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

[FrogReaver]

Okay, to what purpose is the discussion being shaped, then? This seems a rephrasing of your initial statement without much change. I'm open to accept I've misinterpreted you, but this doesn't clarify your position for me much.

I mean, there appears to be some goal you have in mind for the discussion to be shaped towards? I can understand that, as some discussions along these lines are, indeed, aimed at elevating one style or play or game above others. I'm not interested in doing so, or, really, I'm not afraid to state my opinion on playstyles as my opinion and see no need to control the terminology to clearly state my preferences and dislikes. Instead, I seek terminology that describes as accurately as possible, even if it's a bit uncomfortable. I was resistance to the concept of Force, to name a current discussion, because I used it and felt that that term was derogatory. But, it's not, it's descriptive. When I use Force now, I do it recognizing that I am, indeed, overriding player input to push my preference for the game. I limit my applications, and try to do so in a principled manner (my principles being having a fun game, which occasionally means I need to Force the game away from areas where I'm not prepared or ready to improvise and/or areas I or other players have indicated are uncomfortable for them). But, I do it, and I no longer mind the term Force because it is an good description of the tool.

You are imputing motive and words to me that were never uttered.

All I said was: "I've found that the party which gets to define the terms gets to win the argument more often than not."

In other words, the terms being used to define the problem often push those discussing toward a certain solution. This applies regardless of intent. It's something that one such as yourself - that wants to be enlightened by discussion should be most mindful of.

 

[Hussar]

@Hussar - There are a significant number of academically inclined people who would disagree with that point of view. The challenge is, in fact, to come up with criteria and ways to describe the many and varied RPGs, usually by virtue of the concepts, mechanisms, and other things they share, rather than by examining the ways in which they differ.

To use you own analogy, the rules of baseball are also not a complete game. You need both the rules, and the game as played. Even using that example, there are different ways that baseball gets realized on the field despite sharing a rules set, much in the same way that, for example, 5e D&D can look markedly different at two different tables. To move away from your analogy, I think the fact that the baseball games you describe all use a common rules set, while the RPGs you compare them to do not, might index a weakness in your choice of comparison.

No, I disagree. If you look at the rules of baseball (granted there are variant rules, but, let's say that we're using a single one) they are a step by step guide to playing the game. Step 1 do this, step 2 do that. Follow these steps and you will play a game of baseball according to these rules.

There are no step by step guides for RPG's. The rules of the RPG allow you to play the game that you and your table create, but, without that creation - the campaign as it's usually called - there is no game. And the rules of an RPG do not create that campaign.

 

[FrogReaver]

No, I disagree. If you look at the rules of baseball (granted there are variant rules, but, let's say that we're using a single one) they are a step by step guide to playing the game. Step 1 do this, step 2 do that. Follow these steps and you will play a game of baseball according to these rules.

There are no step by step guides for RPG's. The rules of the RPG allow you to play the game that you and your table create, but, without that creation - the campaign as it's usually called - there is no game. And the rules of an RPG do not create that campaign.

Without a field there is no baseball game...
Nor do the rules of a baseball game create that field...

 

[prabe]

There are no step by step guides for RPG's. The rules of the RPG allow you to play the game that you and your table create, but, without that creation - the campaign as it's usually called - there is no game. And the rules of an RPG do not create that campaign.

One can call an RPG a guide for creating a game, and one can point out that different tables are different (different expectations, different interpretations, and such), but a given RPG can serve as a sort of meta-language that we can use to discuss what we are doing, in that game. Think of different people, say, on the Internet, talking about the D&D games they all play. While there are certain to be some differences among the various games, the differences are likely to be akin to regional accents (or at their more extreme, dialects). If Linguistic Theory is a thing that helps us discuss how languages work, then there should be a theory that helps us discuss how RPGs work.

What @FrogReaver has said is also relevant.

 

[Fenris-77]

No, I disagree. If you look at the rules of baseball (granted there are variant rules, but, let's say that we're using a single one) they are a step by step guide to playing the game. Step 1 do this, step 2 do that. Follow these steps and you will play a game of baseball according to these rules.

There are no step by step guides for RPG's. The rules of the RPG allow you to play the game that you and your table create, but, without that creation - the campaign as it's usually called - there is no game. And the rules of an RPG do not create that campaign.

