RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[niklinna]

Why would I need to call them anything? We all say or do things that are bonkers sometimes. It’s part of being human.

So is taking offense at being accused of doing things that are bonkers, because that clearly means one is bonkers oneself.

I did several bonkers things before I even left my apartment today, and then at queer tango class I did several more bonkers things. I even made the poor straight guy at the queer tango class need to take a break before finishing the set of songs he agreed to dance to with another man. (He was, from what I hear, there to meet women, which seems kinda bonkers to me.)

Of course there are levels of actual accusation and impugnation (I just made that word up, so bonkers*) of being rather than doing bonkers, and it is possible to phrase such accusations and impugnations such that one can attempt to claim no malicious intent when one is in fact acting very much like Miss Manners when she clearly thinks an offender of manners deserves a fork in the hand rather than simply being asked to stop nicking one's french fries. A higher amount of emotionally-charged phrasing around such a statement, even if meant in the doing rather than being sense, greatly increases the likelihood that someone being asserted as doing bonkers will infer that they are being accused of being bonkers.

* For what it's worth, the proper term is "impugnment".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I am not quite sure that it is possible to distil complex and varied thing like RPG to one core aspect. Personally I'd say inhabitation and expression of the character are pretty central, but I am sure others will disagree.

 

[pemerton]

I think the terms here are doing all the heavy lifting.

What is shared imagination?
What is game play?
What is an RPG?
What is a board game?

Also how do you determine whether something is core or flavor-heavy?

Going a bit deeper, my initial analysis is that you are just making a circular claim -

‘An RPG is game that cannot be played without shared imagination’.
‘Shared Imagination is the core game play of an RPG’.

RPGs are characterised by paradigms. Of course a tradition can depart from paradigms over time; but RPGs have not yet done that very much. And as I've argued in this thread, classic D&D is certainly one of the paradigms.

I am asserting that one key thing that characterises these paradigms, and the games that resemble them - and that distinguishes them from games that are based around the production and analysis of complex patterns (eg chess, cards, other boardgames) - is that they involve the collective creation, maintenance and change of a shared imaginative situation.

This is not sufficient, of course, because it also characterises some storytelling games. RPGs also involve a distinctive way in which most participants engage with the fiction, namely, via the allocation of each participant to a particular character, whose actions they declare. But the shared imagination - which means that the only limit on a permissible game move is that everyone agrees it is something that can be done by that character in the fiction - is crucial.

The core of an RPG is a game about a fictional world where players control a fictional character where the players choices for the character drive the gameplay.

This makes Forbidden Island a RPG. Which it obviously is not.

Because the fiction doesn't matter to resolution: it doesn't create the space of permissible moves, nor does it factor into working out what happens when a move is made.

IMO, any game can be tokenized. Any tokenized game can be played solely in the abstract without tokens. And if this is accepted then being tokenized or abstract isn’t a core differentiator of any game type.

I already posted the example from Moldvay Basic, of one (tall) character taking another (short) character on his shoulders so that they could together cross the pool. I've mentioned sound being heard, and triggering responses, in 300'. Tapping things with 10' poles.

To this we could add moving the torch sconce, removing its screws or rivets, polishing it (like Aladdin and his lamp), perhaps with a linen cloth or a piece of leather or a square of silk.

Anything that I can imagine my character doing, given the situation they are in, is a permissible move in a RPG. These cannot all be tokenised (in advance), because my capacity to imagine the life of a human being in the sorts of situations involved in RPGs cannot be tokenised.

And that's before we get to consequences (eg if the GM calls for a check, and as a result the small NPC falls off the shoulders of the big one). She gets wet. She lands on some floating debris. Her leather shoes are ruined. Or not. These things can't be tokenised either, but they are all part of RPGing, and have been for over 40 years.

 

[pemerton]

I am not quite sure that it is possible to distil complex and varied thing like RPG to one core aspect. Personally I'd say inhabitation and expression of the character are pretty central, but I am sure others will disagree.

I disagree with this, because it seems to exclude "pawn stance" D&D. But pawn stance D&D is a paradigm of RPGing. It's the origin of the whole game genre!

Inhabitation of character is central to what I enjoy in being a RPG player. I don't play pawn stance very well, and don't GM it terribly well either. But I think it's clearly RPGing, and an important approach to RPGing (both historically, and because of its proximity to, yet difference from, free kriegsspiel wargaming as a "neighbouring" form of game).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I disagree with this, because it seems to exclude "pawn stance" D&D. But pawn stance D&D is a paradigm of RPGing. It's the origin of the whole game genre!

I think you are still "expressing the character" via describing their actions, it is just very limited. Though I don't know, "pawn stance" play is not something I have ever encountered in real life.

In any case, like I said, RPGs are played so variedly that it is hard to distil things that would be universal to all approaches.

