Towards a Workable RPG Theory

[smilinggm]

What is a roleplaying game? Answer here

So why exactly is your pre-determined answer to your question any better than any of the answers given here?

IMHO any scientest who only selects the data that matches his hypothisis and disguards all other data as irrelevent is not using the scientific method. He is just stroking his own ego. How has this thread been any different?

 

[Umbran]

That bit where somebody posted "Huh? This whole thread was a guessing game?" a couple posts back? That seriously happens every time you make one of these threads. Every time. I'm not exaggerating.

Edit: Perhaps this approach would be more appropriate...

Mythusmage seems to be trying to be a bit of an authority and teacher. If I'm correct in that perception, the problem is that his approach is not a very good one for teaching, but it is good for other things that aren't so nice.

 

[jester47]

The wikipedia entry for role playing game covers it pretty well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game

 

[Rothe]

So why exactly is your pre-determined answer to your question any better than any of the answers given here?

IMHO any scientest who only selects the data that matches his hypothisis and disguards all other data as irrelevent is not using the scientific method. He is just stroking his own ego. How has this thread been any different?

I think he's actually asking us to stroke his ego for him. :\

 

[mythusmage]

Mythusmage's Laws of Definition

1. Keep it short

2. Keep it simple

3. Keep it to the basics.

 

[mythusmage]

The wikipedia entry for role playing game covers it pretty well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game

I see three problems with that definition:

1. It is not short.

2. It is not simple.

3. It does not stick to the basics.

In addition, it takes an erroneous assumption as true. I'll deal with this last here.

Ask yourselves, when you play an RPG are you really engaged in collaborative story telling? I submit that you are not. Through the medium of your character you and your fellows are involved in an adventure. Your fictional character is having a fictional adventure in a fictional world. This as part of his fictional life. Really what the characters are doing is living a fictional life, with all the vicissitudes of life, as they adventure.

Consider this fact, no matter how carefully things are laid out events rarely happen as they are supposed to. You simply don't have the control over events in an RPG session that you do when telling a story.

In reality the players are engaged in collaborative story creation (my emphasis). Story creation in that the events that occur in an adventure can be recounted later, and become the basis for a story. In the adventure the characters are living. It is later, when they relate what they did during the adventure, that the story of the adventure is told.

Furthermore, the Wikipedia entry says nothing about where the adventure takes place. Adventures take place somewhere. That somewhere may be restricted or not, but it is somewhere. Adventures have a location, they occur in a world.

You get right down to it, you can't have adventures without a place where they can occur. Even if the location is only a dungeon complex, it is still a location. An extremely constrained world but still, a world. You can't get anymore basic than that.

Remember:

Keep it short.

Keep it simple.

Stick to the basics.

Once you have the foundation established then you can build on it.

 

[Plane Sailing]

As it stands, I'm not sure whether this thread is worth keeping open. Mythusmage, it seems as if you have alienated most of the people who were interested in participating in the thread.

Perhaps it would be worth starting the thread again, but taking a more open and inclusive approach - e.g. starting by posting your own definition and working together with others to come to a synthesis, and avoiding jargon terms like 'academic' vs 'scientific' method. Just say what you mean without the jargon and you are more likely to include people in the discussion.

Regards,

 

[mythusmage]

As it stands, I'm not sure whether this thread is worth keeping open. Mythusmage, it seems as if you have alienated most of the people who were interested in participating in the thread.

Perhaps it would be worth starting the thread again, but taking a more open and inclusive approach - e.g. starting by posting your own definition and working together with others to come to a synthesis, and avoiding jargon terms like 'academic' vs 'scientific' method. Just say what you mean without the jargon and you are more likely to include people in the discussion.

Regards,

Sometimes synthesis is not possible. You start with the very basics and all else that follows expands upon that.

2. A roleplaying game is an activity where the participants assume the role of a character living in an imaginary world, with a system in place that describes how that world works.

All else follows from that. The characters know people in that world, know love and fear in that world, have adventures in that world. With luck and skill they become famous in that world and give rise to legends. Stories are told of their exploits and even their misadventures. All the while their players (one hopes) are having a good time.

A roleplaying game of the second type requires cooperation and acceptance from the players. Acceptance of the world presented by the GM, even if each person's interpretation of that world differs.

This applies even if a player wishes to disrupt the game, for to do so he must accept the GM's vision has having validity for his disruptive activity to have its greatest impact.

In any journey you start from the beginning. Most especially when that journey encompasses a world.

 

[jdrakeh]

As it stands, I'm not sure whether this thread is worth keeping open. Mythusmage, it seems as if you have alienated most of the people who were interested in participating in the thread.

Perhaps it would be worth starting the thread again, but taking a more open and inclusive approach - e.g. starting by posting your own definition and working together with others to come to a synthesis, and avoiding jargon terms like 'academic' vs 'scientific' method. Just say what you mean without the jargon and you are more likely to include people in the discussion.

Regards,

I think the last post says it all. It isn't about discussion, but about preaching. This thread has little, if any, value or purpose outside of stroking the OP's ego as somebody esle suggested. Seriously, this kind of stuff belongs on a blog, wiki, etc - not on a discussion forum (because discussion forums are for discussion).

 

[MonsterMash]

Well, this has helped to confirm my prejudices against theory threads. I do feel that it would be a much better approach to post a theory and RFC (Request for Comments) than to play 20 questions against a pre-determined theory. Personally if I ever bother to come up with my theory of RPG then I'd post it to my blog and start a thread to say 'What do you think?'