The Limits of Roleplaying: Solitaire

[simon_hibbs]

So roleplaying purely for yourself seems to be... I don't know ...lacking something critical.  The major problem, I think, would be sustaining energy for it.  How can you keep doing something if you're not getting validation from other people?  The reason that you bring others in to look at your art is to get their thoughts and get energized to keep working. ...

What is the difference between solo daydream roleplaying with dice, diceless solo daydream roleplaying, and writing a novel? The answer is very little. They are effectively the same activity. I favour narativist roleplaying, because I see the narrative product of play as being what I play roleplaying games for. I lack the language skills and dedication to be an author, but I can still dream up characters, situations and story elements, and roleplaying games give me an opportunity to share those with other people and enjoy them for myself.

I do not see much difference between playing a roleplaying game and writing a novel. They are both artistic acts in that they produce a story narative. Some novels are collaborative efforts by more than one author. As a result they must have some mechanisms for proposing ideas, resolving differences of opinion and negotiating who will write which parts of the book and how those parts will be edited. How is this different from the social contract in a roleplaying game? I don't think it is different.

Even gamists are doing exactly the same thing, they are simply using a more rigorously competitive mechanism for resolving disputes rather than a more collaborative mechanism. The goal is this to produce a narrative.

Roleplaying games realy are interactive fiction.


Simon Hibbs

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Simon would be displaying classic synecdoche if he hadn't said that this was his preferences.

He has illustrated one reason why I have come to the conclusion that any extensive solitaire roleplaying, such as it is, will tend to be gamist. Narrativist will tend to drift until you're just writing fiction and simulationist with drift into pure daydreaming...perhaps. Gamist solitaire will remain the same. So it seems to me that the answer to Jonathan's question is Step On Up

[Jack Spencer Jr]

For instance, say two players are playing a PBM game.  One is fine with interacting every month; another needs interaction every few days.  One player is going to be writing many more letters than the other and getting very little response in return.  How do you support the needs of both types of players?  Can you?  Does the act of writing a letter allow players to feel part of the shared space, whether they recieve outside confirmation or not?  Perhaps if anything that touches paper (whether electronic or otherwise) becomes fact in the shared space... but then that would reward players for going against the grain and being more interactive (when I'd want the game to promote individual play).

This varies per game. In the case of say De Profundis where letter writing is the point, then the flow of letters is supposed to be the flow of letters from the character. One player sending many letters while one sends only a few is like the guy at the table who talks a lot and the other guy who sits quietly for long periods and says something every once in a while.

This also hinges on what the players do when not writing or reading letters. DeProfundis has this with the "Psychodrama" where are the player walks around town going about their business, they are supposed to notice things that can be used as idea seeds in the letters. In this sense, you are playing even when not interacting with the shared space.

So I think a can can exist entirely in the shared space and the players pick it up every once in a while when they read and write the letters or there is some other task that the player can perform when not interactine with the shared space.

[RARodger]

An example/Socratic question: Ars Magica has a seasonal activity system that actually requires very little GM input. (Well, actually it requires a lot, but it’s not supposed to.) If I took the AM rules, made 80 wizards and then took them each through their seasons, deciding how they interacted with one another, and using the rules to resolve actions but not to play any adventures, would that strike you as a role-playing game?

Robert Rodger
www.arrogantgames.com

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hey, Robert.

Your post is a little off-topic in this thread. I would say it would fit bett in the a perspective on roleplaying thread. I'll meet you there.

[simon_hibbs]

Simon would be displaying classic synecdoche if he hadn't said that this was his preferences.

He has illustrated one reason why I have come to the conclusion that any extensive solitaire roleplaying, such as it is, will tend to be gamist. Narrativist will tend to drift until you're just writing fiction and simulationist with drift into pure daydreaming...perhaps. Gamist solitaire will remain the same. So it seems to me that the answer to Jonathan's question is Step On Up

That's an interesting take on it. I suppose you're right, except that for me gamist solo roleplaying does away with the elements I most care about and therefore holds little to no attraction for me. So while it may be the form of RPG that stays most true to itself when translated into a solo game, it's not realy part of the hobby I consider myself to be part of. All things considered, I'd rather read a good book.

I suppose what we have is a triangular continuum with roleplaying games in the middle and abstract games, acting and writing novels at the extreme corners. Thus we have Role (it's about what characters do, as in a novel) Playing (you actively play a character) Game (there are aspects that are gamist). It does exactly what it says on the tin*.

Solo game books lie between acting and abstract games; they have no story writing content because all possible story outcomes are designed into the book. Imporv theatre lies between acting and novel writing; they have no gamist content because it's all about creating a compelling performance and there is no winner or loser. Narativist card/board games fall between abstract games and novel writing; game play produces a story in which your character plays a part, distinguishing it from abstract games, but your ability to play a character in the game is no greater than in Monopoly.

That last one may need expanding on a little bit. A Card game of My Life With Master might cast the players as Servants of Master, but how you play that character and what the character does are defined by the game and are not truly free. Like Talisman they are realy no more roleplaying games than Monopoly is, and are usualy played in the third person. Note that I'm a big fan of playing the part of your 'character' even in Monopoly, but while it may be roleplaying of a sort, I have to concede that it's not a part of the game qua game.


Simon Hibbs

* A UK advertising slogan

[Callan S.]

If a tree falls in one set of woods and a man in another set of woods is roleplaying by himself, did the first make a sound. Did the second actually roleplay?

;)