Why Jargon is Bad, and Some Modern Resources for RPG Theory

[JiffyPopTart]

So my kicker deep dive has divided into two lengthy posts by two different helpful individuals. Since I am on my phone for most EnWorld discussion it's hard to be fancy with replies. I'm going to take the easy route for me and merge the two posts into a singular answer.

From both of your further examples it seems to me that the greatest difference between a kicker and a player supplied plot hook is that of their important in the games overall framework.

So as a GM in a traditional game I might have an immediate "adventure" about investigating some kidnapped children that links into an overall campaign about "two kingdoms fighting". Barnabus has a personal subplot going about a missing sister and just dropped on me the addition of ravens. As a GM I take that subplot and merge it into my overall narrative as it fits.

I get the idea that as a GM in a kicker style game I'm not going to be running an "adventure" and instead the session is largely about my players giving me menu of items they want to progress and the session is us diving into the various bits. I'm assuming the idea would be to shape at least some of them into some overall general story. I'm not sure however in this model exactly how much the GM is allowed to inject into the resulting soup. I'm not sure what a kicker game campaign is like or how it avoids hogging the spotlight but that's a different discussion best left for some other time.

If the above are close enough to understand kickers....then the most important part of the kicker concept (that was left out of a lot of the early discussion) is that kickers entirely (or almost entirely) replace a GM supplied story instead of adding to it.

Am I close enough yet? Even if not thanks for the replies. This has been one of the best conversations I have been involved with in a LONG time on EnWorld and I'm enjoying the actual discussion that's happening.

 

[Lanefan]

So here is my suggestion, and I mean this sincerely.

Rather than assume what @Campbell has shared is somehow wrong or misguided and then working to point out how, instead assume he is correct and try and figure out why. I mean, he has actual experience with the two types of games he’s described, so I would think anyone interested in actual understanding would try and figure out why he may be right instead how he must be wrong.

Seriously… look at the two descriptions and see how they may lead to different play experiences. If you don’t quite see it, ask some questions. Don’t just leap to the conclusion that there’s no difference simply because that’s your gut reaction.

Why not? All I'm doing is chopping through the differences in wording to reveal the great similarity beneath.

My intent was to (try to) point out that it seemed @Campbell was taking what seems a very minor or trivial difference at most, wording the examples so as to greatly exaggerate this difference, and then assigning it far more weight than it warrants.

Yes, different systems and game types can give different play experiences; but I posit no more so than can two different tables using the exact same broad-based system (e.g. non-4e D&D) for different purposes.

And some of what seem now to be couched as indie-game ideas a) have been around for ages, if not formalized, and b) are well worth following. The way @Aldarc describes "fiction first" just upthread, for example, is exactly how I've always (tried to) play and DM - as far as possible everything flows through the character* - even though the system I use is anything but 'indie' in its outlook.

* - even down to, as DM, talking to the character rather than the player: it's always "Falstaffe, what are you doing next?" rather than "Dave, what's Falstaffe doing next?". Really gets confusing, though, when someone has a character in the party with the same name as a different player at the table...

 

[overgeeked]

Why not? All I'm doing is chopping through the differences in wording to reveal the great similarity beneath.

My intent was to (try to) point out that it seemed @Campbell was taking what seems a very minor or trivial difference at most, wording the examples so as to greatly exaggerate this difference, and then assigning it far more weight than it warrants.

Yes, different systems and game types can give different play experiences; but I posit no more so than can two different tables using the exact same broad-based system (e.g. non-4e D&D) for different purposes.

And some of what seem now to be couched as indie-game ideas a) have been around for ages, if not formalized, and b) are well worth following. The way @Aldarc describes "fiction first" just upthread, for example, is exactly how I've always (tried to) play and DM - as far as possible everything flows through the character* - even though the system I use is anything but 'indie' in its outlook.

* - even down to, as DM, talking to the character rather than the player: it's always "Falstaffe, what are you doing next?" rather than "Dave, what's Falstaffe doing next?". Really gets confusing, though, when someone has a character in the party with the same name as a different player at the table...

Yeah. Some of these are really odd. Like you, me and mine always played that way. Fiction first. That was literally the point of the game. And has been since 1984. Dive into the world as much as possible. Make decisions from there. If you want to move a pawn around a board, go play a board game. If you want a rigid game of numbers, go play a video game. RPGs were the only one of those three that could even handle it. To us, that was the "killer app" of RPGs.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Why not? All I'm doing is chopping through the differences in wording to reveal the great similarity beneath.

Well, I would think when someone is pointing out the differences in two processes, and the impact that they have, choosing to discard the differences and focus on the similarities doesn't seem to actually be engaging.

My intent was to (try to) point out that it seemed @Campbell was taking what seems a very minor or trivial difference at most, wording the examples so as to greatly exaggerate this difference, and then assigning it far more weight than it warrants.

This is exactly what I'm saying. Your intent is not to understand or grasp what he's saying, your intent is to somehow prove what he's saying is not meaningful.

Yes, different systems and game types can give different play experiences; but I posit no more so than can two different tables using the exact same broad-based system (e.g. non-4e D&D) for different purposes.

I agree that the same game may play differently from one table to the next, sure. I don't think that those differences are generally going to be as significant as the difference between two entirely different games, though. Like my AD&D may be different than your AD&D, but my Blades in the Dark is way more different than either of our AD&Ds.

I think the fact that you don't realize this displays that you aren't that familiar with other games and how differently they play.

Which brings us back to the original point; when comparing two games and the differences in their processes, however subtle, why should I listen to your hypothetical take in favor of someone who has actual experience with both games?

