So there's this game, right:

1. You play yourself. Not some laser-sharked version of you. Just you.

2. The setting is your life. The situations that occur are simply things that have happened recently in your life. You just repeat them verbatim, word for word, movement for movement. It's a perfect reenactment.

3. The actual people in your life are playing themselves. Heck, maybe it's a giant world-sized LARP and you all walk around pretending that these interactions you're having are as "real" and legitimate as the ones you had "the first time," in non-game encounters.

4. The stated purpose of the game is to explore your own life and choices by watching them happen again, with the benefit of hindsight. You know what's going to happen. You can't change anything but maybe you can understand it better.

Okay, it seems to me that play in this game, demonstrating no behaviors that could be seen to represent a specific Creative Agenda, isn't able to be analyzed according to the guidelines that Ron has layed out. You can't watch any of the individuals playing this game and say anything about the ways in which they're choosing to play the game, because playing Real Life is indistinguishable from real life.

However, all three Creative Agendas (if taken as actual intentions and not categories of demonstrated behavior) could theoretically be taking place.

Gamist players might enjoy reexperiencing the past as a way of looking at all their mistakes and trying to figure out how they could do better and ultimately gain an advantage in future Step On Up confrontations.

Narrativist players might enjoy seeing the patterns and themes emerge, watching how, on second view, even day-to-day events seem to address the major issues of human existence.

Simulationist players might just enjoy getting to experience everything again, tasting that same great food twice, wallowing in the pain of tragedy, experiencing the same exhilaration of success.

However, if we are only willing to talk about demonstrated behaviors, most of the interesting aspects of this game will go forever unexamained. Furthermore, I posit that a very large amount of what is interesting about ANY type of roleplaying never gets demonstrated during actual play. This is an extreme example to make a point, but I think that similar cases hold true across the board.

I find myself wishing more and more for a conceptual system that would allow us to analyze stuff that never makes it to the game table in a consistently recognizable fashion. After all, it's our own personal subjective experiences with roleplaying that are the whole point, not the events that actually occur. The events that occur are related to our experiences, of course, but I find it difficult to believe that problems in roleplaying can be fixed by changing the events that occur, instead of the ways in which people experience (and choose to experience) those events.

From where I'm sitting, this game is solidly Sim. Your questions about what different types of players might do with such a game seems to me to miss the point: if you're explicitly playing a game where you're you, and the point is the way you describe it, the play itself is Sim. The lessons may apply to all sorts of things, but that doesn't make the play mode-flexible.

Now, if you're living your life, that might be more like any one of the modes, or different modes at different times, or it may be something entirely different. But living your life isn't playing 'Real Life'.

That's a nice little paradox you got there. I like it. However, I'd say that roleplaying yourself would not be like being yourself, in practice, based upon the differences in roleplaying and living.

So you have basically shown that GNS probably shouldn't be applied to LARP.

Or maybe I misread what you wrote. Whatever.

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyron

Jonathan Walton wrote:
I find myself wishing more and more for a conceptual system that would allow us to analyze stuff that never makes it to the game table in a consistently recognizable fashion. After all, it's our own personal subjective experiences with roleplaying that are the whole point, not the events that actually occur. The events that occur are related to our experiences, of course, but I find it difficult to believe that problems in roleplaying can be fixed by changing the events that occur, instead of the ways in which people experience (and choose to experience) those events.

Jonathan,

Though I think there's something interesting that you're getting at here, I'm not sure I see where your analogy matches in ANY way with an RPG. If you are simply redoing the events, with no ability to change or comment upon them - literally nothing is happening. Roleplaying requires that there is something (the shared imagined space) upon which you are acting or commenting, and GNS categorizes those actions and/or comments into three groups. The "Creative Agenda" you are attributing to the (solitary?) participant in your redo scenario can, I guess, only result from what that totally-impotent observer-self is thinking to him or herself while the redo plays out.

I'd say until and unless the results (if any) of that internal monologue show up in some subsequent, unconstrained actions, there really ISN'T anything useful to say about it. Until some sort of communication happens - an expressed opinion about the events in the redo, a change in future behavior . . . SOMEthing - the redo might as well just have been "remembering what happened."

So - extreme example or not, the only time GNS (or any analysis beyond wild speculation, it seems to me) applies is when the results show up somewhere.

One thing that may be happening is that you are restricting "observable behavior" too much. That is, our "experiences" trigger all kinds of behavior that can be observed - when you say "I find it difficult to believe that problems in roleplaying can be fixed by changing the events that occur, instead of the ways in which people experience (and choose to experience) those events," it's not making sense to me. That is, of COURSE GNS is looking at the ways people experience and choose to experience events - where "events" is defined as "everything about gettin' set up for and actually sittin' down to play an RPG with other people." You didn't mean to imply that "events that occur" should be restricted to the events in the gameworld exclusively, did you? The mild tounge-click, the sudden eye-focus, the standing up and pacing - all "count" as part of what we look at as events. As does what people say was cool in the game. As does whether they chose to kill the warlock or turn him over to the authorities. All pieces in the puzzle.

