Towards a Workable RPG Theory

[painandgreed]

How about, "A Role-Playing Game" is a game in which each player assumes one or more roles of characters in a shared imaginary milieu.

Does it need to be "imaginary" and does it need to be "shared"?

I'm sure there are cases where people have adopted roles other than their normal selves in real life for reasons they would consider a "game".

I know that I've played what I would consider an RPG, often ones I've made up myself, using dice to determine the rest of the world and add randomness, but never sharing them.

 

[Bastoche]

Does it need to be "imaginary" and does it need to be "shared"?

I'm sure there are cases where people have adopted roles other than their normal selves in real life for reasons they would consider a "game".

I know that I've played what I would consider an RPG, often ones I've made up myself, using dice to determine the rest of the world and add randomness, but never sharing them.

Shared by all the players involved. in which case a lonely game is shared alone.

 

[Rothe]

What do I do in an RPG?

In an RPG I try to view myself in the position of the character and enjoy overcoming the obstacles presented by the game with my character. For me a large measure of enjoyment comes from the "what if" scenario. For example, what if I could cast spells and they worked such and such a way, what heroic deeds could I do, what tactics could I employ, what would such a world be like? This is anlogous to the apporach I take to wargames except I place myself not in the position of an individual character that can grow and change, but of overall operation command. Then the "what if" is geared towards, for example, what if I was in charge of the forces at Midway, could I have done better or worse. As I think someone alluded to, concepts put forth at The Forge would divide this "what if" into various approaches, simulationist, narrative, exploration etc. A narrativist approach might favor a human dialog approach to overcoming obstacles, where a simulationist a more weighted chance based (dice rolls for various outcomes) approach. The ultimate attraction IMHO, is the "what if" and also IMHO is why RPG enthusiasts also often enjoy science fiction and fatasty literature. By this view, the largest RPG out there may be The Sims franchise.

 

[jdrakeh]

In roleplaying games, players create original fictional personae (i.e., characters) assume the roles of these created personae and act out the events of their day to day lives. Ultimately, roleplaying is about becoming other people in another world and weaving their life stories in a manner that is entertaining, meaningful, and worth remembering.

Think of the imaginary world that players explore as being a novel, the players as being authors, and their created personae as being pens - these characters are the tools that players use to express their creative vision within the imaginary world. Characters are the sole property of their creators, as pens are the sole property of their author, and the most valuable tool players have at their disposal.

Some roleplaying games utilize an individual referred to as the Game Master. This individual is, at best, an editor, not an author - they exist solely to make sure that the creative vision of the authors (i.e., players) remains consistent, never deviating far from the structure within which the authors have agreed to work (i.e., system, setting, social contract, etc) in order to create their magnum opus.

Other roleplaying games are truly collaborative, splitting the usual duties of an editor amongst the authors themselves, empowering them completely and facilitating the creation of unadulterated epics. Often, the output of such collaborative writing pools lacks the consitency of those works carefully edited by a single individual, but espouse a greater sense of mystery and wonder as a result.

[Edit: This is but one view of RPGs. Some view RPGs a method to explore pre-existing stories, as opposed to creating stories and, accordingly, assign much more power to the role of Game Master while simultaneously stripping some measure of power from the players. There's nothing wrong with this, mind you - it's just not what I want out of an RPG, thus it isn't the definition that I use to explain them.]

 

[jester47]

Cant have a Grand Unified Theory of gaming, it crosses too many fields.

You can talk about mathematics and statistics and how they can or cannot imitate a world
You can talk about the difference between writing a good story and a good role playing adventure and how they may or may not be the same
You can talk about player participation and interaction and weather it is good to have one player in charge of the game or not

Those are the three parts of a Role Playing Game.

Each one can influence the other two in any number of ways, so now you have 6 more topics to cover for a total of 9 topics, each of which could work as a great master's thesis in their own right. And thats just about how games work, not even looking at what needs to be done to produce a good game. Who should write what? Can a fiction writer write technically? Can a technical writer write good fiction? Should they be able to proove themselves in both before putting on the hat of game designer?

The work at this site, The Forge or RPG.net barely scratches this.

How would such a theory look at the games? In a component view (mechanics, story development, player interaction)? or in a wholistic descriptive fashion such as the GSN?

