A Brief Design Manifesto: Memory

[Jonathan Walton]

I have a sneaking suspicion that Dungeons & Dragons will not survive the coming ecological collapse.  When we are forced to live in caves, surviving off fungus and 200-year-old cans of Spam, no neo-medieval scribe will spend years of their life making an illuminated copy of The Player's Handbook.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:  That scribe?  They're your target audience.  Say something worth remembering.

[Brother Adso]

If you take A Canticle For Leibowitz as your model, they very well might end up doing such a thing – after all, it may be less a matter of what is important or memorable as what survives to be enshrined by our inheritors.

Apocalyptic joking aside, however, this brings up an important and interesting question: what makes an RPG (well, any book but this is an RPG forum) worth remembering?  Real-life medieval scribes spent their thousands of hours illuminating books of prayer, lives of the saints, Bibles, and classical or semi-classical texts of philosophy or applied sciences.  Could something as silly as a game ever reach the semi-sacred status accorded to these texts?

In a word, yes, but only if it was a game both much more widespread and more mythic than any games we play today.  This would be a roleplaying game incimical to a value set and mythic in scope and nature.

Yes, it's a silly and rather far-out idea.  But so are Spam-eating post-apocalyptic scribes.

This sort of mythic roleplaying game would fill many of the 'ideal' functions of both myth and social ritual, allowing players to at once act out stories which embody fundamental societal and cultural values while at the same time essentially constituting the body of myths of that social group.

To clarify: The process of the game would be the acting out of archetypes and mythic situations in order to reach an end which is etiological or morally didactic, but the stories thus obtained would then become part of the body of archetypes and values that would influence further 'sessions' of the game.  You could begin such a game with non-existent or very vague 'archetypes and situations,' such as 'the world is a dream', or 'evil will triumph over good only if good loses heart,' and construct elaborate mythology or ethical systems out of it.

This sort of game might fulfill the condition above – it could serve as a tool for cultural memory and cultural re-creation or re-evaluation, by both embodying values and ideals and also allowing participation in their embodiment and refinement.

In a simpler sense, it could also be a fun game to play around a table, in the modern, non-apocalyptic (well, mildly apocalyptic) world.  Any ideas on whether this theory of myth-building games can hold water, either as a response to John's question, or as an actual game possibility?

-Brother Adso (first post, huzzah!)

Talk to me not of blashpemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.  For could the sun do that, I could do the other, for there is...a sort of jealousy presiding over all creations.  But not my master is even that fair play.
-Ahab

[Jonathan Walton]

Hey Adso,

Welcome to the Forge and thanks for your thoughtful comments.  I liked that you also mentioned the scribes copying significant philosophical and scientific texts (for instance, if it wasn't for Middle Eastern scholarship, we wouldn't have surviving copies of many classical Greek texts), since I think your point about creating experiences that are mythically important is a good one, but that isn't the only way that a text can prove its worth.

Part of roleplaying's "problem" as a performance-based game/artform/ritual is the ephemeral nature of play.  Nobody's really gotten around to recording roleplaying sessions yet (with the exception of Japanese "replays"), so the only records we have are A) memory and B) game texts, which often have little in common with actual play.

So, if the game you're describing actual existed (and both Shreyas and I are working on games pretty similar to what you just described, actually), would it be the actual play that made the game text worth preserving, or would the significant experience of actual play somehow be encoded in a text, to be preserved?  I suppose I'm considering, with the arrival of the internet and cheap digital storage media, whether records of actual play could be 1) an important part of the roleplaying process and 2) including in game texts.  

What about a game that encouraged you to be part of an ongoing campaign, similar to the "living" campaigns run at Cons, but something that kept records, maybe in a Wiki-like format?  (Or, heck, maybe you could make digital audio/video recordings of sessions and post them online). You would, then, slowly be developing a group mythology that would inform the play of your own group and anyone else playing the same game.  Would that create the kind of significant, shared mythology that you seem to be talking about?

Just a few thoughts, riffing on your theme.

[Mike Holmes]

Part of roleplaying's "problem" as a performance-based game/artform/ritual is the ephemeral nature of play.  Nobody's really gotten around to recording roleplaying sessions yet (with the exception of Japanese "replays"), so the only records we have are A) memory and B) game texts, which often have little in common with actual play.

Hmmm. I've got records of all of my IRC play. I've found them fascinating in this regard, and invaluable in terms of notes. I think that this is the biggest advantage of IRC play. It's better than a tape recording because it self indexes, and only includes the salient comments (those that aren't salient are made in other rooms). I think that with coming technology we'll have the best of both worlds. Imagine the recording system using voice recognition to selectively edit the game for you and the like.

Anyhow, how far do you think we are from creating RPGs worth saving through the apocalypse? I mean, it seems pretty far off.

