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

[hawkeyefan]

I think where we are diverging @hawkeyefan is that I see the campaign, what the players and the DM actually play at the table, as the game. The RPG rules are there to facilitate and guide that game, but, they aren't actually what's being played. We play a campaign. We don't play the DMG or the Greyhawk boxed set. Those are just there to help us create our campaigns, which is what we actually play.

Now, in more indie style RPG's, sure, the creation of the campaign often gets spread around the table a bit more, and choices from the players might drive things a bit more than they might in more traditional games, but, the basic framework still exists. You don't play Dread - you play a game that is created using the Dread rules. You don't play Blades in the Dark, you play in a campaign that is created using the clocks of BitD. So on and so forth.

You can't sit down, open up the RPG's rules and just play. It doesn't work.

Sure you can. That's generally exactly what we do.

And even if it's not, the same could be said for baseball. You can't play without some basic understanding of the rules and processes.

The rules describe the process of play. The GM establishes a scene, and then asks players "what do you do?" We can call this the pitch. The players then take turns describing what their characters do. Let's call each of these a swing. Sometimes, a player may declare an action for his character whose outcome is uncertain. Let's call this a hit. The GM calls for a check, and then narrates a response based on the result. We can call this fielding.

There's a procedure that games follow and that's what the books layout. That's the same as the rules for baseball or any other game or sport.

Every RPG session (or near enough for this discussion, I'd say) consists of people taking turns and declaring actions for their character or characters, responding to the persistently established fiction that they're creating and sharing. The content that fiction will indeed be radically different from instance to instance.

The same way that a box score will be different from baseball game to baseball game. This is because the results of the established processes of play will differ for both.

 

[Umbran]

Well, RPG theory and criticism has impacted RPG design and many designers have a theoretical underpinning for their projects that's probably significantly different than what used to be the case. Is that a good thing? IDK for sure, but probably.

Sure.

So, some questions that we don't know the answer to - How much theory was really involved in 5e? How much theory was tossed out when empirical feedback contradicted theory?

The next question is - Is continuing development of theory based on anecdote and personal opinions/preferences of sufficient value to justify the effort?

I'm not sure the extent to which RPG theory has borrowed from the philosophy of science. Does that have to be the case in order for it to be meaningful?

"Meaningful"? I mean, if you have a good time doing it, and it leaves you feeling like you have accomplished something, it is meaningful to you. I'm more concerned with relevance. Theory developed by small groups disconnected from the empirical is unlikely to be relevant.

I'm a bricolage man when it comes to theory and critical lens, and in terms of usefulness for both design and understanding I'd say current theory passes the usefulness and relevancy tests. YMMV of course.

Of course. I'm looking back at The Forge, and thinking of how sure, there were a couple good ideas in there, but how most of it was a colossal waste of everyone's time, such that here and now folks feel a need to come up with a whole other set of terms and framework. As you said, YMMV.

But, simply asked - how is this going to be different from The Forge? Folks who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, right?

I'm not saying to not develop theory. I'm trained as a theoretical physicist, for cryin' out loud, of course I value theory. I'm trying to note that how you go about developing the theory has pretty sizable impact on whether your theory matches reality, and it very much pays to be consciously aware of how humans are part of the process, and take that into account.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Well, RPG theory and criticism has impacted RPG design and many designers have a theoretical underpinning for their projects that's probably significantly different than what used to be the case. Is that a good thing? IDK for sure, but probably.

I'd say categorically yes - in part because when a designer uses any theory, even if it's completely out of nowhere then the results are going to be interesting. And the more strongly the theory is adhered to the more likely something new and interesting rather than Yet Another Fantasy Heartbreaker is going to appear. And some of them (notably anything by Vincent Baker) are going to be worth playing.

5e almost does the opposite of pushing the limits like this and that works too. The goal was to be recognisably D&D - but not extreme in any direction. So people could all agree it was good enough for the job - I might not like McDonalds, but it's very successful and for good reason.

 

[Fenris-77]

@Umbran - There are enough people in this thread who are familiar with a range of critical RPG theory that it seems premature to dismiss the whole thread as based on personal anecdote and opinion. Some of it is, sure, but not all of it. If those people have a a willingness to engage, share, and modify their points of view then useful dialogue is the most likely outcome. We're not revolutionizing critical thought on RPGs here of course, but we're sharing ideas with people that we communicate somewhat regularly with, so I think there's some value in just getting granular about the ideas that underpin peoples opinions and preferences as well.

A lot of the theory that people seem to be familiar with was developed after the Forge, and in many cases as a response to it too, so I think right there we're a leg up. And it's always interesting to go back and forth about X using a couple of different critical lenses to see where the rough spots are - the places where theory breaks down, call them liminal spaces, are for me anyway, often the most interesting.

IMO the level that we're working at here is to talk about theory with the goal of understanding our own hobby better (and possibly each other better), not necessarily to develop new theory.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Of course. I'm looking back at The Forge, and thinking of how sure, there were a couple good ideas in there, but how most of it was a colossal waste of everyone's time, such that here and now folks feel a need to come up with a whole other set of terms and framework. As you said, YMMV.