The best place to start would be looking at the ways in which one might describe a game (component or GSN) holding all of them valid.

This task is huge and daunting. Considering the body of work that is developing on just how to be a good game master, you can bet the field of game design is much bigger. There is a lot to do.

 

[Wil]

That's the goal, to devise a workable RPG theory that describes and explains the phenomenon known as roleplaying games. To start it off we need to answer one simple question:

What do you do?

(Warning: We are using the scientific method for this project, not the academic method. )

A roleplaying game is a game where the players assume created roles for the purpose of entertainment.

This is as opposed to:

1) People who assume given roles. We all assume roles everyday, from "employee", to "parent", to "automobile owner". We seldom have any control over these roles. In RPGs, we have a lot of control over creating the role.

2) Assumed roles, created or given, for other purposes. These can be therapeutic, professional, academic, etc. Roleplaying games are ostenstibly done for entertainment.

 

[MerricB]

What Wil said, but in addition:

There is a system for resolving challenges.

##

Without such a system, there is no "game" element, there is purely roleplaying.

I don't know if you've seen Geoffrey Robertson's "Hypotheticals", where he gets a bunch of prominent people together and takes them through a made-up scenario. All resolutions are purely at his whim. Roleplaying? Absolutely. RPG? No.

Cheers!

 

[mythusmage]

Wherever you want it to take place. Adding context would only serve to exclude roleplaying games on the fringes of convention, and that is not necessary. Adding the context of "with people around a table" would exclude groups who play on the floor or via the internet. Adding the context of "not video games" would exclude Neverwinter Nights servers, CRPGs, or MMORPGs, all of which are valid takes on the core concept of conflict facilitation and resolution.

Wrong context. Where do the characters adventure?

And it's Jackelope. Yes, I spell it with an "e"

Correction noted.

Then as an appendum to my previous post, a roleplaying game is an activity which utilizes a roleplaying game system (as defined above) to facilitate and resolve conflicts between a protagonist/several protagonists and an antagonist/several antagonists. Protagonists and antagonists in this definition are fictional characters engaging in fictional conflicts in a fictional setting of some sort under the control of players (so as to exclude games like freeze tag, which are nothing more than a simple method of conflict facilitation and resolution).

Too complicated and focuses on a segment of RPGs. System is a part of RPGs, but it is not the whole of RPGs. Ask yourself; what does system do in an RPG?

 

[Wil]

What Wil said, but in addition:

There is a system for resolving challenges.

##

Without such a system, there is no "game" element, there is purely roleplaying.

I don't know if you've seen Geoffrey Robertson's "Hypotheticals", where he gets a bunch of prominent people together and takes them through a made-up scenario. All resolutions are purely at his whim. Roleplaying? Absolutely. RPG? No.

Cheers!

Actually, I can argue that having rules is a given for any kind of roleplaying - there are alwasy rules. If you doubt it, when you're in your "employee" role take a look at your employee handbook.

 

[mythusmage]

Why is this a starting point? If I want to know what the theory of anything, I don't think I would start there.

Try this:

What is the Dinner Theory? Devise a workable Dinner theory that describes and explains the phenomenon known as dinner. To start it off we need to answer one simple question: What do you do?

Does that make any sense whatsoever? If I want to know why people dine, what they do while they dine is not important. What is important is how they define dinner, what qualifies as dinner (as opposed to supper), etc.

The theories so far proposed for RPGs are similar to the theories I would expect for dinner (in terms of style of content). I fail to see why you discard them in favor of "what do you do?" For my questions of course, one eats. That doesn't tell me much of anything about dinner though really.

The first question to answer is "what is dinner?" And that is the type of answer you've received.

(I know this thread is going to give me a headache....)

Have you applied for a sabbatical? You've been in academia a little too long.

What is 'dinner'. A formal supper. What is 'supper'? An informal dinner.

Now that that's settled ...

Why define/describe RPGs? Because all the hypotheses out there work at cross purposes. With a formal theory of RPGs designers can (hopefully) work on game design without having to explain what it is they do, and players can spend more time playing than explaining the whole thing to the curious and potential players.

Think of this as the bedrock on which the foundation shall be constructed. A basic description of what an RPG is. With this description available we can then describe how RPGs work.