RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[FrogReaver]

No Frogreaver.

We are not doing the same thing. I am not complaining about connotation. I'm not talking about "the way people use words." This is not about my feelings.

The way people use words and my feelings are irrelevant.

I don't care about culture war over words. My problem, as I've just demonstrated, is about correctness, about applicability, about misleading nomenclature itself; in this case "writer's room." The concept and what "writer's room" falsely conveys to...well...anyone.

These are not the same things.

You are typically very reasonable so let me ask this -
Couldn't I say the same about any of the words or phrases I complain about - especially the 'my definition is right and yours wrong part'. And if I did, how would you respond?

And also let me say this: connotation vs denotation isn't a helpful line of differentiation as what inevitably will happen is that I or the other party will say my denotation is incorrect. Which places us immediately into a disagreement about semantics. It's still essentially the same discussion whether we argue connotations or denotations.

*I'll dedicate a separate post to the specifics of 'writers room'

My concern is for the net harm to anyone's understanding about these games (prospective players, prospective GMs, prospective designers, or general hobbyists).

Yea I share that concern, just for other terms and other games.

I don't know why you continue to use this incorrect language for games you don't like and games you don't play.

Again - imagine if I told you the same.

But...I'll extend an olive branch.

Thanks. I'm trying to do the same toward you.

If you can demonstrate to me how # 2 and the 3 x bullet points of # 3 in my post above are salient features of "whatever game", then I'll scratch my chin and go...."huh...I guess Frogreaver was correct about Writer's Room all this time" and we can go ahead and adopt it (totally officially!) into our shared lexicon.

Well, funny thing - I don't agree with your definition. Which i think is what I just predicted generally happens in all these instances. I don't think that was the definition @Crimson Longinus was using when he compared that specific thing to 'writers room'. But that puts us right back to 'semantics bad...' So i'm not really sure where we go from here as that's a conversation you've made clear that you don't want to have.

*Also, I've not strongly advocated for the use of 'writers room'. My part here is more on the principles behind these things. If I recall correctly it wasn't too long ago that I had to specifically ask what it meant and the explanation provided made sense to me. I can also see why things don't fit the definition you gave. But the larger meta questions are - is that the correct definition, if not then are the things you incorporate into the definition part of the connotation - and unfortunately those kinds of meta questions are what this whole discussion of ours hinges upon - but not just for 'writers room' but also for every other word and term that's ever been disputed.

Edit (late addition). For what it’s worth, I’m good never using the term writers room again. But I’m not willing to do that against a backdrop where others refuse to provide me with the same kindness.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Oh, no softening was intended. At the core is very much what I meant. I am genuinely curious what RPG doesn't have shared imagination at its core.

I had asked @ichabod but I'll happily accept an answer from you. Do you have any examples?

Did @ichabod or @Emberashh or anyone actually give any examples?

I got to page 10 looking for any, and all I could see what Emberashh giving video game examples, some of which are barely RPGs in a video game sense, let alone in a TT RPG sense. Well-designed games, sure, but not games conducive to roleplaying.

I'm kind of fascinated by the idea here, but it seems like it's entirely theoretical? I do have severe ADHD so I'm worrying that my brain just bounced over an example or multiple examples like, without actually detecting them, but were there specific, real-world, actually-exists, TT RPG examples? Or is this just a theoretical thing?

 

[FrogReaver]

Did @ichabod or @Emberashh or anyone actually give any examples?

I got to page 10 looking for any, and all I could see what Emberashh given video game examples, some of which are barely RPGs in a video game sense, let alone a TT RPG sense. Well-designed games, sure, but not games conducive to roleplaying.

I'm kind of fascinated by the idea here, but it seems like it's entirely theoretical? I do have severe ADHD so I'm worrying that my brain just bounced over an example or multiple examples like, without actually detecting them, but were there specific, real-world, actually-exists, TT RPG examples? Or is this just a theoretical thing?

If you do not accept the video game examples then none others are there. Beyond those it’s theoretical.

Like, an AI powered graphics engine and the right technologies could provide all the actual sensory feedback along with the role of the DM (at least in the foreseeable future). If so, where does that leave imagine?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you do not accept the video game examples then none others are there. Beyond those it’s theoretical.

Like, an AI powered graphics engine and the right technologies could provide all the actual sensory feedback along with the role of the DM (at least in the foreseeable future). If so, where does that leave imagine?

Yeah I definitely don't accept examples like Pokemon, even in videogame RPG terms that's borderline. I don't mean that in a mean way, but that's clearly not a strong argument in favour of using the term RPG to usefully describe them. It seems more like "Advancement game" or something would be apposite.

As for "where does that leave imagine", well, for the foreseeable future it's still going to be required. Even high-end AAAs require "imagine" as part of the experience to actually work - Baldur's Gate 3 does a ton, Cyberpunk 2077 does, as do all of Owlcat's games, and virtually every Indie (including Undertale, which was mentioned - you can see how strong the "imagine" is there from the fan art of the game, which extends wildly from the very limited pixel art the game actually uses).

I guess in 30 years we might be looking a situation where photorealistic graphics, stunning sound, and perhaps more are available via some AI-generated thing, but I very much doubt "RPG" will be a useful term for what's going on there. It'll just cause confusion. New terms are warranted.

Thankfully this puts aside @Umbran's concerns re: exclusionary behaviour. You can't gatekeep TT RPGs if none of these theoretical games even are TT RPGs.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah I definitely don't accept examples like Pokemon, even in videogame RPG terms that's borderline. I don't mean that in a mean way, but that's clearly not a strong argument in favour of using the term RPG to usefully describe them. It seems more like "Advancement game" or something would be apposite.

