Schedule change

I'm taking another Gimme this week. In fact, I think I'm going to make it official policy: for the time being, the blog will be published on bi-weekly on Mondays, to match my posting to the pacing of my core audience. See you next week.

Peace,
-Joel

What's the Point?

Two weeks ago I talked about three goals of RPG play. I somewhat playfully named them thusly: "People want to Kick Ass, they want to Make it Real, or they want it to Mean Something." This is not to say there can't be other goals, but these are the ones identified by theorists at the Forge. And remember, this is only one set of preferences, based on the actual point of play. Things like crunchy mechanics, getting deeply in character, or high fantasy settings, are different preferences entirely.

Munchkins are from Baator, Immersionists are from Elysium

So, let's break down these play goals a bit, beyond my flippant titles. First, lemme say that it's all about what's the point: if you have lots of Ass-kickin' and you also manage to say something Meaningful, but it's the Meaningful that's really the IT thing, then it's all cool to have the Ass-kickin' in there backing it up. But I mean really backing it up, not constantly push-pulling over which one is really important, or making concessions to Mister Kickass Player in hopes that he'll reward YOU, Mister Meaningful Player, with the same courtesy. I mean, do what you want; if everyone's happy at the end of the day, great, but the Theory would suggest that if you take one goal and do it up to the nines, that can be even (as in way) better.

So. Ass-kicking. This one's easy to scope out, even if we didn't have a long-standing tradition of a certain quite popular RPG catering toward it. It's challenge. Competition, though it can be co-operative as well as cutthroat. It's all about coming through when the chips are down, being a rules-god, and owning anything that gets in your way. It doesn't have to be mindless or ignore the "story," or even be combat-focused, it just has to value trouncing obstacles above all. We do this all the time with sports, boardgames, videogames, whatever, so it's no surprise that people wanna do this with RPGs too.

Then, Making it Real. This is a bit tricky. It's about imagining, but of course, all roleplaying is imagining, so it's more than that. It's when creating a perfect picture of the imagined thing is more important than anything else, when getting Middle Earth or a Galaxy Far Far Away, or making your own setting or whatever, just hum and breathe with life, is more important than rocking the combat or making important statements. Those can happen, if the internal logic of the world peremits it, but it's cool if it doesnt, and not cool if it takes over.

Aaand, Meaning Something. This one's kind of a literary goal, but it's not just aping your favorite stories or anything, that's covered above. This is about doing what all the best books and plays and movies have always done for you even if you didn't have words for it. It's making a statement about some human condition, or reveling in the fallout from a really hard choice, asking tough questions like "how far will you go for that belief?" It's what lit professors talk about when they speak of "conflict." It's not "do I kill the guy?" It's "why do I kill the guy?" or "What will it cost me to kill the guy?" There's a thousand different questions and a thousand ways to ask 'em, but that's the gist.

Agenda Clash of the Titans

So whaddya do with these goals once you know you have them? Well, the best advice is to A) play with people who share the same goals, and B) Find a system that works best to support that. "System" meaning "How you actually play," not "what's written in a rulebook." But the flipside is that game designers could benefit from learning how to put the right tools in so players wouldn't have to tweak the hell out of the rules to get what they want out of it.

So why the exclusivity? Can't you have it all? Deeply explored world, kickass fights, and meaningful statements? Sure, maybe. But there are a million little ways that things can unravel. For instance, if you're using a ruleset that incentivizes certain activity (like, oh, I don't know, kill stuff, get experience, level up, gain more ability to kill stuff), other activities are liable to get marginalized. Maybe not edged out, but probably not present enough for players who really get their meat 'n potatoes that way. And speaking of players, what if some folks in the group are after one goal, and the rest are after another, so that neither set really gets what they're after, only little hints and teases? As I said earlier, it's cool if one goal works in support of another, such as cool, competitive fights being supportive of the portrayal of the world the group is emulating, or the vivid emulation of the world being essential to the thematic statements the group is making. But if a group tries to fulfil two or more goals equally, something's probably gotta give.