At least, that's the way I'd been thinking about it . . .

Gordon

Jonathan Walton wrote: I find myself wishing more and more for a conceptual system that would allow us to analyze stuff that never makes it to the game table in a consistently recognizable fashion. After all, it's our own personal subjective experiences with roleplaying that are the whole point, not the events that actually occur. The events that occur are related to our experiences, of course, but I find it difficult to believe that problems in roleplaying can be fixed by changing the events that occur, instead of the ways in which people experience (and choose to experience) those events.

Jonathan, I don't think you have a role playing game; I don't think any creative agendum is possible within the rules you've presented.

I take the central rule of the game to be that each player will repeat his life as it occurred, precisely and without variation. You hope to find CA in the meaning he derives from the exercise.

The player cannot address premise, because he cannot choose to do so. He can observe whether he did anything that had any moral or ethical implications, but he's not addressing premise at that point.

The player cannot meet challenge, because his course is fully predetermined. If he successfully leapt over the gate yesterday morning, then this morning he must and will successfully leap over the gate. If yesterday he tripped and fell on his face, he is obligated to fail in the same manner today when he re-enacts the event. This is not a rewind scenario, setting the tape back so that the player can face the same challenges with different strategies, or have another chance to roll the dice--it is a replay, to be repeated precisely the same way.

That would seem to make it simulationist; indeed, years ago it was suggested that Civil War reenactment was in some ways an analog of simulationist play, and it does have connections--but it is not really simulationist play. In the same way that gamists must be able to choose to meet challenge and narrativists must be able to choose to address premise, simulationists must be free to choose to explore.

There is no freedom of choice in your scenario. The game, if it is a game, is about repeating what you did precisely. There's no suggestion that you lose if you fail to do so--only that you're not playing the game right. There's no choice here. You have no creative agendum at all, because you are not being creative.

That, anyway, is my take.

--M. J. Young

If MJ's right that there are really no choices in 'real life' I'll change my vote to agree with his. I was assuming that you were making choices which were motivated by asking questions like 'what would I really do here?' But if it's just the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, well then, that isn't a game at all.

I've run at least two multisession games where people played themselves and they were very interesting experiments. On the flip side, a friend of mine, a gamer, recently landed a job as a history prof using his RPG skills. He was really nervous and didn't really knew if he had what it took for the position, so he decided to make up a character who he thought likely to get that job and then played it during the interview. Very interesting way to marshal one's self-confidence.

Jonathan Walton wrote:
However, if we are only willing to talk about demonstrated behaviors, most of the interesting aspects of this game will go forever unexamained. Furthermore, I posit that a very large amount of what is interesting about ANY type of roleplaying never gets demonstrated during actual play. This is an extreme example to make a point, but I think that similar cases hold true across the board.

I find myself wishing more and more for a conceptual system that would allow us to analyze stuff that never makes it to the game table in a consistently recognizable fashion. After all, it's our own personal subjective experiences with roleplaying that are the whole point, not the events that actually occur. The events that occur are related to our experiences, of course, but I find it difficult to believe that problems in roleplaying can be fixed by changing the events that occur, instead of the ways in which people experience (and choose to experience) those events.

Jonathan Walton wrote:

I find myself wishing more and more for a conceptual system that would allow us to analyze stuff that never makes it to the game table in a consistently recognizable fashion. After all, it's our own personal subjective experiences with roleplaying that are the whole point, not the events that actually occur. The events that occur are related to our experiences, of course, but I find it difficult to believe that problems in roleplaying can be fixed by changing the events that occur, instead of the ways in which people experience (and choose to experience) those events.

clehrich wrote:
As Eero noted, this is basically a problem of interpretation, and one that I think is not well addressed by GNS. But to be honest, you're asking for an RPG theory of interpretation that is distinct from other theories and also fully applicable to gameplay in the usual sense. You're asking for the moon!

1. In most RPG theory, including GNS, the "who" is a rather shifty collective sense. The formulation of GNS is such that "coherence" is a situation in which to a great extent, meaning is consistent among all players, at least within boundaries. Incoherence is thus a disjuncture of meaning. But at base, this cannot be confirmed. Incoherence arises in play in the form of annoyance, boredom, and so forth. GNS postulates (with considerable anecdotal evidence) that these are effects of a type of meaning-disjuncture. If you seek a theory that wants to pinpoint what all those meanings are specifically, you're in effect seeking a theory that cuts sharply across GNS because it denies the basic postulate of cohesion, claiming that meaning as determined for one player within a so-called "coherent" game is not sufficiently parallel to that determined for another as to set aside the need for deep interpretation.

