Theory Without Jargon - Help for the Desparate - Number 1

[John Kim]

You are also incorrect in stating that this essay is aimed only at Narrativist play. Everything here applies to all modes of play. I would even hazard to say that the details of this first essay, at least, apply even to LARP play, which is considered somewhat of an odd-duck, in that it doesn't follow many of the standard rules of RPGs. I will say with utter certainty that it applies to purely-sim Free-form Roleplaying.

Well, the essay as written says that people take turns talking, and that everyone has to agree to imagine what the person says.  That's quite untrue for LARPs.  LARPs generally have lots of people talking at once over a large area, and there is no consensus on what happened.  Large LARPS in particular have to survive lack of consensus even at a given spot (i.e. a "troublemaker" player refuses to agree to something, yet the game continues on around him and afterwards).

[komradebob]

Write another article about the theory of GM-focused games, how about?

An incredibly good idea, especially if one takes into account that Paginini's originally stated goal is to discuss theory free of jargon.

The whole concept of a GM is a rather peculiar feature of many/most tabletop rpgs. I cannot personally think of any other activity that has a comparable concept. There have been multiple discussions of GM duties on threads here at the Forge, but I don't recall an article that specifically brings it all together.

Specifically, in design terms, I'm thinking of the fact that the GM + character players model is the prevailing model of tabletop games. My personal "Whoa! I never thought of that!" moment when I first started checking out the Forge was reading posts that discussed different styles of game duty and authority distribution.

[Paganini]

Several things. The essay is not about LARPS. Don't even go there.

(I have never played a LARP, never read a set of LARP rules, am not interested in LARPS, and am therefore singularly unqualified to write anything about them.)

Bob, in fact, installment number three will be almost exactly what you describe. I intend to cover - in a basic way at least - the peculiarities of ownership distribution and such that make up GM-full play.

[timfire]

The idea that a DM has to convince B and C of there being a bush is not correct in my opinion. B and C have to accept A's decription of the scene on a principle of charity: that A is not abribtraily making up elements to have fun at Bs and Cs expense.

GM: As you walk up the mountain path, a gobling jumps out from behind a bush...

Player: Wait! I thought you said we were above the tree line, why is there a bush this high?

GM: Whatever, so the goblin jumped out from behind a rock...

What just happened? The GM made a assertion, that there was a bush. The players didn't think that made sense, due to said logic. So the GM backed down.

[Lance D. Allen]

Heh. I stand corrected.

Or do I?

I tried to make sure it was clear that I was uncertain as to the application to LARP, as I know there's a lot I don't know about the hobby. However, I *have* LARP'd before, and my limited experience with it doesn't preclude any of what is said here.

Perhaps I would be on firmer ground if I specified that it may also apply to small-scale LARPs, where everyone is interacting in an intimate setting not altogether unlike table-top RP.

But as Nate has specifically stated that he doesn't want to go into LARP, I will say no more on the subject. I just wanted to clarify my mention of the hobby. If anyone is interested in pursuing this line of conversation, please feel free to PM me.

[greedo1379]

I would also appreciate footnotes that would read something like:

1 - On the Forge folks usually refer to this as "The Lumpley Principle"

or some such.  I know there are glossaries but this seems like a great oppurtunity to get a clear explanation in a context rather than just sitting in a list like the glossary.

[Paganini]

I would also appreciate footnotes that would read something like:

1 - On the Forge folks usually refer to this as "The Lumpley Principle"

or some such.  I know there are glossaries but this seems like a great oppurtunity to get a clear explanation in a context rather than just sitting in a list like the glossary.

Hehe. I originally had those, but several people (Lance mainly, I think) felt that they detracted from the articles. Overall, I decided I agreed with them. The jargon that I'd included so far was no big deal, but I got started thinking about some of the stuff I'd have to deal with down the road, and it would have been more worth than it was worth, and just distracted from the main point, which is to explain the theory without the jargon.

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

Perhaps I would be on firmer ground if I specified that it may also apply to small-scale LARPs, where everyone is interacting in an intimate setting not altogether unlike table-top RP.

That's one of the text's strong points. It's not /about/ larp, but like all good tabletop rpg theory, /may often apply to it/ nevertheless. (Just like the opposite, larp theory benefiting tabletop rpg, also happens with other texts.) Think of it as an added benefit.

-Jiituomas

[Lance D. Allen]

Heh, well.. May I retract my vehemence on the topic of jargon?