So that's the three play goals; "Creative Agenda" they're called. Is everyone clear on these? Does any of this sound familiar? Any questions or objections? What does or doesn't make sense?

Peace,
-Joel

Postponement

Hi there. I've decided not to update my blog this week, for the reason that my primary audience-- the people I actually game with--have not been able ot read this yet. So I'm giving them a chance to catch up.

In the meantime, I thought I'd lay out more specifically what kind of feedback I'm looking for here. First, I'd like to know whether the concepts make sense to you. Ask whatever questions or express whatever confusion you need to. Second, I'd like to know if you feel the concept expressed appeals to you, is something you'd like to see more of in gaming. Most of what I write will be about what I want from RPGs, so it's important to me to see if my fellow gamers have the same desires.

See you next week.
-Joel

RPG Theory: The basics

OK, so there's a substantial amount of thought on the web about RPG theory. One prominent site in particular has a highly-developed body of thought on it, to the point where "Roleplaying theory" and that website are identified with each other pretty strongly. Roleplayers seem to fall into about three positions on the theory, roughly: 1) "It's brilliant/revolitionary/A-OK, and helps me think about and design and play games better." 2) "It's a load of hooey that has no relation to real roleplaying!" and 3) "Huh-buh-wha-theory?"

If you belong to group (1), this won't be anything mindblowing for you, but feel free to follow along (and tear me to shreds if you need to!). If you fall into the categories of "hate it!" or "what theory?" however, then this aimed straight between your eyes. Not that I'm gonna load a whole steaming pile of theory on you all at once, but I am going to lay some groundwork for talking about this some more. And most importantly, I hope to provide a basis for folks understanding where I'm coming from regarding gaming.

Before we begin, I promise to use no special jargon (though I will defend the use of jargon!), and try to explain as clearly and simply as possible.

So first, why do we need a roleplaying theory? Myself, I love the conceptual examination of anything and it seems obvious that good examination will help you understand the something better. But some people seem to genuinely wonder. So I give you the basic purpose of RPG theory. Ready?

To make gaming more fun.

That's it. Sure, there're a lot of categories that this goal breaks down into, but it all comes back to this principle, getting the best fun possible out of roleplaying games. This means Theory is good for players, so that they can tell what games and play practices will be fun for them. And of course it's good for designers, so that they can design their games for maximum fun. If a group of gamers is having maximum fun already, Theory is gonna be less useful than for a group that's dealing with lots of frustration or boredom, but it's pretty much useful for everyone, whether to figure out what you're doing wrong, or to improve on what you're doing right.

So that's what it's for. How does it do it?

John Locke rolls a crit

Well, first, the Theory pioneered at The Forge is at its base a Social Contract theory of gaming. Much like the Social Contract Theory of Government implemented by American Colonists, Forge theory all stems from the idea that people who get together to play games all agree to do that together, and do it in a certain way. Put another way (by a guy whose name is Lumpley except when it's not), nothing happens in a game that everyone doesn't agree to. That probably sounds either really wrong or really obvious. But it's important because until people actually realize this and work out the social contract for their group, there's likely to be a lot of misunderstanding and even hurt feelings because people all thought they were sitting down to "play a roleplaying game" and assumed everyone had the same idea of what that meant.

Kicking ass, meaning it, and keeping it real

OK, so second, the Theory makes the claim that people want different things out of play. No person's fun is everyone else's fun. There's a lot of ways to categorize this, like by subject matter (Do you like Star Wars, do you like High Fantasy, do you like Western, etc.) or by style/techniques (Do you do lots of talking in character, do you use maps and miniatures, do you like rules-heavy or rules-lite, etc.). But the most useful way to classify this, is by play goals--what do you really want out of play? "To be a Jedi" isn't an answer, not yet: why do you want to "be" a Jedi?