2. Where's the text here? This is a crushing problem in our current theories of RPG interpretation, and one that remains dreadfully underinvestigated.
The problem is that the textual nature of RPG, insofar as it can be called an interpreted texual object, already depends upon multiple simultaneous projections away from an apparent object or text. This is, I think, readily analyzable, but it will take pretty heavy-duty models from semiotics, anthropology (Bourdieu's "practice"), linguistic philosophy (esp. structuralist analysis and Derrida's reformulation of text in relation to speech). I don't think this can reasonably be done here, to be honest; somebody would have to spend an inordinate amount of time essentially teaching a huge amount of very heavy theory to everyone here, who in response would quite rightly be bored to tears and unwilling to listen.

Eero,

I want to get back to you on point 1; that's very complicated and needs deep thought. We may also be hijacking Jonathan's thread; if so, I'm going to abide by his responses. [Jonathan?]

Eero wrote:

I wrote: 2. Where's the text here? This is a crushing problem in our current theories of RPG interpretation, and one that remains dreadfully underinvestigated. .. [blah blah, Chris rambles about Bourdieu etc.]

I'd love to see this kind of undertaking. A dozen threads, named "Clehrich lectures on literary theory#n", which go through the high points of literary theory.

I don't only think it interesting, but necessary; it's arrogance to think that there's nothing important in the exploration of meaning academia has done for the last hundred years.

I'd do this myself, but as can be clearly seen, I'm more of a dabbler in literary theory and more of a general philosopher.

I don't want to disparage the work done here, but if you look at the most recent page of threads in GNS theory, what you see is largely application, not theory. It's imporant of course, that's what the theory is for, but it's also a sign that the rough edges of the model have been found. That's when you push forward and leave the rest to the engineers.

clehrich wrote:
I want to get back to you on point 1; that's very complicated and needs deep thought. We may also be hijacking Jonathan's thread; if so, I'm going to abide by his responses. [Jonathan?]

Eero wrote:
I'd love to see this kind of undertaking. A dozen threads, named "Clehrich lectures on literary theory#n", which go through the high points of literary theory.

You have got to be kidding. I dunno, people keep asking for this sort of thing -- a while back I got asked to do the same thing with ritual (which is actually slowly being tinkered with). You're all nuts.

Eero, you might take a look at (1) my ritual essay and (2) this thread in response. As I said at the top of the essay, this heuristic division between application and theory is essential to RPG theory's having real intellectual integrity. The general response was a big fat raspberry. I agree with some points here and there, but I mostly come down where you have: theory is not application, and when you say that theory without application is stupid you undermine both theory and application in one fell swoop.

Jonathan is raising big, heady questions, and trying to push RPG's into heavy aesthetic and theoretical areas. I am 100% behind him, and it sounds like you are too. But I admit to a little skepticism: Ron is generally pretty open-minded, and when even he's saying that the Forge is incapable of dealing with Big Questions, I'm afraid we've got a long row to hoe.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: This veers a little off-topic, but it's an important principle we are discussing here. Forge could take a stand for solidly empiristic sociological theory, and it'd be easy with GNS being the corner stone here. It doesn't take much to decide that we don't want to hear more about literary science.

I've actually read the article, but didn't notice that thread at the time (damn; I resisted starting a thread about it because of my junior status here). For the record, I totally get the article; time will tell whether I'm content with the approach, but I agree with the methology and presentation.

Certainly Forge has it's limitations, but I ask you to consider the alternatives: there's currently nowhere at all for RPG theory as an academic discipline to be, so this is as good a place as any. It all depends on your general stand on the role of science in art and culture in general, really. ....

Consider too that the fact that we are having this discussion is proof of there being a need to address the old academia. We, as game designers and artists, have to draw lines about the theoretical frameworks.

*<;

Setting aside the literary crticism baloney* for a moment, what you are describing is not a game, it's group therapy.

The essence of a game is that the person makes choices. These choices may be entirely the person's own (chess), entirely random (snakes & ladders) or somewhere in between (monopoly, and most roleplaying games).

Absent choices, you're not playing a game, you're just telling a story. And if several of you are telling your personal stories, reliving happy times and difficult times - that's not a game. Because there's no choices.

Additionally, it's not roleplaying, it's just remembering.

Now, you can play yourself as a character, and still be "roleplaying." You roleplayer your ordinary person's reaction to extraordinary situations brought up by the GM. That's fair enough.

But if all you are playing out is stuff which you've already done in your life, then it's not roleplaying. Just remembering.

