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

[Umbran]

I think there is a difference between reviews and critiques, isn't there?

I don't think there's much difference in the overall content. Perhaps there's a difference in presentation.

But, if we accept this position... then almost nobody ever gets to give critique. Unless you are in contact with the authors or makers of a work, you aren't giving critique.

 

[prabe]

I don't think there's much difference in the overall content. Perhaps there's a difference in presentation.

But, if we accept this position... then almost nobody ever gets to give critique. Unless you are in contact with the authors or makers of a work, you aren't giving critique.

Presentation is almost certainly different, but I may also have used "criticism" instead of "critique" which is, in my own experience, the word used for input from readers and editors and suchlike.

 

[FrogReaver]

1. "Wittgenstein, Wittgenstien, what is Wittgenstein?" What is the RPG Jump Cut?

So when any media has a well-developed body of work, and of serious study and criticism, certain terms and definitions become codified so that people can more easily discuss them. Many of these are so well known that you don't have to be especially "in the know" to understand them, or have read back issues of Cahiers du Cinéma or dived into S/Z. If I'm talking about a "montage" or a "jump cut" or "diegetic and non-diegetic sound" when I'm discussing film, you know what I'm talking about. You understand the technique, and from that point, you can immediately begin the conversation about whether the technique was accomplished in a manner that effectuates the overall purpose of the author and is intelligible as such to the audience. It's the same with literature; whether it's as simple as a metaphor or an allusion, or more complicated like low and high mimetic, there are general terms that have been agreed upon.

Perhaps the issue is that there is no unbiased academic willing on the subject for everyone to rally behind - most attempts are plagued by explaining why you like one playstyle or games with certain traits - inevitably leaving the impression that the criticism is more a justification of a particular style than a valid criticism.

We ... don't have that for RPGs. At all. In fact, I've seen many threads wherein people can't even agree on what constitutes an RPG. As the boundaries between improv, freeform, LARP, DM-less games (like Fiasco), and various types of TTRPG and CRPGs blur, the question of what even constitutes an RPG can matter.

Consider Rock music and all it's subgenres. What certain individuals are willing to call Rock has traditionally been quite varied. Even today the "critics" and the laypersons often disagree about how to classify certain music.

That said, even when looking at just traditional RPGs (TTRPGs, with a "GM" and "Players" and rules and procedural mechanics to resolve issues), there is no universal agreement on what basic definitions mean, so you end up with interminable debates between people and A saying, "Well, by player agency I mean X" and person B saying, "But by player agency, I mean Y."

Such debates have been raging in theology, philosophy, music classification, film classification and basically anything that human beings try to classify. I'm not seeing anything particularly different about RPG's compared to these - except 1 thing - RPG's are often more deeply personal for the individual than all these other things.

Personal investment makes criticism difficult IMO.

When the basic terms can't be agreed upon, it's hard to develop theory and do appropriate criticism. It would be like two people discussing a film, and one saying. "I liked that jump cut." And the other person saying, "Well, I hated it, because I hate montages."

Here's the thing though, humans often blend different styles - and so there may come a point where you do a montage of jump cuts or a jump cut of montages. What does one call that?

The point is that at some point you will have to confront terms and language breaking down as new techniques are created that share elements of both of the previously defined things.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

Well, okay, I don't see how asking you questions to clarify is in any way imputing anything to you.

Again, you suggest that there's a "certain solution" in mind, and that I should be mindful of that, which confuses me -- what is this "certain solution" I should be mindful of? As far as I know, I only want better tools to discuss and understand how games are played. My only goal is to better my own game through better understanding, and to have tools to discuss things I find interesting. Is this what I should be mindful of?

All honest questions.

 

[Leatherhead]

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.

Most criticism is after the fact, which would be used to inform the medium and help works in the future.

But, if we accept this position... then almost nobody ever gets to give critique. Unless you are in contact with the authors or makers of a work, you aren't giving critique.

You have a nonstandard definition of the word critique.
A teacher could critique the work of a dead artist for the benefit of their students, for example.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, okay, I don't see how asking you questions to clarify is in any way imputing anything to you.

Maybe because you keep doing more than that...

For example you said:

Again, you suggest that there's a "certain solution" in mind,

Here you imput to me the idea of "a certain solution in mind". I never said there was any solution in mind, certain or otherwise. You see how your subtle change in words completely imputes to me something I never said, suggested, implied, nor otherwise entertained.