There may be more (though no one's found any that I know of), but the Theory has identified three possible goals: People want to Kick Ass, they want to Make it Real, or they want it to Mean Something.** Now "People want" ain't exactly accurate--I can be "A Person who wants to Kick Ass" in one case and "A Person who wants to Mean Something" in another. The Theory's only talking about a goal at a given time. But the main thing about these goals is that they get in each other's way. Pursuing one is gonna hinder another, if not kill it. There's been a lot of argument on this point and just how incompatible the goals are, but ask yourself: Have you NEVER found yourself in a roleplaying group where some, if not all, of the players, didn't seem to be playing for the same things you were playing for? Not just crappy play, but for a different PURPOSE? And when you saw something in the game you wanted to jump on, others were just like, "meh," and when they saw something to jump on, you were just scratching your head? And even if you did have some fun (and you probably did), didn't it just kind of crap on the fun in general?

Unless you can answer, "No, never" to those questions, the Theory wonks must be on to SOMEthing.

Next time I'll talk in greater detail about these three Agendas, what they are and how they work and how they clash.

Yeah, like "saving throw" isn't Jargon

One final bit about the Theory in general: It uses a lot of specialized jargon. I've used none of it in describing this to you (though my use of "System" is pretty close). 'Cause it can be dense and off-putting for a first-timer, and nothing but frustration for a detractor. But there's a reason. The Theory is a theoretical discipline, a field of research, if you will. They have to use specialized words so they can talk about RPGs and have consistent meaning. We as roleplayers tend to debate using identical words while meaning different things in our heads: "Immersion," 'Powergaming," "Realism," "Balance," even "Roleplaying" itself. Having a shared vocabulary to draw on ain't such a bad thing.

I find it ironic (though understandable, it's about comfort zones) that members of a hobby that casually and eagerly throws around such impenetrable-to-outsiders terms like "hit points," "dungeon crawl," "metagame," "fighter's attack progression," "somatic components," "Lawful Evil alignment," "Dungeon Master," and so on, would be so leery of a new and specialized set of word usage to describe what we do. I mean, we scare people with this shit. Anyone over 30 (*raises hand*) can probably remember when we scared them in a McCarthy-ish sort of way. So if we want our hobby legitimized (the heat's off now, but it still looks plain wierd from the outside), I think we need to welcome terminology that will make the act of roleplaying clearer, rather than confuse and obscure. Yeah, there's a learning curve, but I've found it quite worthwhile.

* * *

So that's it, Forge Theory a la Joel. Next week I'll dig into those three play goals, or "agendas." Henceforth I give myself leave to refer to Theory, and even use Jargon terms (sparingly), though I'll always try to define it in context. Anyone interested in further investigation can check out my links in Reccommended Reading.

Peace,
-Joel

**Vincent Baker has coined a different set of colloquial terms for these goals. The Theory has fancy official terms for them of course, but I'm not even gonna hint at those just yet. Any individual term carries a potential to derail the meaning through unintended connotations. But if you take 'em all together I think you can triangulate a pretty good gist of their meaning.

Recommended Reading

OK, I'm going to be starting in with my own thoughts on Monday, but in the meantime here's a list of stuff on the web that's been helpful in my thinking about RPGs:

For a good overview of RPG theory and its application:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_matter.html
http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html

For deeper reading on the theory in general:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/glossary.html

And another approach to explaining the theory (Be sure to scroll all the way down and start with "An introduction to an introduction" if y7ou want the whole deal):
http://benlehman.blogspot.com/2005_09_25_benlehman_archive.html

None of this is required, but may help for understanding where I'm coming from, and (who knows!) even improving your own games!

Peace,
-Joel

Welcome to Critical Miss!

Hi, I'm Joel Shempert and this is my roleplaying blog. I'm no brilliant game designer or groundbreaking theorist or master player, just a guy who's been playing some manner of roleplaying game for a long time. I've been doing a lot of thinking in the past year or two about how RPGs are/can be played, what I want out of them, and how to communicate all of this to other players.