Remembering with a bunch of friends is all well and good. But it's not roleplaying, and it's not a game. Thus, it's not a roleplaying game.

________

*Yes, baloney. "Grand Unified Field Theory"?! Please, don't rate Literary Criticism quite that high. It's hardly "scientific." Even supposing it were, talking literary criticism to roleplayers is like talking differentiation of equations of motion to a baseball player - your principles are correct, but of absolutely no use to the ball player.

Roleplaying or writing aren't a science which can be analysed. They're a craft. There are good craftsmen, and poor craftsmen. Some can be taught to be better, others will always be crap but still happy and enjoy themselves, some have natural talent, some don't, etc. Sciences are well-suited to critical analysis. Crafts aren't. We can argue usefully about the conceptual basis of hypothesis and experiment; we can't argue usefully about the conceptual basis of a brick.

Of course, someone will tell me they can argue usefully about the conceptual basis of a brick. And I would respond that that's just intellectual masturbation. It may feel good, but is utterly unproductive.

Hi ChefKyle (Kyle, I presume?),

Welcome to the Forge! A skeptical voice is always a welcome addition to any discussion, and I think you’re coming down on the same side as some other posters here, so you’re not the only voice questioning whether Jonathon’s conceptual game is in fact an RPG. But actually, I don’t think it’s necessarily meant to be. Jonathon is imagining it in order to state one challenge he has for the GNS theory. Some people seem to think GNS does stand up to that challenge: Gordon’s clarifications in particular make sense to me. Other people are exploring other places, other discourses, other theories we could draw on: Eero and Chris are asking what we might have to gain by learning from established disciplines—not blindly, but critically. Both these responses seems to me to be within the scope of Jonathon’s initial goals for the thread, I think… but of course Jonathon will clarify that, and I might be missing some things.

But I’m honestly a bit confused by your semi-rant about the possibilities of drawing from literary theories or other academic disciplines to expand our understanding of RPGs. I don’t think you’re really reacting directly to anything that anyone has said here, in particular with your dismissal of a “Grand Unified Theory” of roleplaying, which no one has really suggested as a goal. I think Eero and Chris are saying that it would be a huge but worthwhile job to see what insights could be gained by drawing on existing academic discourses to discuss RPGs. And why not?

I think also that your criticisms of what literary critics do, what scientists do, and to what extent any of them are self-aware about the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of their studies are honestly based on somewhat oversimplified representations of them. It seems to be common culture now to assume literary theorists are so caught up in what they do that they think it has the answer to everything. Probably some of them do. But you might be surprised at how often they approach ideas in their own fields critically. Certainly Eero and Chris are approaching these ideas with open, but critical minds. I hope everyone would do so.

Eero has mentioned Alan Sokal and the spoof article (also available in .pdf) that he published in the journal Social Text, which proved an important point and acts as an excellent cautionary tale that cultural theorists in particular will not soon forget. I think it’s important that we not be simply dismissive of any intellectual traditions, in particular based on what sound to me like overly limited and inaccurate impressions of their methods and their purposes. Now we may investigate them, draw from them, and then discover that they do not meet our needs. But we cannot find out which ones do meet our needs without engaging critically with them. If we simply react against them and dismiss them, we may be ignoring something that could be useful. But we'd never know.

One of the great things about a place like the Forge is that its members can bring a variety of different angles to bear on a problem, all of which I think have contributed constructively to knowledge here.

Rich

Eero, Chris, Rich, etc.

No worries about hijacking the thread. It was mostly meant as a declaration of my slowly building dissatisfaction with GNS as a tool for my own purposes. Now that I finally feel that I understand where Ron's coming from and what he designed his theory to do, I've realized that what I want and need (as a player and designer) from a comprehensive theory of roleplaying is different than what I think Ron wants. GNS, like most theories, is really good at doing what it seems to have been designed to do. But in the areas where I want to go with my games, I'm going to need something else.

I've been reading a ton of aesthetic theory lately, and there seems to be a general consent that one of theory's main purposes it to justify and explain the existence of (and our aesthetic reactions to) emerging and avant-gard art. You can't, after all, judge a machine that makes random noises the same way you'd judge a painting by Rembrandt. They're very different things, but art theory is required to explain the nature of both works.

Personally, I view roleplaying theory very similarly. In recent years, Ron and others have pushed GNS forward to explain what they were trying to do with games like Sorcerer, Trollbabe, Inspectres, Universalis, My Life with Master, etc. However, to talk about what I'm trying to do with Humble Mythologies and Beneath This Facade (and to a lesser extent, Argonauts and what Shreyas is up to with Torchbearer), I feel I need new roleplaying theory that focuses on different areas from what GNS currently covers. I need a deeper understanding of aesthetics and how you create color and tone. I need components like Emily Care's suggested "exploration of self." I need more attention to be payed to our subjective experience of roleplaying and not just demonstrated behaviors.