 

[hawkeyefan]

So my kicker deep dive has divided into two lengthy posts by two different helpful individuals. Since I am on my phone for most EnWorld discussion it's hard to be fancy with replies. I'm going to take the easy route for me and merge the two posts into a singular answer.

From both of your further examples it seems to me that the greatest difference between a kicker and a player supplied plot hook is that of their important in the games overall framework.

So as a GM in a traditional game I might have an immediate "adventure" about investigating some kidnapped children that links into an overall campaign about "two kingdoms fighting". Barnabus has a personal subplot going about a missing sister and just dropped on me the addition of ravens. As a GM I take that subplot and merge it into my overall narrative as it fits.

I get the idea that as a GM in a kicker style game I'm not going to be running an "adventure" and instead the session is largely about my players giving me menu of items they want to progress and the session is us diving into the various bits. I'm assuming the idea would be to shape at least some of them into some overall general story. I'm not sure however in this model exactly how much the GM is allowed to inject into the resulting soup. I'm not sure what a kicker game campaign is like or how it avoids hogging the spotlight but that's a different discussion best left for some other time.

If the above are close enough to understand kickers....then the most important part of the kicker concept (that was left out of a lot of the early discussion) is that kickers entirely (or almost entirely) replace a GM supplied story instead of adding to it.

Am I close enough yet? Even if not thanks for the replies. This has been one of the best conversations I have been involved with in a LONG time on EnWorld and I'm enjoying the actual discussion that's happening.

I think you've summarized it pretty well! I wasn't either of the posters who offered you the lengthy takes, but I figured I'd comment.

I play in a Stonetop game with @Manbearcat, and he shared an example of the kicker that we used just last night. It was not the entirety of play, but it was the major focus for my character. There are other characters, and so each of them had a kicker, as well. The game revolves around the town of Stonetop and we all play characters who live there, and who have influence and authority of some sort there. So he basically took the kickers we all suggested... I think we each offered two, and then he asked the group which sounded more interesting for each character, and we decided as a group... and he rotated among them, focusing on each in turn.

These were not entirely separate, as two of them did kind of dovetail together, and my character was pulled into one as events developed. But it all worked quite well and there was no spotlight hogging or anything like that. As GM, @Manbearcat seemed to come up with some details that were kind of blanks that needed to be filled, and then he narrated interesting situations for us to address that were based on the kickers, and we played it all out.

It was a great session!

 

[Aldarc]

Yeah. Some of these are really odd. Like you, me and mine always played that way. Fiction first. That was literally the point of the game. And has been since 1984. Dive into the world as much as possible. Make decisions from there. If you want to move a pawn around a board, go play a board game. If you want a rigid game of numbers, go play a video game. RPGs were the only one of those three that could even handle it. To us, that was the "killer app" of RPGs.

Can you not think of any examples of things/concepts that were in use or existed long before people coined a term for it? In this case, "fiction first" was a term coined out of a discussion that desired to root things into a particular prioritization, i.e., "fiction first." The fact that this phenomenon or method existed before the coinage of the term is kind of irrelevant. If anything, that provides a greater validation of the term as it describes a practical play experience. Similarly, the playstyle that "sandbox" describes may have existed before its coinage (during the 3e era, as a borrowing from video games), but the adoption of a term to describe that playstyle is what's important.

 

[soviet]

It surely validates the very premise of the thread: putting a catchy label on something that had been understood by some for a long time, helped that concept get wider recognition amongst the community.

 

[Charlaquin]

Games can try supporting G, N, and S, though I think some combinations are easier to support than others. The point is not that it's impossible, but, rather, that conflicts of interest can and often do emerge between these roleplay motivations. That said, I think that the benefits and intentionality of GNS "incoherence" has been overlooked by Edwards and the Forge. Many video game designers, for example, understand that they have different sorts of players for whom they are designing. In order to cast a fairly wide net of a fanbase, a MMORPG may have to design for players with varying shades of Bartle's typology (i.e., Explorers, Socializers, Achievers, and Killers) to co-exist to varying degrees.

Looping back to this, because I think it may be a low-key but very significant part of where the backlash against GNS comes from. Taking your word for it that GNS’s claim is not that the various agendas can’t coexist, but that there is the potential for conflict to arise between them, I think Edwards and Co kinda took that and said “therefore, a game should pick one and focus on it, lest it be incoherent” whereas the folks who take issue with the Forge don’t find the notion that these interests can sometimes come into conflict with each other particularly revelatory, and have all along been interested in developing systems that avoid or smooth over those conflicts. So what you’ve got is one group of people seeking the best ways to serve all of these interests simultaneously, and another group saying “eww, no, that doesn’t work, you have to pick one and commit to it hard.”

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah. Some of these are really odd. Like you, me and mine always played that way. Fiction first. That was literally the point of the game. And has been since 1984. Dive into the world as much as possible. Make decisions from there. If you want to move a pawn around a board, go play a board game. If you want a rigid game of numbers, go play a video game. RPGs were the only one of those three that could even handle it. To us, that was the "killer app" of RPGs.

I can see where fiction first would have been a useful concept to specifically identify during the height of 3e “I make a Diplomacy check” gameplay. While the concept might not have been novel to folks who started with B/X or AD&D, the folks who were new at the time (like myself) certainly benefited from having this concept presented to us in a more academic format than just having “it’s called role-play, not roll-play!” repeatedly shouted at us.

 

[Campbell]

There's a judgement component happening in this thread when it comes to fiction first that I'm really not a fan of. It was never the intention that fiction first is better than mechanics first. There's nothing wrong with representational mechanics or action economies. They just have a different impact on play. Blades in the Dark isn't virtuous because it lacks a combat subsystem.

Our goal should be to appreciate what different structures, games and techniques bring to the table. Not to pass judgement over the worthy and unworthy.