I like this thought. Though I’m also not sure that does justice to games like Skyrim or BG3 where you do have quite alot of choices about what to do in the game.

As for "where does that leave imagine", well, for the foreseeable future it's still going to be required. Even high-end AAAs require "imagine" as part of the experience to actually work - Baldur's Gate 3 does a ton, Cyberpunk 2077 does, as do all of Owlcat's games, and virtually every Indie (including Undertale, which was mentioned - you can see how strong the "imagine" is there from the fan art of the game, which extends wildly from the very limited pixel art the game actually uses).

I guess in 30 years we might be looking a situation where photorealistic graphics, stunning sound, and perhaps more are available via some AI-generated thing, but I very much doubt "RPG" will be a useful term for what's going on there. It'll just cause confusion. New terms are warranted.

Thankfully this puts aside @Umbran's concerns re: exclusionary behaviour. You can't gatekeep TT RPGs if none of these theoretical games even are TT RPGs.

A few thoughts. Even if we completely make the graphics and other sensory bits and dm role ai/technology driven, they player still has to imagine what the character will do and have him do it. There’s the imagination! But it’s not the same imagination that one needs without such theoretical tools. I don’t think that makes it something else - obviously not a ttrpg as tt defines a medium it’s not in, but I don’t think we can say that just because it’s not TT that it’s not essentially the same thing in a different medium.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I like this thought. Though I’m also not sure that does justice to games like Skyrim or BG3 where you do have quite alot of choices about what to do in the game.

Yeah and I'm fine with the obviously contextualized term "RPG", or even better, more precise terms like ARPG and CRPG being used for those, but when you get as far away as Pokemon, it's like, what game isn't an RPG to the degree Pokemon? "RPG mechanics" in form of some kind of long-term advancement have wildly proliferated in videogames over the last two decades. Most of it doesn't promote roleplaying in any sense. Indeed to the direct contrary, most of it promotes extreme metagaming. Part of that is the design choices of the game designers involved, but... that's how they want it.

I don’t think that makes it something else - obviously not a ttrpg as tt defines a medium it’s not in, but I don’t think we can say that just because it’s not TT that it’s not essentially the same thing in a different medium.

I think that a solitary experience where one is using a machine to seamlessly generate an adventure, with photorealistic graphics etc., is meaningfully different from any TT RPG, and not just by dint of being a different medium, by having a fundamentally different approach. It's more akin to choose-your-own-adventure turned up to 15. It doesn't even have the elements of solo RPG, because you're not having to engage your mind or imagination, you're merely making decisions in a pre-existing, AI-driven world.

 

[Umbran]

Thankfully this puts aside @Umbran's concerns re: exclusionary behaviour. You can't gatekeep TT RPGs if none of these theoretical games even are TT RPGs.

I mean, folks will always try to gatekeep, and they do and will use shoddy reasons that don't hold up to scrutiny to do it.

But, even beyond gatekeeping behavior, there's gatekeeping thought process. If you automatically exclude some games from consideration, that narrows your space of consideration around our hobby. Sharp lines are great for deciding what team you are on, they are not so great for analysis or theoretical work.

Thinking in those terms, then, if you start with an assumption that X is fundamental, when it isn't, that's starting your consideration on a false premise. For any logical portion of your consideration then, your logic will fail.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Thinking in those terms, then, if you start with an assumption that X is fundamental, when it isn't

Sure, but what about if it is? Surely then that's a correct premise, as it appears to be here, given there are no real-world examples of TT RPGs and only sketchy examples of videogames loosely termed RPGs which don't involve shared or easily-shareable imagination at their core.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, but what about if it is? Surely then that's a correct premise, as it appears to be here, given there are no real-world examples of TT RPGs and only sketchy examples of videogames loosely termed RPGs which don't involve shared or easily-shareable imagination at their core.

Do you understand the difference between "involve" and "fundamental"?

As an example - making a typical birthday cake involves all-purpose flour made from wheat. But all-purpose flour made from wheat is not fundamental to cakes - you can change out the "all purpose" or the "wheat" for something else, with some thought and understanding of cakes, and the experience may be slightly different, but still be recognizable and enjoyable as a birthday cake.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah and I'm fine with the obviously contextualized term "RPG", or even better, more precise terms like ARPG and CRPG being used for those, but when you get as far away as Pokemon, it's like, what game isn't an RPG to the degree Pokemon? "RPG mechanics" in form of some kind of long-term advancement have wildly proliferated in videogames over the last two decades. Most of it doesn't promote roleplaying in any sense. Indeed to the direct contrary, most of it promotes extreme metagaming. Part of that is the design choices of the game designers involved, but... that's how they want it.

Sure and I’m not arguing, but that’s not particularly different than how optimizers treat d&d. Could it possibly be more that since it’s a single player game that others don’t particularly care how you approach the game?

I think that a solitary experience where one is using a machine to seamlessly generate an adventure, with photorealistic graphics etc., is meaningfully different from any TT RPG, and not just by dint of being a different medium, by having a fundamentally different approach. It's more akin to choose-your-own-adventure turned up to 15. It doesn't even have the elements of solo RPG, because you're not having to engage your mind or imagination, you're merely making decisions in a pre-existing, AI-driven world.

1. I think you are limiting the potential of future AI far too much by suggesting it would merely making decisions in a pre-existing world. But maybe more importantly - I don’t find that language incorrect to describe what a player in a ttrpg typically does.

2. You would be having to engage in imagination to decide what to do and what you do would be incorporated into the game via the ai.

Other than predefining RPG’s as needing more imagination than this theoretical ai rpg - which is something that seems to be repeatedly done by most, there’s nothing fundamentally different to the outcomes or processes from a players perspective.