So, I think you guys took the thread in a completely appropriate direction. I very much agree that it's time to apply existing art, literary, and conceptual theories to roleplaying. Academics don't get to live in the ivory tower for no reason. It's high time we drew on the work they've been doing instead of constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, as if roleplaying was something completely unrelated to other forms of creative expression (note: I'm not accursing the Forge of this, but I think the attitude is pretty common in much of the RPG theory that gets thrown down).

P.S. Yeah, the nature of the game isn't the point, though I would still argue that it's roleplaying. You have Social Contract. You have Exploration. You have Shared Imagined Space ("These events never happened. Imagine that you're not repeating the events again, but experiencing them for the first time."). I don't actually think choice is a necessary requirement for roleplaying. You could roleplay a game that was completely scripted, something that blurred the distinction between roleplaying and theatre. You don't have to have chosen a particular outcome to Explore it.

EDIT: Typo in post that significantly changed the meaning of what I wanted to say.

Great post Jonathan, you certainly explained the twofold nature of the thread. It seems to me that both matters are resolved, though; some people think that you need decisions for a roleplaying game, while others think that the text is sufficient, and while some think you could use lit-theory for rpgs, others are not convinced. Not much else to say without going to details, is there?

Coming back from the theory discussion, I would actually argue for this game not being roleplaying in the conventional sense: it certainly is a part of the continuum of literary forms, but I see no use in extending the terminology this far. This is however "only" semantics; there is no significance to the limit between this and actual roleplaying games.

This comes back to the matter of defining roleplaying, once again. "Communication in a SIS" is a great and accurate definition as far as I'm concerned, and I think this doesn't fall inside it: there is no communication happening when you repeat something (where communication is to be understood to be interactive, to differentiate with a book communicating to the reader). If, on the other hand, you apply artistic liberty to choosing what to repeat, it becomes theater (which carries information, but still isn't communication in the interactive sense).

For roleplaying to be differentiated from theater, you need to assume interactivity between the participants and a focus on the participants as the primary audience. Without the first we include historical recreation (which incidentally is exactly what you have described) and without the second improvisational theatre. These two conditions are conjoined in the term 'communicate' as far as I'm concerned: the word implies both interaction with your target and focusing on him. Thusly "communicating in a SIS", to further differentiate from any old communication.

Anyway, I've probably resolved the definition problem to my satisfaction, and the discussion about the bounds of theory is probably better assaulted in another thread, wouldn't you agree?

Rich Forest wrote: Jonathon is imagining it in order to state one challenge he has for the GNS theory.

But I’m honestly a bit confused by your semi-rant about the possibilities of drawing from literary theories or other academic disciplines to expand our understanding of RPGs.

I don’t think you’re really reacting directly to anything that anyone has said here, in particular with your dismissal of a “Grand Unified Theory” of roleplaying, which no one has really suggested as a goal.

I think Eero and Chris are saying that it would be a huge but worthwhile job to see what insights could be gained by drawing on existing academic discourses to discuss RPGs. And why not?

I think also that your criticisms of what literary critics do, what scientists do, and to what extent any of them are self-aware about the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of their studies are honestly based on somewhat oversimplified representations of them.

It seems to be common culture now to assume literary theorists are so caught up in what they do that they think it has the answer to everything. Probably some of them do.

But you might be surprised at how often they approach ideas in their own fields critically.

Now we may investigate them, draw from them, and then discover that they do not meet our needs. But we cannot find out which ones do meet our needs without engaging critically with them. If we simply react against them and dismiss them, we may be ignoring something that could be useful. But we'd never know.

Vow, Kyle... you seem to really know your stuff.

Mr. Lehrich, this is what I meant about this whole conversation having kind of a deciding nature for Forge. We can agree here that literary theory is an issue non grata, and never come back to it. There's strong sentiment against it elsewhere in the scene, so it's no wonder if a like consensus develops in the Forge as well.

Kyle, I won't challenge your stand on literary criticism. You wouldn't state it so forcefully if it weren't a truth you are well versed with. I myself am just a dilettante in the field, and not competent to refute your argument.

However, I'd like some more background on the matter as it relates to roleplaying. Could you in interests of that goal provide some answers?

Human nature is to search for pleasure. If literary nitpicking of roleplaying games is enjoyable, then why forbid it on this forum?

How do you view mr. Walton's stated preference for "high art roleplaying", to state it simply? This is a delusion(?) many of us here share to some degree, so I'm interested in your view on how this ban of literary theory relates to the movement here. Is there any connection, or do you view mr. Walton's play and theories entirely different matters?