 

[pemerton]

I think you are still "expressing the chracter" via describing their actions, it is just very limited.

Maybe. It's pretty close to the limit, though. In Gygax's example of play in his DMG, I don't feel that much character is expressed!

But there is plenty of imagining going on: poking stuff with poles; looking through sacks, and examining a skull and finding a gem inside it; drying out a scroll case before opening it, so as not to spoil its contents; forming a human pyramid to lift characters high enough up a wall that they can tap to find a secret door in it that's well above floor level - this is prompted by noticing regularly-spaced "holes" (indentations) in the wall, that once held a wooden structure that allowed climbing up to the secret door level.

This is all classic pawn-stance stuff!

 

[FrogReaver]

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say if all you’re imagining is tokens moving on a board then you’re probably not playing an RPG. I hope I haven’t excluded anyone.

What if that board is a fictional world and those tokens are fictional characters?

 

[aramis erak]

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say if all you’re imagining is tokens moving on a board then you’re probably not playing an RPG. I hope I haven’t excluded anyone.

You have, intended or not, excluded the subset of D&D players for whom it's one of several boardgame modes...

Modes I've played using, mind you:

• Pure fight resolution, plot on hard rails between fights. Literally no descriptions other than the ones from the MM, and only actions describe by the mechanical state choices
• Play as a mechanical procedural - the fiction state is purely what's generated mechanically, and usually reflected on map, but with choices to make. This is how I ran D&D in 1981, from Moldvay as a rulesbook. We did borrow (and I manually copied) the AD&D race rules... but only allowed the Moldvay human classes.
• Play as a press your luck board game of bits on a map - essentially GW's HeroQuest but with more detail and less clear rules.

Imagining the character as having a story state not reflected on the sheet nor map is a distinctly lacking bit of instruction in OE 6th to 9th prints, and in Moldvay. One can see implications of it in the Moldvay example text. Likewise, the missing "roll 1d20 vs att" rule -- we see it in action in the example. But for one unfamiliar with story mode, making that leap can be hard.

I'll paraphrased a rather notable non-D&D dev on OE - what he saw in the books completely didn't match what he'd encountered at GenCon in 1974... His name? Ken StAndre. Wrote Tunnels and Trolls, Monsters! Monsters!, (both using the same T&T engine) and the first edition of Stormbringer (using BRP).

Likewise, WFRP 1E can readily be played in the same modes - but if you thought HeroQuest was hard, WFRP 1E with the in boardgame mode using the same monsters makes it look a cakewalk.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is not sufficient, of course, because it also characterises some storytelling games. RPGs also involve a distinctive way in which most participants engage with the fiction, namely, via the allocation of each participant to a particular character, whose actions they declare. But the shared imagination - which means that the only limit on a permissible game move is that everyone agrees it is something that can be done by that character in the fiction - is crucial.

This makes Forbidden Island a RPG. Which it obviously is not.

IMO. Your definition excludes Final Fantasy, Skyrim, Diablo and even Boulder’s Gate 3 from being RPG’s.

If I had to choose between a definition that includes forbidden islands (not familiar enough to comment on it) but includes those and one that doesn’t include forbidden island or any of those then I’d choose the former.

Because the fiction doesn't matter to resolution: it doesn't create the space of permissible moves, nor does it factor into working out what happens when a move is made.

The fiction in any CRPG doesn’t matter to the resolution either. You play through the same story, you are presented with the same predefined list of choices that always come up at exactly the same moment in game time and always have exactly the same outcomes.

I think your definition focuses to much on the specific table top medium, it’s why you apply the definitions to board games but not computer games. I think this leads to flawed conclusions about what’s important to RPGs and what are artifacts of the medium they are played in.

For example, I wouldn’t limit myself to looking at computer RPGs and then conclude all RPGs must have a world that can be viewed on a screen, and a character than can interact with the world via player input from a control device (controller or keyboard/mouse). This is what it looks like to tie medium to a particular style of game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Of course there are levels of actual accusation and impugnation (I just made that word up, so bonkers*) of being rather than doing bonkers, and it is possible to phrase such accusations and impugnations such that one can attempt to claim no malicious intent when one is in fact acting very much like Miss Manners when she clearly thinks an offender of manners deserves a fork in the hand rather than simply being asked to stop nicking one's french fries. A higher amount of emotionally-charged phrasing around such a statement, even if meant in the doing rather than being sense, greatly increases the likelihood that someone being asserted as doing bonkers will infer that they are being accused of being bonkers.

On the other hand, the classic distinction between an ad-hominem and not is to direct criticism at an idea, not the person. At a certain point if you can't divorce yourself from taking criticism of an idea you hold, you can't really discuss it. You might say blunt object descriptions like "bonkers" of ideas is prone to making that harder, but that's very much a moving target.