Mike

[Jonathan Walton]

One thing I thought was really cool about the Hogshead version of Nobilis was the inclusion of an entire scenario in scripted format, as if they recorded a game and transcribed it (which they may well have done).  It made it easier to bridge the gap between text and actual play.  Wouldn't people be willing to pay for transcripts or audio/recordings recordings that were included with a game?

Anyhow, how far do you think we are from creating RPGs worth saving through the apocalypse? I mean, it seems pretty far off.

Far off?  You mean the apocalypse or creating RPGs worth saving? :)

I was just listening to the poet Billy Collins yesterday, since he came to give a reading at Oberlin.  Much of his poetry comments on the ephemeral nature of experience, directly or indirectly.  That made me think about roleplaying in general, and how most published games are so inescapably dated, as soon as they hit the press.  No one's going to be playing them 15 years from now.  They will have moved on to newer games that may become dated just as quickly.  It's a culture of disposable commodities.  Anything that doesn't get revamped and revised gets forgotten.  The vast majority of people only play games that have been published in the last 5 years.

So I guess I've been pondering a longevity that goes beyond simply replay value.  What kind of game would you return to, month after month, year after year, for the rest of your life?  What goes beyond a passing interest and would support play over decades and even centuries?  It would have to be something unrelated to current trends or pop culture memes and something that wasn't dependent on current technologies or ways of organizing/relaying information (Wikis, text-based email, webpages).  After all, how many works of hypertext art do you see anymore?  People got over that real quick.

[John Kim]

One thing I thought was really cool about the Hogshead version of Nobilis was the inclusion of an entire scenario in scripted format, as if they recorded a game and transcribed it (which they may well have done).  It made it easier to bridge the gap between text and actual play.  Wouldn't people be willing to pay for transcripts or audio/recordings recordings that were included with a game?  

You know, I had tried audio recording of a few sessions back in college -- but I found it nearly useless by itself.  I think you really need to have someone transcribe and annotate it in order for it to make any sense.  Of course, "replays" (transcripts of games) do sell in the Japanese TRPG market -- so there is precedent for that.  

That made me think about roleplaying in general, and how most published games are so inescapably dated, as soon as they hit the press.  No one's going to be playing them 15 years from now.  They will have moved on to newer games that may become dated just as quickly.  It's a culture of disposable commodities.  Anything that doesn't get revamped and revised gets forgotten.  The vast majority of people only play games that have been published in the last 5 years.  

Hmmm.  This is true to a fair degree, but there are also games with staying power, it seems.  In the 1999 WotC survey (the best market survey available), they asked what games people play monthly (multiple choices allowed), and the answers were:
 D&D: 66% - (1978)
 Vampire: The Masquerade: 25% - (1991)
 Star Wars: 21% - (1987)
 Palladium: 16%
 Werewolf: The Apocalypse: 15% - (1992)
 Shadowrun: 15%  - (1989)
 Star Trek: 12% - (1999)
 Call of Cthulu: 8% - (1981)                              
 Legend of the Five Rings: 8% - (1997)
 Deadlands: 5% - (1996)
 Alternity: 4% - (1998)
 GURPS: 3% - (1986)

Now, there does seem to be a lot of new games which were flashes in the pan (like Alternity) -- but there are definitely older games in there, too.  D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and GURPS seem to be going strong.  Vampire also seems to have some staying power -- still going strong even as other WoD games fade.  

So I guess I've been pondering a longevity that goes beyond simply replay value.  What kind of game would you return to, month after month, year after year, for the rest of your life?  What goes beyond a passing interest and would support play over decades and even centuries?  

It's a good question.  I'm still quite attached to Champions which is from 1981 and which I played in grade school starting in 1983 I think.  I've played Champions campaigns pretty regularly since then, though not continuously.  Maybe a one-year campaign every 2 or 3 years on average.  For me, no other system has really had that sort of staying power.  I have talked to people who have played the same system or even the same campaign for over 20 years, so it seems possible.  It usually is a homebrew system, though.

[Brother Adso]

While I agree that certain systems do have great staying power, an argument can be made that the changes these systems (particularly D&D) have undergone over the years has transformed them so utterly that they still fit into Johnathan's 'flash-in-the-pan' model of gaming.

I think that the emphasis on the long-term is strongly present in any gaming group which has a lean towards narrativism and simulationism, because of the desire to see well-created characters and settings live on and change, fulfill destinies and sire children, and all that hooey.