Do you really think that no good as ever been gained from either literary or roleplaying theory? Do you think that the successes of Forge designers (if someone is willing to place himself under this flag) are explained by individual talent or similar unrelated factors alone, or would the theoretical approach advocated by many here have something to do with it? Similarly, is there really no literature you like that evidently conforms with some or other theory? And if so, do you know that this relationship is coincidence, or could it be that such a writer would have learned such a theory and used it to a good result?

I've always been in the understanding, that although literary theory has produced much wankery, there's likewise some good. For example, when I say that "The themes of Lord of the Rings are predicated on a christian morality, as opposed to pulp fantasy, inspired by largely nietzchean zeitgeist." I'm stating something immensely useful for my own understanding of the book and history of fantasy literature, and possibly for others' as well. However, there's no way I could have said the above sentence without the work of aesthetic theory. The question: are you really of the mind that nothing is salvageable, that terms like "genre", "theme", "plot climax" and "symbol" are useless intellectual grandstanding?

Regarding deep study of a piece of writing as opposed to literary analysis, could you explain the difference a little further? At first it would seem that literary analysis you like is relegated under a different term here, to protect it from the annihilation. I'm sure there's a difference. Is it limiting the study to background needed for gaining use of the text, as opposed to analyzing the text itself?

About literary criticism as science: I'm not American, so I don't have any real certainty of the terminology. However, I've come to understand that there is somewhat of a divide in the use of the terminology there. In Finnish, for example, the word "tiede" means all the academic disciplines, including usually even philosophy. In American discourse I've come to learn that your schools teach to consider only so-called hard sciences as science proper, with the other academic disciplines as some kind of frauds. This is usually supported by teaching elaborate definitions for science, definitions that usually limit science to what is called "luonnontieteet" in Finnish, or natural sciences in some parts of the world. The question: is there a greater point in your considering literary criticism "not science" than the fact that American use indeed doesn't seem to include it? Should I draw some conclusion from criticism not being science? I mean, there are many useful and beautiful things that are not science, so what do you want to say when you emphasize the point?

About use of terminology: There are many fields that use special terminology. Would you say that Ron, for example, is wrong to develop his own for discussion of roleplaying games? When I start talking about N-manifolds as a mathematician, what words should I use instead? How is use of terminology different in literary science from other fields? I believe you when you say that there's much needless use of such terminology, although I've found that new words are often needed simply to mould our thoughts in new forms. Why do you think this fraudulent culture has developed?

If Hackmaster is referencing old D&D culture, simulation is entertaining because of immersion, My Life with Master forces narrative turns, Vampire calls itself a storytelling game, 7th Sea beckons to model the game on swashbuckling adventure, Sorcerer has an explicit theme, there's no discernable difference between player and movie dialogue, Exalted advices to preserve player protagonism, and my pleasure from a game evidently comes from it's similarities to literature, why is it that literary science cannot give us anything, when clearly the exact same terminology and concepts are used all the time?

I've myself always construed a really close relationship for literature and roleplaying, even when the game is very "gamey". Is there really no similarity between the two? I understand that I've asked a lot of questions, but there's much I didn't understand in your last message.

Kyle,

I’m not going to debate you point-by-point. Forge etiquette is against it, first of all, and besides I don’t think there’s a lot of hope of convincing you anyway. But there are a few points worth making.

1. Literary Criticism as Target
If you go back and read the thread, you’ll note that Eero occasionally uses the phrase “literary theory” rather loosely to refer to any form of theorizing about written language. No one has mentioned literary criticism except you. I am not in any sense a fan of literary criticism, nor do I think much of it particularly useful to RPG theory. Indeed, the point of my original post, to which you objected with such venom, was that I do not think formulating a total theory of interpretation on an RPG basis is something worth doing. But I am confused as to why you would think that “interpretation” and “meaning” entails literary criticism per se. That’s exactly the error that gets so many literary critics into such trouble, and thus I would think it would be something you yourself would want particularly to avoid.

2. Theory and Practice
I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again:

You can have the perfect analysis of a game system, and yet still have no players. You can have absolutely no understanding of any of the jargon of literary criticism, and still write a damn fine story or run or play a damn fine game.

Now, this kind of analysis must be distinguished from a deep study of a piece of writing, which can improve our enjoyment of it. Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose, for example, becomes more enjoyable if the reader knows something of medieval history and culture. If all the reader knows is King Arthur in the latest Hollywood installment, the reader will say, "huh?" as they turn the pages.

Players want to game, they don't want to meta-game. But literary criticism isn't even meta-gaming. It's meta-meta-gaming. I mean, really, let's be serious here.

Just a quicky... as one of the perpetrators of the use of Lit Crit as a term on these boards: can we agree that Literary Criticism as such is of next to no use in assessing games, but that textual analysis, with play as text, can be? They're very different beasts, the first being concerned with is it any good, the second with what is it, how has it come about, and what happens when the author / reader does this...

