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.