RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[pemerton]

The writers were definitely imagining it or there would be nothing to watch. Are you proposing an RPG in which someone else has done all the imagining for you? How would that work?

I give you . . . Dead Gods!

 

[FrogReaver]

What RPG do you take part in where you simply watch? Some interaction is needed, no? Even if you're just watching something like Critical Role or another streamed game... you have to imagine that these people talking to each other are actually fantastic characters doing other things.

The active interaction is the key difference between watching a movie and taking part in an RPG.



I actually was not simply dismissive. Earlier in the thread, when the idea of an RPG that doesn't require shared imagination was mentioned, I asked for examples. I offered some myself in the form of solo games... but those preclude the shared element of imagination.

So what would be an example of an RPG that doesn't require shared imagination? Can you offer any examples?

It's the absence of such examples that makes me think the argument has no merit. And, more specifically, the argument that someone who says RPGs require shared imagination is somehow dismissing others' play style. If that's the case, name the play style that doesn't require shared imagination.

If anyone could offer an example, then I think that would lend the argument some merit. Do you have any examples?

Example - Final Fantasy 7.

 

[pemerton]

So what would be an example of an RPG that doesn't require shared imagination? Can you offer any examples?

The examples that are being offered are playing D&D as a board-based combat/skirmish wargame, and/or as a tile-like dungeon-crawl boardgame.

The former of these two I think speaks for itself. The game Arneson and Gygax invented was not a board-based wargame, but rather inherited from the free kriegsspiel/Braunstein tradition.

Even in the latter approach, I would be surprised if most tables don't have some sort of shared fiction, as per the carry my friend on my shoulders example, which can't be resolved purely via boardgame rules.

 

[FrogReaver]

Even in the latter approach, I would be surprised if most tables don't have some sort of shared fiction, as per the carry my friend on my shoulders example, which can't be resolved purely via boardgame rules.

Why can’t that be resolved via a board game rule?

 

[pemerton]

I think what you are talking about is just a medium observation - much like video games require a screen and a controller. It has little to nothing to do with what it means to be an RPG.

I am not debating the usage of RPG. If you want to call cRPGs RPGs, knock yourself out.

But no amount of pointing out that both bridge and rummy are card games will show that there is not a category of games that are based around dealing hands followed by auction followed by trick-based play, and that bridge is among them (but not the only such whist-variant game) and that rummy is not.

We can talk about the essence of such whist-variants. The game Crew shows that they need not be competitive: Crew preserves the game play of whist - deal => auction => trick-based play - while being cooperative.

But rummy is not one of these games.

The game Mystic Wood involves a tile-based board, players' characters that move across the board, random encounters (from a card pile) and quests (determined by character). It shares many tropes with FRPGs, and some gameplay too (encounters, combat, and magical places with weird effects). But it does not require shared imagination as core to its gameplay. It is not a game in the same family of gameplay as D&D.

It is games in that family that I am talking about. This website is devoted to talking about them.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Example - Final Fantasy 7.

Pretty sure video games were not being discussed.

Any TT RPG examples?

 

[hawkeyefan]

The examples that are being offered are playing D&D as a board-based combat/skirmish wargame, and/or as a tile-like dungeon-crawl boardgame.

The former of these two I think speaks for itself. The game Arneson and Gygax invented was not a board-based wargame, but rather inherited from the free kriegsspiel/Braunstein tradition.

Even in the latter approach, I would be surprised if most tables don't have some sort of shared fiction, as per the carry my friend on my shoulders example, which can't be resolved purely via boardgame rules.

Yes, the examples offered so far have, in my opinion, failed to support the argument.

 

[FrogReaver]

I am not debating the usage of RPG. If you want to call cRPGs RPGs, knock yourself out.

But no amount of pointing out that both bridge and rummy are card games will show that there is not a category of games that are based around dealing hands followed by auction followed by trick-based play, and that bridge is among them (but not the only such whist-variant game) and that rummy is not.

We can talk about the essence of such whist-variants. The game Crew shows that they need not be competitive: Crew preserves the game play of whist - deal => auction => trick-based play - while being cooperative.

But rummy is not one of these games.

The game Mystic Wood involves a tile-based board, players' characters that move across the board, random encounters (from a card pile) and quests (determined by character). It shares many tropes with FRPGs, and some gameplay too (encounters, combat, and magical places with weird effects). But it does not require shared imagination as core to its gameplay. It is not a game in the same family of gameplay as D&D.

It is games in that family that I am talking about. This website is devoted to talking about them.

Look, if all you are trying to say is that RPG’s in the table top medium require shared imagination then I absolutely agree. What I’m trying to say is that the shared imagination part of them isn’t the core of being an rpg, whether tabletop or not, it’s just an artifact of the table top medium we are purposefully limiting our discussion to.

 

[FrogReaver]

Pretty sure video games were not being discussed.

Any TT RPG examples?

Why restrict to a single medium?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Also how about LARP? Like sure, we are imagining being someone we are not, but besides that it is just interacting with people and environs that are actually there.