The former would be of interest if anyone was aiming for literary merit as a goal of play, which I've repeatedly argued against. The second is, to my mind, a necessary complement to GNS. GNS asks why we play, textual analysis asks how.

Oh, and Jonathan: it's still not a game. It's acting!

Jonathan Walton wrote: Narrativist players might enjoy seeing the patterns and themes emerge, watching how, on second view, even day-to-day events seem to address the major issues of human existence.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: Vow, Kyle... you seem to really know your stuff.

I myself am just a dilettante in the field, and not competent to refute your argument.

Human nature is to search for pleasure. If literary nitpicking of roleplaying games is enjoyable, then why forbid it on this forum?

How do you view mr. Walton's stated preference for "high art roleplaying", to state it simply?

Do you really think that no good as ever been gained from either literary or roleplaying theory?

Do you think that the successes of Forge designers (if someone is willing to place himself under this flag) are explained by individual talent or similar unrelated factors alone, or would the theoretical approach advocated by many here have something to do with it?

Similarly, is there really no literature you like that evidently conforms with some or other theory?

And if so, do you know that this relationship is coincidence, or could it be that such a writer would have learned such a theory and used it to a good result?

For example, when I say that "The themes of Lord of the Rings are predicated on a christian morality, as opposed to pulp fantasy, inspired by largely nietzchean zeitgeist." I'm stating something immensely useful for my own understanding of the book and history of fantasy literature, and possibly for others' as well. However, there's no way I could have said the above sentence without the work of aesthetic theory.

The question: are you really of the mind that nothing is salvageable, that terms like "genre", "theme", "plot climax" and "symbol" are useless intellectual grandstanding?

Regarding deep study of a piece of writing as opposed to literary analysis, could you explain the difference a little further?

About literary criticism as science: I'm not American, so I don't have any real certainty of the terminology.

In American discourse I've come to learn that your schools teach to consider only so-called hard sciences as science proper, with the other academic disciplines as some kind of frauds.

The question: is there a greater point in your considering literary criticism "not science" than the fact that American use indeed doesn't seem to include it? Should I draw some conclusion from criticism not being science?

When I start talking about N-manifolds as a mathematician, what words should I use instead? How is use of terminology different in literary science from other fields?

Why do you think this fraudulent culture has developed?

why is it that literary science cannot give us anything, when clearly the exact same terminology and concepts are used all the time?

I've myself always construed a really close relationship for literature and roleplaying, even when the game is very "gamey". Is there really no similarity between the two?

clehrich wrote: If you go back and read the thread, you’ll note that Eero occasionally uses the phrase “literary theory” rather loosely to refer to any form of theorizing about written language. No one has mentioned literary criticism except you.

But I am confused as to why you would think that “interpretation” and “meaning” entails literary criticism per se.

Academic study, in most disciplines, is analytical. The idea in biology is to understand life, not produce it as such.

You have chosen a singularly unfortunate example. Umberto Eco, a – uh oh – literary critic and semiotician, is on record as having written both Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum as semiotic allegories.

This is the sort of thing one discovers from deep study. If all the reader knows is medieval history, the reader will say “huh?” as he or she turns the pages.

You’re trying to discard analytical work on the grounds that it can’t help gaming, and your primary argument is that meta-gaming doesn’t help. But if you really think that, you will find yourself in a small minority here. After all, RPG theorizing is precisely the point in, let’s say, the RPG Theory Forum.

Ultimately, I think you’re trying to make an argument from authority. You’re trying to snow your readers into thinking that you are very knowledgeable.

But I don’t think it’s reasonable to derail a theoretical thread about meaning by announcing that all theory about meaning is inherently worthless, as you know because you studied it at university.

ChefKyle wrote: No, my primary argument is not that meta-gaming doesn't help gaming; but that meta-meta gaming doesn't help gaming. Literary theory isn't meta-gaming. It's not talking about gaming; it's talk about talking about gaming.

Here's my theory on meaning: I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. Neither more nor less. Good enough?

Guys, this thread should have been closed a while ago. What you're discussing has no relationship to the original topic. Personally, I find it impossible to respond to Kyle because he refuses to ackowledge that other people might find meaning in something he considers to be worthless. He thinks that's silly and that it should be immediately apparent to every enlightened individual that such things are worthless. I don't think there's any way I can respond to that, since I'm obviously not one of the enlightened.

If you want to discuss the relative worth of incorperating other branches of theory or criticism into analysis of roleplaying, start a new thread. Don't do it here. Please.

pete_darby wrote:
You, as far as I can tell, are talking about how useless these theories are for any damn thing. Fine, thanks for your comment, but you do know that it's looking like you're picking fights for the sake of picking, don't you?