There've been some good points made here. Mostly what I objected to was the use of the jargon in the article itself, which you had done in a few small places in the first article. If footnotes is all you had in mind, then I misunderstood, and I'm all for that.

[sophist]

I have to admit that I am in many ways guilty as charged. However I am trying to mount
a sort of defense here. I will be quoting a some of snipptes here, but it will be
not for nitpicking, but I think it will be more conevient for all if I not answer
every post individually.

Lord Smerf:
It sounds as if you are discussing a very specific subset of role playing and then saying that all role playing is like this. That seems somewhat narrow.

Well gulity of being too short here. In may ways I assumed the stance of the standard,
run-of-the-mill roleplayer here. like this:

komeradebob:
Specifically, in design terms, I'm thinking of the fact that the GM + character players model is the prevailing model of tabletop games. My personal "Whoa! I never thought of that!" moment when I first started checking out the Forge was reading posts that discussed different styles of game duty and authority distribution.

This begs the question of which subset of playing is more "specific", yours or mine?
But the question is in itself wrong and useless. I hope to clarify by saying that i
was concerned that the essay has less use in a general purpose environment, where
"naive GM-style playing" (as you might call it) is the rule. It might give players
the wrong idea to what extend they are exspected to contribute.

Let me illustrate and at the same time include another point:

timfire:
GM: As you walk up the mountain path, a gobling jumps out from behind a bush...
Player: Wait! I thought you said we were above the tree line, why is there a bush this high?
GM: Whatever, so the goblin jumped out from behind a rock...
What just happened? The GM made a assertion, that there was a bush. The players didn't think that made sense, due to said logic. So the GM backed down

Lets take this example:
GM: you are walking a sandy waste. You see a dragon appraching in the air.
player: I hide behind bush/rock.
GM: Did I say anything about something like that being there?
player: But I want it and I am contributing it to the game.

whereas in a "naive GM-style game" it might go like this:
GM: you are walking a sandy waste. You see a dragon appraching in the air.
player: is there something to hide behind? let's say a bush/rock.
GM: No.
Player: damned.

Or the player might get some idea about vetoing GM contributions:
GM: you are walking a sandy waste. You see a dragon appraching in the air.
Player: No there is no dragon, besides there is an oasis I am contributing an oasis
to your game where I can rest now. Or convince that I can beat up the dragon,
'kay?

That is why I wrote, only A "makes up stuff", while B & C only tend to modify it.
this is shown above in the difference of the player uttering a propostion ("I hide
behind bush/rock.") or a question ("is there something to hide behind?").
Narrativism works well within a framework of "naive GMIng" if you move beyond monster
bashing. Cooperative styles developed from here by denying some of the premesis of
"naive GM-style play".

Let me try to put it this way: the essay is trying to explaing adding and subtracting
by number theory or something like the calculus in the "Laws of Form". Sure number
theory or the calculus are more general and adding and subtracting is just a subset
of it, but if you just want adding and subtracting, or using it as a base to LATER
advance to number theory or whatever, starting out with number theory is unnessesarly
bogged with complications.

Further I'd say, if you want the grand unified therory of RPGs, why not introducing
additional distinctions (like between actions and things) to raise -in my opinion-
the descriptive power of the theory.

I hope I have addressed the points raised against me. I agree that my comments were not
as developed as the original essay and thus probably were somewhat too narrow. I maintain,
howerver, that there are criticism to be applied, if the essay aims to offer a general
introduction for people trying to understand roleplaying and insensitive to the
terminological needs of the collaborative subset of it.

Maybe I am asking too much here. maybe only essays 1+2+3+... are going to be the defintive
text. If so I want you to refer to the discussion about scriprtual interpretation of RPGs.

As for the challenge that I write an intro to GM-style playing, why not? But since I have
not considered it before, using the defintions provided in "unkown armies 1st ed.", it
might take some time. And I am not really convinced that there is demand of it,
but why not doing it anyway?[/url]

[LordSmerf]

Sophist,

Ah, I see your point now (I think).  You're saying that "more people play this way, so the essay should be written to this way."  The thing is, that no matter which of your three scenarios of GM/Player interaction you use, all of them are doing exactly what the essay says.  It's just a matter of different methods of negotiation.

Let's take it one at a time:

GM: you are walking a sandy waste. You see a dragon appraching in the air.
player: I hide behind bush/rock.
GM: Did I say anything about something like that being there?
player: But I want it and I am contributing it to the game.