I think (and I hope I'm not stepping into a minefield here) that some of the MMORPGs that have come out recently might be a step in the right direction, as is a game like Nobilis.  MMORPGs represent a step in the correct direction because they emphasize the cooperative experience of players, and in some of the better ones, have a player-made a dynamic political-social universe that controls the destinies of the players at least as much as the world of monsters and treasures.  However, these games lack the emphasis on symbolism, myth, archetype, morals, etc that I envision a game 'worth saving' would have.  Nobilis has these, but because of its setting and the nature of gameplay, it is neccessarily limited to small groups playing seperately, eliminating the overtly socializing part of the game 'worth saving'.

-Adso

Sometimes it's better not to think in questions.  But it's a habit I just can't get out of.
-Lethem

[Mike Holmes]

John beat me to it, some of the oldest games are still the most played.

Further, new editions don't represent changes in concept that change the reasons that people play games. That is, if someone is playing D&D 3E now, it's not likely because he didn't like playing D&D2E. He just sees the "technology" of the system as an improvement to the same concept (which indeed it is). To say that players ought not upgrade to newer versions if the game is really good would be similar to saying that if a computer is really good that there should never be a need to upgrade it. That's ridiculous. Improvements are improvements, and they don't invalidate the value of the original games. In fact, immitation being the greatest form of flattery, this is proof of why D&D is still the most played game.

That all said, if D&D is the best we have, is it worth remembering? Like I said, long way to go.

Mike

[andy]

To be honest, I don't believe that the game system itself (or the playing style of its players) are responsible for the longevity of the older game systems. I think that the older systems persevere because they were the first houses on the block, not necessarily because they are the biggest or the best.

In the beginning of gaming, most of us started with a sense of wonder (or at least, a sense of discovery). Human memory tends to be very incident-oriented, meaning that we don't remember a lot of mundane details about life, we remember the highs and the lows (I don't remember what I watched on TV last week, but I will forever remember the moment that my daughter first rode her bike without training wheels).

I think that this concept applies to gaming as well. We remember our first experiences more fondly because the world was new and we thrilled to the experience of slaying our first dragon and rescuing our first princess. The 100th dragon is a good deal less exciting. I am convinced that AD&D survived the dark years of the tail end of 2ndEd buoyed not by a good system (which it wasn't) or by good support (which it didn't have), but instead by good memories in the minds of people like us. I play a variety of games and design some of my own, but I'm still always up for a game of DnD.

Which, lest I go further afield, I guess is a long way of saying that the playing makes the game, and not the other way around. It is the play, more than the gamebook, that will live on.

Lots of good discussion on this issue.

Andy

[Jonathan Walton]

I'm definitely with Andy on this one.  I think the reason people return to play a game is because of fond memories of past play.  The early posts on this topic were getting at that: trying to look at ways of incorperating actual play into the game text itself.  That way, you start off with memories of play that were not your own, but someone else's.  However, they might still encourage you to, in effect, "return" to the site of memory.  The same thing happens when friends tell you about a movie that "you just gotta see."  

Memories gained from others can be almost as powerful as first-hand experiences.  After all, many people base their religious beliefs (which are pretty personal things) on second hand experiences that are related in sacred texts.

[John Kim]

To be honest, I don't believe that the game system itself (or the playing style of its players) are responsible for the longevity of the older game systems. I think that the older systems persevere because they were the first houses on the block, not necessarily because they are the biggest or the best.

But on the other hand, there were a ton of systems from the late 70s and early 80s, and only a handful are still being played today in any significant numbers.    There are lots of games which flash and fade, while others stick around for a long time.  I'm not saying that they are the best, but I think that there are some qualities to them that causes them to have enduring popularity.

Being popular -- even being popular for a long time -- doesn't make something the "best" in any absolute objective sense.  In some sense, a work's popularity is more of a cultural phenomenon than an intrinsic value to the work.  But being a cultural phenomenon is worth a look, I think.  

I would dearly love some of my favorite old games to have enduring popularity, like James Bond 007, which is pretty widely praised.  Still, I have to admit that people don't play it anymore.  However, D&D (which I don't like) and Champions (which I do like) do seem to have endurance.

[Brother Adso]

Old games that persevere, I think, are those that are most easily reinvented by players and game-masters during or before play.  Many games which either maintain a limited following (Nobilis) or flash and fade (Alternity) do so because they have an evocative, specific, setting and rule-set which reflects that, or because they embody a style which is appealing but limiting.

To clarify: what keeps a game like D&D going is the ease with which it can be re-invented within the boundaries it has set for itself.  Players of such a game have powerful memories of play as well as powerful impulses and ideas on how to change play for their own enjoyment.  Many 'flash' RPGs can create powerful sessions, but the trick is to create along with this a motivation for the players to adapt and re-create on their own terms, not just play and enjoy, which is hard to do in setting-specific or extremely stylized settings.

Thoughts?

-Brother Adso

Stat Rosa Pristina Nomine,
Nomina Nuda Tenemus.
-Eco