Tony's Standard Rant #1: Roleplay/Game Duality

[James Holloway]

That said, though, "role-playing game" is such a laden term that I hesitate to dissect it in theoretical discussion.  (i.e. Everyone identifies with "role-playing" and it is generally considered an insult for something to be "not a role-playing game".)

I think this is what Tony was driving at when he said that the term "roleplaying game" was a bit of an approximation for an act that was similar to but not the same as either roleplaying or games.

[Vaxalon]

Is the nub of the issue, that my definition of "game" encompasses RPG's, whereas Tony's definition of "RPG" encompasses games?

[Vaxalon]

I'm not sure that a site that professes to analyze roleplaying games can go very far without a working definition of what a roleplaying game IS.

[John Kim]

I'm not sure that a site that professes to analyze roleplaying games can go very far without a working definition of what a roleplaying game IS.

I don't agree with that at all.  You can picture a wide space of games which may or may not be role-playing games.  We may disagree on exactly where the border is, but there is a central region which we all agree are role-playing games.  We can then discuss the actual issues and workings of the games in the central region.  

Where we draw the line is just semantics.  

To review a bit, I think I agree with Tony more than is clear in earlier posts.  I agree that a choice expressed as pure mechanics (which could be moving a miniature, selecting from a list of maneuvers, or such) can add to the Shared Imagined Space (SIS) and can be role-playing.  i.e. Where my character goes can be an expression of character, and I can communicate that by moving my miniature.  For example, my character might move to cover the doorway during a retreat -- risking himself to help the others get away.  That may be expressed only as the moving of a miniature and similar actions.  

At the same time, I think there are real distinctions between behaviors which people engage in within RPGs -- and people sometimes try to express these distinctions by separating the terms "role-playing" and "game".  This makes it a single-axis dichotomy, whereas I prefer, say, the Threefold Model.  But I think they're generally trying to express real differences in play style.

[Vaxalon]

At the same time, I think there are real distinctions between behaviors which people engage in within RPGs -- and people sometimes try to express these distinctions by separating the terms "role-playing" and "game". This makes it a single-axis dichotomy...

No it doesn't... it's dual axis.

There are things that are games, and there are things that are not games.

THere are things that involve roleplaying, and there are things that do not.

[John Kim]

No it doesn't... it's dual axis.

There are things that are games, and there are things that are not games.

THere are things that involve roleplaying, and there are things that do not.

Oops.  Sorry, you're right.  It still hasn't been very useful in my experience -- possibly because of the identity politics that I mentioned (i.e. people trying to use "not role-playing" or "not a game" to be dismissive of something).

[TonyLB]

Gentlemen, I respectfully suggest that you take this to a separate thread with a new, clearly stated, topic.  If you think it is important commentary on the mission of the Forge as a whole then it really shouldn't be buried under seven pages of discussion of Roleplay/Game Duality, should it?

[John Kim]

Sorry, Tony. I'm content to drop it, actually.  I don't consider such line-drawing very important.  Do you have any place you want this thread to go?  Or should we consider it closed?

[TonyLB]

I think I've made my position pretty abundantly clear.  Not everyone agrees with it, but I think we've worked the differences down to the point where we understand that they arise from different first principles in our respective philosophies.

If nobody's got other questions about the Roleplay/Game Duality idea then I am perfectly content that I have been well and thoroughly understood, and that I have in turn gotten a chance to better understand others.  Thank you all for a stimulating conversation!

[Vaxalon]

You're welcome.

[groundhog]

Sorry to come in a little late. I just have to say that I don't read Tony's posts as saying that all games are roleplaying. I read them as saying that within the union of things that are both roleplaying and games, the acts of 'roleplaying' and 'playing a game' are inseperable.

With that statement I can definitely agree. I may be completely off in reading it that way, though. When  participating in an RPG, every roleplaying action intertwines with the game aspect of it. When using the game mechanics, it necessarily has an effect on the SIS and the roleplaying. Any game in which both of these things don't interact fall outside what I personally would call an RPG. Any roleplaying activity in which both of these things don't interact would fall outside RPGs as well. That leaves me, personally, with RP activities, game activities, and activities called RPGs in which the RP and the game interact in both directions.