The player offers that there is a rock.  The GM says, "Did I say there is a rock?"  The player begins negotiation, "But I want one to be there..."  And off it goes.  We don't know enough from this example to say what the end result of this negotiation is.

GM: you are walking a sandy waste. You see a dragon appraching in the air.
player: is there something to hide behind? let's say a bush/rock.
GM: No.
Player: damned.

Same deal.  The player offers "something to hide behind".  The GM says "no".  Except in this example it's pretty clear that we have a Social Contract which says that the GM wins negotiation if he wants.  So the negotiation was "rock to hide behind?" "no".  But that doesn't change the basic nature of what's happening, just the specifics.

GM: you are walking a sandy waste. You see a dragon appraching in the air.
Player: No there is no dragon, besides there is an oasis I am contributing an oasis to your game where I can rest now. Or convince that I can beat up the dragon,
'kay?

Same deal as the other two, except that this time we see no negotiation.  All we see is the player suggesting something.

But all of these, at their base, are the same thing.  What the essay talks about is what role playing is if you peel off all the tradition.  This is what's really happening.

So, it's not a case of presenting a "certain type of role playing" in the essay.  This is about what role playing is.

Thomas

[Lance D. Allen]

Alright. Gonna take a softer line this time, given something to work with.

Sophist, you either missed, or chose not to acknowledge, a whole other scenario, somewhere between your first and third scenarios.

GM: You are walking in a sandy, barren waste. You see a dragon approaching in the air.
Player: I hide behind a rock.
GM: As you hide behind the rock, you notice...

In the above scenario, the player's contribution is given just as much value as the GM's. The GM accepts it because it doesn't go against any of the expectations of the scene. Had the player said bush rather than rock, the exchange might have gone more like this:

GM: A bush? It's a sandy, barren waste, man. There's not much chance of bushes.
Player: Not even a small one? Hm. Well, a rock, then.
GM: Cool. So as you hide behind the rock...

Or what about this scenario:

GM: Sandy waste, yadda. You see a dragon approaching in the air.
Player: Hold up, a dragon? I thought we were playing a western.
GM: Trust me.
Player: ...alright. So, seeing as I've never seen a dragon, I gawk in amazement..

Anyhow, you get the idea. I could easily add another scenario where the GM's contribution is given the bullshit call, and he has to change it for the game to continue. The point is that even with guidelines inherent in the game's text, negotiation still takes place.

The point of the essay is to get people to look at the process of roleplaying in a new way. It's true that most people here at the Forge will just nod in approval, as the basic ideas have been hashed out before, but the essay isn't aimed at them.. If it were, it wouldn't need to be sans jargon.

Perhaps you do have a point, though, at the end of it all. The terms are fairly clear to me, but Joe-Gamer may not take it all with the same level of matter of course acceptance. I'm not really sure how it could be reworded to be more familiar to the average gamer though, and still keep the meaning and intent intact.

[LordSmerf]

One quick note, in case this wasn't clear earlier (I don't think I actually said it):

An essay presenting RPG theory to non-gamers looks very different than one presenting theory to gamers.  Gamers tend to have a lot of intellectual baggage about "What RPGs are" that has to be examined before real theory discussion can take place.  The non-gamer has the advantage of a clean slate.

These seem to be written for the non-gamer.  A gamer could understand them, but only if he's willing to give up some of his assumptions and read with an open mind.  The non-gamer has no assumptions to give up...

Thomas

[sophist]

Sophist,

Ah, I see your point now (I think).  You're saying that "more people play this way, so the essay should be written to this way."  The thing is, that no matter which of your three scenarios of GM/Player interaction you use, all of them are doing exactly what the essay says.  It's just a matter of different methods of negotiation.

I understand that you would want to apply the "negotiation theory" here, but I object to the economistic implications of this way of thinking. I made up the examples to show how the negotiation paradigma confuses GM-stlye play.

Let's take it one at a time:

GM: you are walking a sandy waste. You see a dragon appraching in the air.
player: I hide behind bush/rock.
GM: Did I say anything about something like that being there?
player: But I want it and I am contributing it to the game.

The player offers that there is a rock.  The GM says, "Did I say there is a rock?"  The player begins negotiation, "But I want one to be there..."  And off it goes.  We don't know enough from this example to say what the end result of this negotiation is.

