Semi-Rant: Maturity and dumbing down a game

[Dremmen]

Dremmen, may I suggest that a term other than "role-playing" might serve you better? Technically speaking, as long as someone is taking on a role in a game in which they're plkaying, they're experiencing a role-playing game.

Daniel

I think this is part of why I'm having such a hard time expressing my views properly, and arguing with folks who actually seem to be of the same mind. Its the using of terminology that has subjective defenitions. Narrative style, hack'n'slash, even the core term of role-playing all have different meanings for different folks. And that's why when I think I'm making one point, the person who reads it is getting something else entirely. Very frustrating because despite my best efforts to clarify my views, they are for nought.

For example:

hack'n'slash is not the same thing as "no roleplaying". I can go as far as to say that it's a style that often emphasises the playing part of roleplaying, but that it is entirely up to the group to decide how much roleplaying they want to add.

And the problem with this is that my personal definition of hack'n'slash is the playing with an absence of role-play, an absence of character individuality, just straight forward action. If you are doing lots of killing of stuff, but in character and RPing the massacres that your character deals out, then to me its not hack'n'slash. Its just a very bloody narrative RPG that I would have no problem with.

 

[Odhanan]

Whether you describe or not doesn't mean you are role-playing, IMO.

You can role-play without describing. You can be "in first person mode", i.e. "I", without voicing out your emotions. At the opposite, you can very much describe everything your character is doing without being "in character", for instance for players using the third person when talking about their character's actions "He does this, that"...

So the amount of description/speech isn't an indicator of good or bad roleplaying IMO.

 

[barsoomcore]

Let's look at baseball as an example.

Yes, let's. What's the point of baseball?

Why, to win the game, of course.

So naturally we find that there are optimal strategies for winning the game, strategies that tend to work regardless of other factors. No surprise there. We should expect to find a similar quality in roleplaying games -- with the caveat of course that the point of roleplaying games is not to win but to have fun.

Are there optimal strategies for having fun? That apply to everyone? You seem to think so. But I don't believe you can say to somebody, "I'm sorry but you're NOT in fact having fun." I know for a fact that many things I think are fun (hand-editing HTML code, watching fight scenes frame-by-frame, etc) are clearly NOT considered fun by other people.

Maybe there are very general things we can say are fun: things that challenge your brain, things that involve tension, things that are funny -- but these are so general as to be useless, and only defer the goofiness to another level. Now we have to argue about whether or not someone can be wrong about what they think is funny.

Criteria for what's fun may vary from gamer to gamer, but when you collect large numbers of those opinions trends emerge.

Ah. Well, if you want to say, "There are things that more people find fun than other things," I have no further objection. But if you want to say that playing in one style is better than playing in another style (which is the issue I've been arguing), I'm afraid popularity doesn't enter into the equation.

Just because only a few people find something fun doesn't mean they're wrong. It just means that they enjoy something other people don't. If they are playing their game in the manner that they enjoy, they aren't playing it incorrectly. They aren't playing it poorly. They're just playing it differently, and nobody has any basis to tell them they're wrong.

You can suggest a change in play style. You can say, "Hey you should try this, you might like it better." But if they try it and say, "No, thanks, not for us," they aren't wrong. Nor are you.

Again, I'm not saying there aren't trends in popularity.

But it seems that you want to argue that popularity leads to correctness. As your example you suggested Shakespeare -- universally recognized as a fine writer and a genius (these days, more or less) -- and went from there to suggest that things that are popular are likely to be better.

But the example is wrong because roleplaying games aren't art in that they don't have to please anyone besides the creators. And, unlike a game like baseball, they have no object other than to please the creators.

(and we're just pretending that the notion that popularity = correctness is unproblematic, just because)

There's no reason for a roleplaying game session to happen other than to amuse the people playing it. If it amuses them, it is successful. There are no other considerations.

A poorly written, poorly edited adventure with crappy artwork can still be fun for the players if the GM overcomes the limitations of the source material - it doens't change the fact that the writing is convoluted and strewn with errors, the editing slipshod, and the artwork childish.

Agreed. Gaming MATERIALS can be objectively better or worse, no question. As you point out, they don't necessarily have any bearing on the quality of the GAME, which is the territory I'm trying to explore here.

A playstyle that encourages some measure of roleplaying is considered good among gamers -and you don't have to take my word for it. Crack open the core rules of just about any roleplaying game and you will find anywhere from a few paragraphs to several pages devoted to the what, why, and how of roleplaying by the participants.

I agree that it's popular. But somebody playing the game in a fashion so as to ignore those paragraphs or pages isn't playing an objectively worse game.