And yet somehow two games of baseball played by the same rules set can look markedly different based on all sorts of things. The rules of baseball do not produce identical games, nor do they produce the entire game as played. The steps outlined in the rules get followed, sure, but that's not by a long way the 'whole' game. Very much in the same way that the same RPG rules set can produce very different games. Moreover, different baseball rule sets still produce something generally identifiable as baseball much in the same way as a variety of RPG rules sets produce something generally identifiable as role playing. In the latter case, the similarities are enough to have fueled serious and informative academic work. YMMV I guess. You can only stretch the baseball metaphor so far.

 

[prabe]

And yet somehow two games of baseball played by the same rules set can look markedly different based on all sorts of things. The rules of baseball do not produce identical games, not do they produce the entire game as played. The steps outlined in the rules get followed, sure, but that's not by a long way the 'whole' game. Very much in the same way that the same RPG rules set can produce very different games. Moreover, different baseball rule sets still produce something generally identifiable as baseball much in the same way as a variety of RPG rules sets produce something generally identifiable as role playing. In the latter case, the similarities are enough to have fueled serious and informative academic work. YMMV I guess. You can only stretch the baseball metaphor so far.

There are also the ways that play evolves as teams innovate. Sure, "Moneyball." Also Whitey Herzog and the running game, or Tony LaRussa and relief pitching (Eckersley wouldn't be in the HOF without him).

 

[hawkeyefan]

But, the thing is, if you play baseball, you follow the rules as instructions. The rules straight up tell you, these players play these positions. This person pitches, these people, on the other team, bat. You can follow the steps exactly as written down and EVERY game of baseball (presuming they are playing from the same rulebook) will follow exactly the same steps.

There are no steps inherent in most RPG's. When you play an RPG, for example, what's the first step? Character creation? Campaign creation? Something else? Note, those can both be true - some games start with chargen and then proceed, others start with campaign creation and then proceed. Neither is more correct than the other.

And that's just the starting point of an RPG. No two tables start the exact same way. There are always considerable differences between one table and the next. And these aren't cosmetic differences. These are differences that will completely alter how the game plays.

Sure, in baseball, the players change, but, the game never does. You play one side until you get three out and then play the other side. You don't suddenly decide to add sharks to the outfield or play in roller skates half way through. Every game of baseball, from little league all the way through to the pro's plays identically. Baseball is a complete game. RPG's are not.

When I bat, I swing at the ball.

When I take my turn in a RPG, I declare what my character is doing.

There are indeed common actions taken by the participants. The fiction I declare may be different from the fiction you declare...but is that more different than a batter hitting a single up the middle compared to popping up to the catcher?

I feel like you’re comparing the fiction of the RPG....which is different for sure...to the procedure of baseball. But really, comparing procedure to procedure makes more sense.

In that sense, a RPG is people sitting at a table taking turns declaring actions. Compared to batters taking turns swinging at a ball.

 

[Umbran]

That is the purported purpose of all criticism: To make the thing (or person) "better" by providing feedback.

I don't think that's true at all. A great deal of criticism is there to inform an audience of the characteristics of the piece. Movie reviews are the major example here - there is no real attempt to communicate with the people involved with the film, and it is far too late, and unstructured, to be of use to the filmmakers. The critique is aimed at the audience, not the artist, and I don't think the critics are purporting otherwise.

 

[prabe]

I don't think that's true at all. A great deal of criticism is there to inform an audience of the characteristics of the piece. Movie reviews are the major example here - there is no real attempt to communicate with the people involved with the film, and it is far too late, and unstructured, to be of use to the filmmakers. The critique is aimed at the audience, not the artist, and I don't think the critics are purporting otherwise.

I think there is a difference between reviews and critiques, isn't there? At this point I think of reviews as about "should you [verb] this [media]?" and at their most useful if you as a consumer (moviegoer, reader, whatever) have had time to index your preferences/tastes to a given reviewer's; criticism is more about "how does this work and why" types of questions. There is maybe overlap and those are maybe kinda at the ends of a spectrum, but that's the difference as I understand it.

 

[Umbran]

Games where the complexities come from messy pile-ups of consequences (an age old system for story writing) do not do well with adventure paths because adventure paths are too organised and the stories are going to end up very twisted and knotty with call-backs.

I don't know that I have seen anyone actually try, though. An adventure path for such a system would not look the same as one for D&D, sure, but I expect there's little preventing it from working.

The designers would have to realize that, as the mechanic itself generates a significant amount of the action, that the adventure path would need to be far more sparsely populated than a D&D or Pathfinder adventure path. They'd probably want to insert notes as to what kind of callbacks or complications would serve well in any given scene or area of the adventure...

It would be interesting to see, but I doubt these games have enough of the market to make it a viable product at the moment.