S/Z: On the Difficulties of RPG Theory & Criticism

[FrogReaver]

And, frankly, it's a bit disingenuous to bring in managing. Who actually thinks, "Hey, I'm played baseball last weekend" means "Hey, I managed a baseball team"?

Probably the manger of said baseball team

 

[FrogReaver]

OTOH, my Cthulhu game might start in Boston c1930, run for 10 hours of play time and finish. Or, it might start in the Antarctic in 2020 a la John Carpenter's The Thing, run for 100 hours of play time and finish. Or it might start in the year 2837 on a space station, a la Sarah Monette and run for 10 years of play time. All with the same ruleset.

And those are laughably called the same games?

Kind of sounds like minutia except to the well versed sports fan or rpg fan...

 

[Arilyn]

I like reading and listening to discussions on game theory, from the "pretentious, high brow" Forge contributors to down to earth players jawing over beer and pizza.

I like looking at games from different perspectives, and trying some new ideas for my own table. My creativity is stretched and my skills honed through differing techniques.

Therefore, I believe these kinds of discussions and efforts to hammer out a common language and definition of terms are worthwhile. The debates are worthwhile, even if arguments do get heated. I know we joke about "nerd rage," but have you seen the fights over early human fossils? We could be worse.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Seems simpler somehow to fisrt determine what doesn't need messing with before moving on to that which (maybe) does.

Different people want different things from games, so determining what doesn’t need messing with isn’t going to be any more definitive.

You and I both play D&D, but from our discussions, we seem to want and expect different things from it. Which is absolutely fine, of course, but any discussion about what D&D does well is going to have that difference baked in.

To then go further with it and look for what RPGs do well, and it would likely be an even further divide.

 

[Hussar]

Writing a novel comes to mind, @Hussar . They can be about wildly different things, from “Little Women” to “Perdido Street Station”. They can be just about any length. And so on.

But their crafting is a process. It requires imagination and then the actual work of writing, and related things like editing. No writers will follow all the same processes or use exactly the same tools, but the bones are the same.

In the end, they’ve written a novel. “Little Women” is nothing at all like “Perdido Street Station”, but yet they are both novels.

But, there is a difference here. We can look at the novel, point to similarities in structure and fairly easily discuss the difference between the novel form, and say, short story or sonnet. Now, fair enough, at what point does a novelette become a novel is a bit of semantic navel gazing that serves very little purpose. But, as an art form, we can fairly confidently state that X is a novel. At least, we can do so for the stuff that falls in the middle of the form. Around the edges, things get a bit fuzzier, but, that's fine.

So, no, novels cannot be "of any length". And, since novels generally follow similar narrative structures, we can fairly often point to this or that work and call it a novel.

But, apparently, something that has no mechanically mandated end point is identical in form to something that ALWAYS has a mechanically mandated end point. Something where the players are given a (probably fairly short) list of rules approved actions at every given point of the game is no different than something where the players have the option of taking any action and the rules consist of a series of if/then resolutions. In a standard game, the rules tell me, at every point in that game, what I can and cannot do. Sure, I can choose to throw hard or soft, but, at no point can I choose NOT to throw in Cricket. I cannot walk down to the other end, past the batter, and kick over the wicket, can I? If I'm the pitcher (bowler?), I MUST throw the ball, down that line. I have no other options.

There are very, very few points of must in an RPG. At any point in time, the player can choose pretty much any action imaginable, and the rules will simply tell you how to adjudicate that action. Yes, there is that loop of play - RPG's ARE games after all. No one is denying that RPG's are games. And, all games share that - turn taking of some manner. But, where the difference, for me anyway, lies is that the rules in an RPG don't tell you what to do. They tell you how to adjudicate, but, that's about it. It would be like a game of baseball where there are no rules whatsoever, except the strike zone rule. Everything else the two (or more) teams make up on the spot. And what these two teams make up will be idiosyncratic to those two teams and virtually impossible to recreate by any other two teams. Even the size of the teams might vary. Number of bases are up to the two teams. Distances, size of ball, size and type of bat, etc. All would be created by the players. The only point of similarity between two different games is the adjudication of the strike zone.

THAT'S what RPG's are. A list of adjudications without any prescriptive rules that the players then use to create a shared narrative.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There are very, very few points of must in an RPG. At any point in time, the player can choose pretty much any action imaginable, and the rules will simply tell you how to adjudicate that action. Yes, there is that loop of play - RPG's ARE games after all. No one is denying that RPG's are games. And, all games share that - turn taking of some manner. But, where the difference, for me anyway, lies is that the rules in an RPG don't tell you what to do. They tell you how to adjudicate, but, that's about it.

But they do tell you what to do. And no, a player can't choose any action imaginable. The rules say the player will declare what his or her character does on his or her turn.

The player describes the characters action. That's what the rules say, and that's what happens at the table. Every single player's turn is to declare the action they want their character to take.

The characters may have many more options to them.....constrained only by fictional positioning, and perhaps a handful of other rules. The characters are not limited by the rules (or not as limited, at least) but the players are.

THAT'S what RPG's are. A list of adjudications without any prescriptive rules that the players then use to create a shared narrative.

Despite not really agreeing with your "creation engine" theory, I don't think I disagree with this summary. Although I think there are prescriptive elements in most RPGs....but they vary by game, certainly.

 

[Umbran]

You and I both play D&D, but from our discussions, we seem to want and expect different things from it. Which is absolutely fine, of course, but any discussion about what D&D does well is going to have that difference baked in.

Yes, but it is probably necessary. And.. I betcha that the space of commonality is far larger than many of us think.

Also... folks should think outside their own preferences a little bit. There is, "I like this," and there's "This is not my bag, but I can see how this would serve other people well." If you cannot accept serving the needs of people who aren't exactly like you... the market for your theory or other creations will be exceedingly small.

 

[Nagol]

What about "What do we want from RPGs that is being delivered well"?

Ah! The whole "let's define the baby we keep it as we lose the bathwater" approach! The usual downside is no one agrees where the baby ends (maybe it's peeing?).

 

[Fenris-77]

THAT'S what RPG's are. A list of adjudications without any prescriptive rules that the players then use to create a shared narrative.

I think we can afford to be more nuanced than simply that, although I don't strongly disagree with that definition. Here's something with a few more knobs and dials that I think works pretty well:

These are the three rules:

1) Role-playing is an interactive process of defining and re-defining the state, properties and contents of an imaginary game world.

2) The power to define the game world is allocated to participants of the game. The participants recognize the existence of this power hierarchy.

3) Player-participants define the game world through personified character constructs, conforming to the state, properties and contents of the game world.

There are also four descriptors that are helpful but not always true:

i) Typically the decisive power to define the decisions made by a free-willed character construct is given to the player of the character.

ii) The decisive defining power that is not restricted by character constructs is often given to people participating in game master roles.

iii) The defining process is often governed by a quantitative game ruleset.

iv) The information regarding the state of the game world is often disseminated hierarchically, in a fashion corresponding with the power structure of the game.

From this article by Markus Montola.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*