If you want to say, "In order to design a game system that will please a large number of people, there are certain criteria that will probably help," I agree. If you want to say, "In order to run a campaign that will please a wide variety of players, there are certain qualities you ought to provide," I agree.

But when you say, "No matter who you are, or what you like, playing in style X is worse than playing in style Y," you only betray your own preconceptions as to what a good game is.

Allow me to sum up. Two facts about roleplaying games:

1. A legitimate object of roleplaying games is to have fun (people may play for other reasons, indeed, but it is the case that having fun is a legitimate object of playing these games).
2. The only people who need to have fun in a roleplaying game are the people playing it. There is no audience or external review board that needs to be pleased.

The above two facts distinguish roleplaying games from most other games (which have objects above and beyond having fun) and from art (which has an audience by whose reaction the art can be said to succeed or fail), and explain why examples using those types of practices do not shed much light on the issue of determining a correct or optimal way to play roleplaying games.

Further, and finally:

A person cannot be wrong about what they consider fun.

The above two facts, combined with the latter observation, make it clear that attempting to claim any given play style as objectively better or worse than another is simply illogical. ANY style of play that a player finds more fun than another is a BETTER play style.

 

[The Shaman]

Well, if you want to say, "There are things that more people find fun than other things," I have no further objection.

That's close - I'm saying that there are certain qualities of roleplaying games that are valued by gamers as a whole more than others. Those favored qualities tend to become established as general principles that cut across genres and systems.

But if you want to say that playing in one style is better than playing in another style (which is the issue I've been arguing), I'm afraid popularity doesn't enter into the equation.

I've already stated a couple of times now that I'm not advocating one play style over another.

Just because only a few people find something fun doesn't mean they're wrong.

It takes two people to discuss conflicting points of view, and since you insist on repeating a point that I never contested, I think I'm done here.

 

[barsoomcore]

I've already stated a couple of times now that I'm not advocating one play style over another.

Since you insist on repeating a point that I never contested, I think I'm done here

From your first post:

While I respect that many gamers want to avoid making value-judgements regarding play-styles, I believe that some gaming experiences are qualitatively better than others.

I think it's clear how I formed the impression I did of your position. You state, in the context of making value-judgements about play-styles, that some "gaming experiences" are better than others. You're clearly saying that because some gaming experiences are better than others, we CAN make value-judgements about play-styles. And that's what my original post objected to -- making value-judgements about play-styles.

I apologize if I overlooked your corrections to that position. I have indeed been reading your subsequent posts in this context. We've gone back and forth in a manner I at least have found interesting and fun. I've enjoyed our conversation.

And you should know by now that fun is all I care about.

 

[fafhrd]

The only people who need to have fun in a roleplaying game are the people playing it. There is no audience or external review board that needs to be pleased.

Unless, of course, you're in this group.

 

[Shadowslayer]

Unless, of course, you're in this group.

Man. That's a messed up group. Wonder how it turned out.

 

[Dolom]

And in SO many games I've run the majority of the players do play at that High School level. This eventually causes the Lowest Denominator effect in that since those players are not putting in the effort, the quality of all the players in that game begins to erode. The better - yes, BETTER - RPGers begin to play down and combat becomes - "does it attack?" "attack of opportunity" " me too" "what's its AC?" " I miss" " I hit. 8dmg." - stale, insipid, uninspired gameplay that is the antithesis of RPG.

As I was re-reading through this thread, this comment stood out. I'm almost 100% sure anyone who you've gamed with wouldn't like being lumped in as the Lowest Denominator. If you talk like this about your gaming circle, you're likely to lose more gamers than you collect.

 

[Belen]

From your first post:

I think it's clear how I formed the impression I did of your position. You state, in the context of making value-judgements about play-styles, that some "gaming experiences" are better than others. You're clearly saying that because some gaming experiences are better than others, we CAN make value-judgements about play-styles. And that's what my original post objected to -- making value-judgements about play-styles.

I apologize if I overlooked your corrections to that position. I have indeed been reading your subsequent posts in this context. We've gone back and forth in a manner I at least have found interesting and fun. I've enjoyed our conversation.

And you should know by now that fun is all I care about.

He said "gaming experiences." He did not mention different play styles. I agree with Shaman. There are some universal qualities that make the gaming experience better. I am not going to advocate one style of play over another as I have a definite preference, but there is nothing wrong with his statement.

 

[barsoomcore]

BU, honestly. The word "play-styles" are in the bit I quoted. I don't see how you can claim he didn't mention play styles because it's right there. Could you explain your thinking somewhat?