What prompted me to think long and hard was this: I've been playing these things for nearly two decades, and while there have been a lot of times that were really fun, a lot of other times were total ass. I said to myself, "Self? Why is that?" And myself said, "Why, I don't know!" OK, actually, that's bullshit. Myself did "know," every time I asked the question, EXACTLY why I was pulling out my hair over roleplaying sessions. It was always some variation on "well, if that guy would just work with me and play right," or "If people would just respect my needs from the game," or more introspectively, "If I could just do the AWESOME THING in my head right this time, then everyone would see its AWESOMENESS." Until I finally realized it was bullshit. So I've stopped doing it.

Well, I have my moments, but by and large I'm trying to move beyond the true-believer factionalism of "the RIGHT way to play," and the childish politics of "Can you BELIEVE what that guy did in the game? He's an asshole," etc. etc. Instead, with the help of a lot of briliant thinkers online, I'm looking hard at more basic questions of, "what is it that's cool about RPGs?" "What do different people actually want out of play?" "What different ways are there of making that happen in the game?" and most importantly, "How, socially, as real people, can players work toward everyone having that fun they want?"

That's where this blog comes in. I do a fair bit of posting on forums and others' blogs and such, but I wanted this outlet for several things:

1) To have a place of my own, a venue for expressing my ideas and processing the ideas of others, in my own words and on my own terms. I want to be able to just let loose something I'm thinking, outside the context of a particular discussion.

2) To have a venue for my actual gameplaying friends to come, to hear and discuss my thoughts on roleplaying. Sure, I talk to 'em and stuff, but sometimes it's hard to communicate these more theory-type things, and only so much time between, y'know, gaming. Hopefully Critical Miss will help bridge the gap between my mindset and their understanding, a gap created by my inability to communicate. I'm gonna try (TRY, mind you) to keep the tone as down-to-earth and casual as I can, so it doesn't sound too dissertation-y or awkward. I also hope I can get some good feedback from these guys.

3) Ultimately, this is all aimed at helping me to play better, and have more fun doing it. What's "better" mean? What's "fun" for me? That's what this blog'll help define, for myself and for my readers. I just want to make sure that I, and any who post here, keep this goal in mind in all posts, always. There's no point in theory without practice, and in this case, practice=FUN.


Disclaimers:

A) I make absolutely NO pretense that anything I say here is original or unique. Unless I state otherwise. And even if I do, I'll probably be wrong. A lot of great theorists have blazed this trail before me. I only hope to state things in my own way, and illuminate them in ways that make sense to ME.

B) I make absolutely NO pretense that anyone will be safe here. I'm going to be saying things about fun, MY fun. If it sounds like I'm coming down on your fun, yeah, I probably am. I'm probably saying, "I can't stand your fun." Or maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm saying I can't stand a really debased version of your fun, which you also can't stand. Or maybe you're misunderstanding me entirely. So feel free to inquire. In fact, please do. But know that when the dust clears, I still may be saying, "nope, can't stand it." So by all means, keep it, it's yours, but there's no point in calling me judgmental or anything. Damn right I am.

C) Disclaimer A applies to disclaimer B. In this case, vis-a-vis Vincent Baker.


About the name: The "Critical Miss" is of course that most dreaded of die results in roleplaying culture: the Natural 1, the Botch, the Fumble. I take this name as a nod to my own history of abysmal luck in the "rolling polyhedrals" portion of roleplaying, but that's not all. It's also a recognition of my spotty history with fun in the hobby in general, the growing conviction that what I want out of gaming, I just ain't getting. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it's something I'm missing, and it's critical. So think of it as a declaration of purpose: to grope, fumble, grasp, crawl toward that thing, that elusive Grail called FUN (consistent fun, mind), and hopefully one day (soon!) lay hold of it. Hope you enjoy the ride with me.

Peace,
-Joel

PS. I'm going to try to update once a week, on Mondays, to hopefully give my RP buddies time to read and respond before our Friday night game. So see you Monday!