I'd still say that the Forge had more hits than almost anything else I can think of. GNS was a bit of a bust - but The Forge was the incubator for Fate (which more or less solved the implicit problem the Forge was set up to ask "We want to play the awesome games that the oWoD promises when reading the rulebooks, not the morass of rules we actually get - how can we have something focussed on character aspects and choices?"). It also gave us My Life With Master which answered the problem @innerdude set up a 20 page thread that's still open saying he couldn't get - how could you get actual character change and growth? It was where Vincent Baker cut his teeth. I think Burning Wheel and Luke Crane were The Forge - as was Prime Time Adventures.

To me when you have that many gems coming out of one set area that are not obviously riffs on each other that's fairly spectacular. I also think it burned out because they took their theories and approach as far as they could.

But, simply asked - how is this going to be different from The Forge? Folks who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, right?

If it is The Forge Mk2 with its own massive output even if three quarters of it is bunk I'll count it as a success.

 

[Numidius]

The fact that - I think, judging from what they write - people like Ron Edwards and Vincent Baker would probably find my games rather shallow, even juvenile, isn't a problem.

No, sir. MY games are shallow.

 

[Lanefan]

RPGs by their very nature contain some some elements that restrict player agency. People who refuse to admit that fact are hard to have cogent discussions with.

True, but the player is ideally only constrained by the elements inherent to the system in use (including houserules), and not further constrained by arbitrary whims of the GM during play.

Telling me up front I can't play an Elf or shoot phasers in your campaign's setting is A-OK; if I sign on for that game I'm agreeing to that constraint. Telling me during the same game that my Dwarf has, absent any control mechanics, just been swayed to an opinion by an NPC (or even another PC) is not OK at all.

 

[Lanefan]

Meanwhile... D&D 5e went not to critics, but to statistically relevant numbers of people actually playing games, and came back with what seems to be the most popular game ever.

Star Wars is arguably the most popular movie of all time yet the critics rather savaged it when it first came out.

The Oscars routinely these days give awards to films relatively few people have actually seen, while largely or completely ignoring those which resonate with the paying-viewing public.

So yes, criticism - particularly when what's being criticized is still new - is often something to be taken with a great big grain of salt IMO.

 

[aramis erak]

I've yet to see a single RPG which would allow me to open the game, read the rules step by step and begin play in the way you could any other game. EVERY RPG requires you to create material that is not governed by the rules of the RPG.

I've yet to see that level for sports in the laws of the sport. Rulebooks for sports usually specify the field, and the numbers of players and their allowed range on the field, and then a whole raft of "don'ts"... The rules/laws for Rugby don't tell you that you should be passing backward; they tell you you can't pass forward; that you need to pass back and (usually) outward evolves from play, as that's the negative space formed by the rules.

Moldvay shows the process of play with a nice extended example. And, unless you bought the naked book, it also has two adventures - one is the little keep in the back, and the other is (depending upon date of box) B1 or B2... It may leave one a little shaky on the process, and is unlikely to get deep characterization from total newbs, it's good enough that 2-3 teens can get the game going.

The beginner boxes for FFG star wars will take the novice by the hand and walk them through. It will get them playing by having 2-4 friends, and a few hours. Each also has a PDF follow on that continues the story, and helps the novice GM. I've met several people who figured out how to play RPGs from the FFG SW BB sets. Then they followed on with a core rulebook.

Likewise, Modiphius has a pretty good beginner box for STA.

Moldvay was excellent for its era, and it taught the game pretty well. It taught me the basic GMing skills. Modern beginner boxes are separate from the corebooks for the more successful games... Like 5E, Pathfinder, L5R5, Star Trek Adventures, FFG Star Wars....

It's no longer essential to learn the process by joining existing groups... I'll admit - moldvay was hit or miss... I was pretty much a wargame mode GM until I played with a story-mode GM in Traveller in 1983... and I still hybridize the modes often.

I've had players who had only played with each other, having learned from Moldvay alone - they had the process down.

It's also worth invalidating your campaign focus fixation. Looking the wargame roots, a campaign is merely a series of runs that combine to a single victory/loss overall. Not even always the same forces, nor continuing consequences. In RPG play, the moment you get to adventure #2 with the same characters, you're in campaign. Or send a new group of PCs into the dungeon and the DM doesn't fully reset after the previous TPK, continuing consequences equals campaign.

There are many kinds of campaign - you're fixated upon a slim section of the range. Look at the broader scope, and understand that your narrow view is part of the wider landscape, and that many styles of campaign don't need more than "Start each new adventure having spent what you're going to spend, and having full HP and spell slots."

 

[Numidius]

True, but, the rules of a baseball game define the field to be used. They tell you the distance to between the bases, the distance of the pitcher's mound, so on and so forth. So, the rules of baseball very much do define the field.

Regarding the baseball metaphor, to me it best represents a single game, say, D&D.

I started this hobby, back then, attending actual tournaments of D&D.

Then we went home and played dnd/baseball in our basement/backyard, with houserules and homebrew campaigns/amateur tournaments, whatever.

Rpgs in general look more like bat and ball games, as a methaphoric category.

Yes baseball is mainstream, as is D&D. Nonetheless it is plentiful of different bat & ball games.