a creative endeavor are different than most of the other examples we have. It neither sufficient nor necessary to just assert it is creative, therefore amenable to certain theory. Primarily because it is not like other "art."

It is not paintings. Or literature. Or movies. Because it is not a completed work meant to be consumed.

Did anyone already make this point upthread? Yes they did - @gorice, and me.

 

[Umbran]

That we can map virtually any meaning we want onto it by choosing the appropriate lens/framework/theory.

Sure. Any human cognitive construct is open to the same issue. You can always construct a theory to have any result you want. The resulting theory, however, is apt to be... a tortured mess. This leads us to meta-critical analyis, or meta critical theory, if you will - the theory of what critical theory should look like.

In the end, there is always a reliance on the people to be reasonable. If you are not up for that, the best you can do is become a forest ranger, and have as little contact with your fellow humans as possible.

I can't say that I haven't seriously considered that final option. Humans can be so disappointing.

 

[prabe]

Ron Edwards analysis of purist-for-system RPGing is brilliant - as a 19-year RM devotee far more insightful than anything to be found on the ICE messageboards! Likewise his analysis of 4e D&D, all the more remarkable for being written about 5 years before the game was published! He also explains other games I've loved really well - CoC, RQ, Prince Valiant, even - I would say - AD&D. I have never felt patronised or insulted: he takes my games and (by implication) my play seriously. And helps me better understand my own engagement with them.

Of course talking about a way to game you don't enjoy or even understand the pleasures of is perilous. Edwards himself said D&D causes brain damage, and there are people who've never forgiven him for it, and now write off anything and everything he says and has said--which is plausibly a mistake, but I think an understandable one.

Even here, so many of the recurring arguments seem to be because people do not just fail to understand the differences in how others play, but the differences in why. Or that, for instance, someone else could try the way I play and reject it--then the way I play is (of course) perfect for me. One can comprehend the mechanics of a game and still fail to understand its players.

 

[Umbran]

So I see far to many posters in this that do some of the very things this thread is criticizing actually liking the comments criticizing the things they do. Should we suppose it's just intense self reflection or do they not realize they are doing these things?

Feel free to count me in the group I'm talking about here.

Yep. What, did you want logical consistency from humans?

Human neurology at work - we use different areas of our brains to judge actions taken by others, and judging our own actions. We are rather literally of two minds in such matters.

 

[pemerton]

Edwards himself said D&D causes brain damage

Do you have the quote for this? The "brain damage" posts I'm familiar with are talking about White Wolf "storyteller" games and similar systems like 7th Sea.