Nice, concise, and manages to add nothing to any discourse on meaning. It's as if you've come into a debate on cookery, said "I cook food, and food's what I cook," and sat back smugly as if you've trumped any discussion on techniques, tastes and methods of cookery.

As for me, I'm finding the apllication of these theories on semiology, construction of meaning, and especially new developments in ritual theory, a damn sight more useful to the practice of playing RPG's than they are in the production, especially, of literature.

And as for the implied argument that not aesthetic theory ever made anyone rich...

But if you keep implying that commercial success is the only benchmark for assessing artistic merit...

Have a look at some of Ron's comments about the difference between the RPG market and the RPG hobby, the latter of which is, as I'm sure you know, still using products that were not "commercially succesful" in actual play long after they went out of print, while hundreds of high selling new RPG prodcuts are used only as reading material, not gaming material.

So, chefkyle, how do you assess the merit of a role playing session, or product if you prefer?

Oh, and prefacing personal comments with "in my opinon" and "I think" is a nice way of separating opinion from verifiable fact. I find it very useful to stop me coming off even more pompous than I already do.

Jonathan Walton wrote: Guys, this thread should have been closed a while ago.

Personally, I find it impossible to respond to Kyle because he refuses to ackowledge that other people might find meaning in something he considers to be worthless.

He thinks that's silly and that it should be immediately apparent to every enlightened individual that such things are worthless. I don't think there's any way I can respond to that, since I'm obviously not one of the enlightened.

Hi Kyle,

I can explain Jonathon's comment that the thread should have ended a while back--it's the topic drift (which I contributed to, I'll admit). It's standard practice on the Forge to close a thread when it's no longer answering the original question or serving the original purpose. On top of that, whoever started the thread to begin with has a bit of extra leeway/power in interpreting whether the thread is still on topic. So I think Jonathon was basically putting in his voice that the thread should be closed. You're right that topics drift in conversation, but the standard Forge answer to drift is to close a thread and start a new one that is about one of the new topics of interest. So Jonathon isn't saying, "You can't talk about this." He's just saying, "please start a new thread if you think it's worth worth making a thread about, but it's off-topic here."

I don't know if that is in the stickies explaining Forge etiquette or not--it might be, or it might just be something people have to remind each other about, in which case there's no way you could be expected to have known about it. I should add that it's also important not to fire off responses in the heat of the moment. I think your re-wording of Jonathon in the last post is a bit unfair. He didn't say you were stupid. He said you seem to think everyone else is ;-)

Actually, I think he's saying that you've clearly made up your mind, so there's no point in arguing. Now he may be saying that in a bit of a defensive way, but to be fair, you were categorically dismissive about some things he's interested in. Now that he's gotten defensive, and you've gotten defensive in return, well, the chances of you guys having a conversation rather than an argument are pretty slim, so maybe it really is time to close the thread.

I will add that in your recent posts, I've found a lot of things that I agree with; I've also found plenty of things I disagree with. I'm not going to get into those because I don't want to get into an argument with you. For one, it'd give the impression that I disagree with you on everything, which isn't true. For another, you're already on the defense. That makes any kind of discussion more difficult. And regardless, it would be way off-topic for the thread (as interesting as it's been). Anyway, I'm glad you've found something worth engaging with here -- I hope you find other things at the Forge of interest as well.

Rich

ChefKyle wrote:

Jonathan Walton wrote: Guys, this thread should have been closed a while ago.

Why? Because someone disagrees with its premise? Because it drifts on to topics outside the original theme? Both of those are normal parts of conversation, and any message board is just another kind of conversation.

M. J. Young wrote:
As to published games that have benefited from the theory here, although Multiverser was in print before System Does Matter reached the public, its Second Book of Worlds was influenced for the better by these theoretical discussions. We didn't say so in the credits, and looking back that's probably to our shame.

Yet it also shows that your argument is one from silence, and that's a very shakey argument... To conclude that because none of them ever mention anything about the influence of The Forge on their game designs that it therefore had none is not a terribly telling argument.

Kyle,

Sigh.

Your last paragraph is confusing to me. I suspect you must be referring to me... because I don't think M. J. said anything you might have interpreted that way. But you're way off.

And this is exactly the reason for avoiding the back and forth, I attack, you defend, now you attack, I defend pattern of posting.

Look, I say what I mean as well. When I said I was glad you found something to engage with, I meant it. I meant it was obvious you were interested in talking about this stuff in this thread. When I said I hope you find other interesting things, I meant it. "Other" in the sense of "in addition to" rather than "instead of." It was a "welcome, have a look around, I hope you stay" post. Now if you're on the defense, I can see why you would read it as something else. But it wasn't. It was an attempt to be cordial.

Rich