Tony and everyone else in the thread may think that sounds crazy, but it's what seems right to me. I'm open to discussing it in a new thread if anyone else wants to do so.

[Callan S.]

Rules can't magically remove roleplay from my mind.

Ah, but roleplaying isn't just in your mind!  The contents of your mind have NO impact on the DnD miniatures game.  If you express it, it's ancillary, if you don't, it might as well not exist as far as the game is concerned.

However, what they can do is not care a jot about my imagination. When I describe how the spy dies in my fortress in "Before I kill you Mr Bond", I get nothing from it system wise (though myself and my partner both enjoy saying these things anyway...separate to the game: social feedback).

I wrote this right after the line you quoted, then talked about it. Please read my post through again (it's on page 3) because any answer from me is pointless until that happens.

[Callan S.]

Heya Tony,

Sorry for the late look in, but I'm not understanding your pitch (while once again, agreeing with large amounts of the foundation).

It seems to me like your talking about chemical A and chemical B being put into a beaker and electricity run through them so they bond and become chemical C. Then your saying 'LOOK, they are inseperable!!'

Well, yeah, I totally agree. C cannot be seperated out to A or B now. C has to contain both A and B.

But whats the point of saying that? It seems the main problems with the understanding of that, come from people looking at the D&D minatures game or chess. How are you going to address that by just saying they are inseperable? Instead of showing the process of how they became inseparable and the components needed during that process?

I'm wondering if you don't see them as ever having being being seperate, and thus nothing has been bonded together. I agree that chess or D&D minatures involves 'roleplay' during play. That RP always seems to be there in play. But that is in no way evidence that the roleplay wasn't derived from the bonding of two seperate components/games.

I'll just add one more shitty analogy and say that if you swap 'play' for the forward movement of a car, then the explosions in each cylinder of the car don't just happen. Forward movement only happens when fuel and air are injected and sparked. I think you may be looking at forward movement only and not what happened before movement/play began. Look at the moment before play/movement, and you see the components before they are injected into the same chamber, so to speak. This is the point where you can convince someone that that explosion just can't be fuel or air, and it has to be both and they are inseperable.

Probably.

[TonyLB]

I'm wondering if you don't see them as ever having being being seperate, and thus nothing has been bonded together.

Yep.  That's what I'm saying.  And I'm lovin' this question, by the way.  Very insightful.

I think I get what you're talking about: for each action in the game (before it is declared) something is contemplated within the mind of the player.  But that contemplation is different from the action itself, acting as it does upon only the abstracted model of RPG-action that the player has in their mind.  So, yes, that pre-planning can be either pure-game or pure-roleplay, if that's the model by which the player perceives the RPG at the moment.

Is that what you're saying?

[Callan S.]

Yeah, dead on (each of us using our own wording, of course)! Yay! :)

That contemplation is the point where the two fuels are already together and are sparked. I might liken the RPG book to the cylinder and fuel/air injection system from my car analogy, while the users contemplation of that material is the spark plug igniting it into an explosion.

I'm thinking that before you contemplate them, there is no play. Contemplation creates the play. Even when your by yourself watching TV and reading the RPG, it's damn hard to look at a roleplay book and not contemplate it...thus only seeing the explosion rather than the two seperate fuels involved.

I think that basically all board games in the past have provoked the imagination by naming game pieces Knights, or having monopoly money, or whatever. I think what is key here about RPG's, is that they go both ways. The mechanical texts provoke the imagination but also the imagination is mechanically facilitated to significantly effect the mechanics of the game.

On a side note: This is sort of possible in D&D minatures. One could say "Fall back!? My Palladin would never fall back from such dogs!" and your imagination is mechanically facilitated to have an effect on play because you don't fall back (it's even gamist to do so, since you've prioritised the idea of honour as a resource not to give up). Since it's possible here, it's possible in many other board games too. But I think it's very, very much like using a wrench to bang in a nail. RPG's are hammers, board games are wrenches. And I've used too many analogies.