I admit to being a bit unclear here. To clarify, this about that the player thinks just because he is contributing something the GM MUST accept it.
The conversation goes on:
GM: look this is a sandy waste. there are neither rocks or bushes.
Player: But I contribute. you are stifling my artisic creativity.
GM: yeah, right
(game over)
The point is that players are led to believe they can make up things as they please, and the GM must negotiate with them or accept "i want it"
as an argument in this negotiation, where in the paradigma of GM it just apears non-sensical. If the players get what they want because they want it, there is no point in GMing.
Explaining everytime, "look, in this game the is supposed to be a challenge. We agreed to that. Plus, I think it destroys versimilitude. Thus i disallow it." is pretty tedious. That what I mean when I say player have to trust the DM.
All this in the frame of GM-style gaming.

GM: you are walking a sandy waste. You see a dragon appraching in the air.
player: is there something to hide behind? let's say a bush/rock.
GM: No.
Player: damned.

Same deal.  The player offers "something to hide behind".  The GM says "no".  Except in this example it's pretty clear that we have a Social Contract which says that the GM wins negotiation if he wants.  So the negotiation was "rock to hide behind?" "no".  But that doesn't change the basic nature of what's happening, just the specifics.

Well, yes, the players offers something. He is not negotiating, but petitioning. if the GM says, "yes, why not" he has not lost anything, nor has the player gained anything by having a rock in the SIS. the player changed the "waste" element, by the GM is not loosing that way. I find the terminology of winning or losing by negotiation wholly inapplicable here.
So what if I rolled a die to see if there is a rock (say, 5% chance). Has the negotiation turned into a wager then? Even if the die determines there is a rock, the GM has not lost anything.
GM-style play means letting players influence things without just giving them what they want. Plus there are rules & agreements to which even the GM is bound. That enables a story for the sake of a story with thrills, laughter, and maybe even some greater meaning in it. It's not about winning and loosing. More imporantly it's not about who got more elements into todays session.
I wonder really what kind of thinking has led to the win/loose negotiation paradigma. It certainly looks to me like narrative gamism.
In GM-focused games, player trust and rely on the GM to handle the game's elements. negotiation the exception reather than the rules.

GM: you are walking a sandy waste. You see a dragon appraching in the air.
Player: No there is no dragon, besides there is an oasis I am contributing an oasis to your game where I can rest now. Or convince that I can beat up the dragon, 'kay?

Same deal as the other two, except that this time we see no negotiation.  All we see is the player suggesting something.

This was meant to continue:
GM: what? look there is this dragon approaching. You accept or not?
player: no, i don't.
GM: well, run your own game then.
(game over)
This hyberbolic example illustrates just how misleading the idea of negotiation in GM-style play is. The GM intends something with sending
a dragon the players way, the least of which might be combat. Player rejects that wholesale, having something else in mind (or is just being contraray). Game over.

But all of these, at their base, are the same thing.  What the essay talks about is what role playing is if you peel off all the tradition.  This is what's really happening.
So, it's not a case of presenting a "certain type of role playing" in the essay.  This is about what role playing is.

Maybe so, but negotiation is not a basic building block of any actual game I know of. so i you claim universality here, I must insist that is not the case. You are subsuming certain styles to others where negotiation might be indeed the basic move and where getting elements into play is winning.

Look, I already conceded that I was writing from a certain perspective. You are doing the same. Neither is universal. I am not claiming that collaborative playing is reduclible to my style. I never did. You however claim that my way of thinking is reducilble to yours. I object. By doing that you cut away all the finer points which in the end define my style.

[Marco]

Hey sophist,

Here's my take on what is going on: I think the *term* 'negoitation' is being used in a non-intuitive manner (as also seen the thread on contribution). I wouldn't describe a televised poker game as a negoitation between players (i.e. a player looks at his hand and the pot and says "hey guys, I know what the rules say--but let's talk about this whole straight-vs-flush thing.")

That never happens. There just isn't much "negoitation" in poker in the way the term is usually meant. I think that's the problem here.

Nathan, I think, certainly is meaning these essays to apply to general commerical RPG's where the GM does, indeed, have full veto power over much of the setting and situation accoridng to the books. I think the terms being used are just misleading ones. The player is putting someting on the table to negotiate with: his continued participation in the game.

It may not be much (the game has too many players already and the GM says "goodbye") or it may be a 1-on-1 game and the GM is really invested in keeping it going, in which case the outcomes of the player's requests will be weighted much more evenly.

But that still doesn't mean that negoitation is the term I think most people would use when describing the resolution of a poker hand in Vegas.

-Marco