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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8181393" data-attributes="member: 42582">On this, I think what I posted upthread is applicable:You don't have to get to anything very avant garde to have multiple avatars in this way - classic D&D has it (with henchmen, multiple PCs for different expeditions, etc) and (at least in my group) so does Classic Traveller.Over the Edge also has a possibility along these sorts of lines.I think it's fairly typical for more avant garde instances of a genre or artform to push against the received parameters of their tradition. Depending on how things go - in terms of penetration and uptake of the avant garde, response from more conservative/traditional elements, etc - the tradition might change, or might grow to encompass, or there might be a parting of ways.In the case of RPGing it's probably too early to tell!, but if the avatar ceases to be primary then the phrase "role playing" will perhaps be more of an inherited label than a literal descriptor, and what at the moment continue (in my view) to be discernible boundaries between RPGing and other forms of structured, collective storytelling or fiction creation may cease to be such.For instance, based on my own understandings and experiences  I would say that A Penny for My Thoughts is structured collective storytelling but not RPGing (eg there is no action declaration); whereas having playtested Orbital recently, I would say it is RPGing with a strong emphasis on sharing the "GM"/set-up aspects of the game. But the gap isn't a massive one - in debriefing after our playtest experience, one of our group members went straight to A Penny for My Thoughts in comparison, whereas its never been used as a comparison for more conventional RPGing that our group has done.EDIT: From this and my other posts in this thread you can probably also see that I think of genre/traditions etc being characterised not primarily by shared criteria (a "definition" in the most literal sense) but by the heritage they participate in, which is manifested by emulation and adaptation but can also be manifested by variations and self-conscious or even fortuitous departures. Sometimes those departures create new traditions (like D&D's fortuitous departures from wargaming giving rise to RPGing as new form of game) and sometimes they change and grow existing ones.In my view trying to impose a priori limits or but it has to be this way assumptions on these processes is pointless. I think some of the clearest examples are impressionism, which turns out (in its best versions) to be masterful painting enjoying mainstream reverence no matter how shocked some 19th century critics were, and jazz and related American music and the derivatives and offshoots of these intertwined traditions, which really are music and even great music despite the objections of critics like Adorno.</blockquote>

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