To make it clear. I never suggested there was any mind in which there was a certain solution. Nor that there was any intent by anyone to push a certain solution. Only that using certain terms would do so regardless of intent.

and that I should be mindful of that, which confuses me -- what is this "certain solution" I should be mindful of?

Define the problem, define terms. I may can tell you then. Or I may not can as I by no means claim to be able to see the implications of using any given set of terms - only that using them will likely push me somewhere.

As far as I know, I only want better tools to discuss and understand how games are played. My only goal is to better my own game through better understanding, and to have tools to discuss things I find interesting. Is this what I should be mindful of?

nope. You should be mindful that the terms by which something is defined will often lead you to a solution which defining the terms in some other way would lead you to a different solution.

All honest questions.

Then why do you keep imputing to me things I flat out deny saying or implying?

 

[Umbran]

Again, you suggest that there's a "certain solution" in mind, and that I should be mindful of that, which confuses me -- what is this "certain solution" I should be mindful of?

That would vary from person to person.

As far as I know, I only want better tools to discuss and understand how games are played. My only goal is to better my own game through better understanding, and to have tools to discuss things I find interesting. Is this what I should be mindful of?

Certainly, you are aware that people have unconscious biases.

Speaking not to you, personally, but about people in general - most human opinion is not based on facts and analysis. We create opinions that are based on feelings and intuition, and then support that with rationalizations - there are neurological reasons for this I can go into if you wish. But, this is why simply laying out facts on the internet rarely changes anyone's mind - because the mind wasn't made up on the facts in the first place.

This is why modern science has double-blind studies, and peer review - because the action of the mind is insidious, and can lead us astray, even if we intend and claim and vow to the heavens that we have no personal agendas. And, honestly, the more you reject the possibility that you can be biased, the more likely you are to be impacted by your bias - because your confidence in your ideological purity leads you to not worry so much about safeguards against it. I'm afraid that these strong claims of really only wanting to understand put you in a high-bias-risk category.

In this context, you can imagine that any given analyst will have their own preferred playstyle. They can't help it. And, the language they choose is very, very likely to reflect that. And once the language has style embedded in it, the whole framework is biased, and thought and analysis done with that framework will tend to have a similar bias.

This, honestly, is the larger issue with discussion of theory and criticism - we are not using any sort of guards against bias, and we reject the possibility that we are biased.

 

[prabe]

In this context, you can imagine that any given analyst will have their own preferred playstyle. They can't help it. And, the language they choose is very, very likely to reflect that. And once the language has style embedded in it, the whole framework is biased, and thought and analysis done with that framework will tend to have a similar bias.

This, honestly, is the larger issue with discussion of theory and criticism - we are not using any sort of guards against bias, and we reject the possibility that we are biased.

I don't think people here have pretensions to doing science, here. I think we just are hoping we can find a way to talk about RPGs in a way that is generous and helpful and clear. Given my thinking of RPGs as something of a meta-language, I guess what we're talking about would be a meta-meta-language; no wonder it's difficult to come to any agreement about it. ;-)

 

[Umbran]

You have a nonstandard definition of the word critique.

You so quickly lost the narrative there, that it isn't even funny.

I EXPLICITLY SAID "if we accept this (prabe's) position". I am taking prabe's position to its logical conclusion, not stating my own definition.

Now, please take this reading issue in context of talking about biases. Even thought I specifically said what I was doing... you lost that, and turned it into something else.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Maybe because you keep doing more than that...

For example you said:



Here you imput to me the idea of "a certain solution in mind". I never said there was any solution in mind, certain or otherwise. You see how your subtle change in words completely imputes to me something I never said, suggested, implied, nor otherwise entertained.

To make it clear. I never suggested there was any mind in which there was a certain solution. Nor that there was any intent by anyone to push a certain solution. Only that using certain terms would do so regardless of intent.



Define the problem, define terms. I may can tell you then. Or I may not can as I by no means claim to be able to see the implications of using any given set of terms - only that using them will likely push me somewhere.



nope. You should be mindful that the terms by which something is defined will often lead you to a solution which defining the terms in some other way would lead you to a different solution.



Then why do you keep imputing to me things I flat out deny saying or implying?

Alrighty, then. You've clearly mistaken my intent as trying to impute things to you when I'm trying to understand what it is you're trying to say. The best I can get from the above is that you'd like everyone to share a general concern that definitions might tend toward some conclusion and to be aware of this. That's... super helpful, I guess, in a vaguely cautionary way.

I do find it ironic that you chastise me for my choice of words seeming to impute things to you, but leave aside that your phrasing does largely the same thing in the reverse.