Seth L. Blumberg wrote on the style of communication at the Forge in the "Railroading"-thread. I've commented on the use of terms here before, and did so again in that thread. This is a thread on communication and terminology.

Seth L. Blumberg wrote: Because the style of communication here at the Forge is influenced by the Western European academic tradition as represented by Ron Edwards, Forgers do that too. It sometimes seems strange to outsiders, but it's how we do things, and it's proven useful to us, too (albeit not over the course of centuries).

There is no accessible language for roleplaying theory. The terms familiar to roleplayers at large are gibberish. Sensitivity to them hobbles discussion.

I don't consider the theory language here to be for most roleplayers. It's for designers - particularly, it's for us, here, us Forgerites, to communicate efficiently with one another. We've worked it out from scratch and adoption because we've had to figure out how to be understood by our colleagues. There aren't any academic standards here, premature or otherwise, just a bunch of words that've served pretty well so far.

And then - we DO present our ideas in a way most roleplayers will understand. In our games, when we publish 'em. What do you think we're doing here?

I'm sorry to be harsh. But seriously, to go back to talking about rules-light and rules-heavy and immersive and Roleplaying vs Rollplaying, or whatever language actual players use, would suck suck suck.

I'm sensitive to the plight of the newcomer. I was one once too. But the solution is to help newcomers get up to speed, insofar as they're willing to work at it too, not to dumb the place down.

-Vincent

Greetings Tomas,

I've not posted here in ages, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

Tomas HVM wrote: It is not positive for roleplaying games as a form, that the forgerites develop a set of terms far removed from ordinary players, and lacking in viability for game designers. The Forge is on it's way to becoming a secluded elite, developing ways of speaking of their ideas which demand a degree in "forgespeak" to be understood. The language adopted here, is "academic" in the bad sense of the word. It is not very accurate. Is is not very practical. A lot of the terms developed here is not very beneficial to the understanding of roleplaying games.

Tomas HVM wrote: The appliance of "academic language" on the Forge, is instrumental in creating a artificial division between theorists and "leymen". Such a division is contrary to a constructive development of roleplaying games, especially when considering that the amateur player is the basis of the game.

Bravo, Vincent.

Tomas, I write regular columns elsewhere. Sometimes I include current "jargon" as a way to describe things I think will be useful to my readers--I recently did an exposition of credibility, authority, the shared imaginary space, and the place of rules, which my readers found incredibly valuable. I did it by explaining how these words were being used and what they revealed about how we play. However, the bulk of my articles don't use such terms. The present ideas about games on the level of most of my readers. Those readers are in the main your amateur role players.

Vincent creates great games. He's one of many who do so. Legends of Alyria is coming out soon, and it's a fabulous new narrativist fantasy game--but I don't remember there being any jargon in the text.

We often refer to a narrativist player or a gamist game; we all know that this is shorthand for, respectively, a player who tends to make narrativist choices and a rules set which tends to encourage gamist play. It's an awful lot easier to say the former than the latter. It's also a lot easier to mention the Lumpley principle than to state it every time we need to reference it--just as physicists will refer to Newton's Third Law or Ohm's Law or Boyle's Law by name rather than writing out the entire concept every time. Sure, if you're writing a physics textbook, you either include the concept before you use it or you indicate that it is not a beginning text book.

If you come to the Forge, it is assumed that you are interested in game design, and willing to put in the effort to design good games. I know that you are. It is also assumed that you're willing to communicate about how to design those games with others who are involved in game design--and apparently that is also true of you as well. Why, then, should this enclave for professional game designers dumb down the vocabulary in its discussions so that amateurs can understand what we're saying and it takes the rest of us three times as long to read, or write, anything worth contributing?

Forge theory is intended to assist game designers in understanding the task and the options. It's not expected to be spread to all players everywhere, except to the degree that the concepts, in whatever language best communicates them to the target audience, will improve game play of specific games.

--M. J. Young

As a foil for Tomas' opinion, I'll lay down my own: there is IMO no relevance at all to worrying about how layman should understand my jargon. I'm simply not interested.

I play with all kinds of people in Helsinki. My games have attracted academical people, as well as borderline autistics. I can assure you that we can play quite nicely without any Forge terminology at all. It's not needed for play.

When and if my fellow hobbyists wish to discuss theory we start with whatever natural words my good fellow might bring on - I speak Finnish, they speak Finnish, we have no problems at all. If it should be that the words are not enough for the matter at hand I introduce some special termonology - Robin's Laws, Turku school, Meilahti school, GNS, whatever is needed at the time. If someone wants to speak theory he presumably has plenty of intelligence to learn some new words and concepts, and use them or lose them if they wish.

The point is, however, not that this is natural ('though this should be noted); rather more important is that in every case I speak with actual, real roleplayers the terminology they use is different. One player likes to speak about plot, another about freedom. Third is all about gratification and fun, while fourth intends immersion. There is no "commonly used" terminology of roleplaying as far as I see. Many actual roleplayers aren't that interested in reading even rulebooks, not to talk about learning any special terminology. It's a losing proposition to try to ground Forge terminology in a way that would make it simpler to understand - the only way is to let it disseminate and be patient.

Forge terminology is quite sufficient and sensible to me. I understand what 'illusionism' is, wasn't even hard. And I have to say that the word has been as simple to understand for all my fellows who should hear it, whether they have heard of railroading or not. The same holds true for other terms, as most of them are simply new words and new concepts.

About the only exception are the names of the Agendas. It's nigh impossible to count the number of people who have utterly misunderstood the theory simply because they recognize the words game, simulation and narrative, and think through them instead of taking in the definitions. I'm somewhat of an intellectual elitist, however, so I don't think it'd be worth the hassle to institute any alternative names. If one wanted to, though, it'd be a simple matter to go through the essays and replace all mentions of agendas with A, B and C. This'd probably kill quite much misunderstanding with one stone. The beauty of the resolution is that nothing forces us to use these alternative names...

Anyway; I agree with the main argument of the centrality of laymen to roleplaying, but don't see that as a reason for theory being routed through them. What we're seeing in Forge is largely special tools, not something for people who just want to have fun. If this theory were truly something common roleplayers needed to know, I'm sure it'd have started to pop up in rulebooks long before now.

I have however a degree of sympathy for Tomas' views, for it's true that some theoretical concepts are well worth the understanding for the common player. When this is the case, however, I don't see how one set of terminology should be better than another for expressing the case.

If you would, Tomas, give us an example. What kind of termonology you would prefer, so that we should be easily understandable to our peers? Translate for us concepts like illusionism/participationism, the agendas, high/low points of contact, the stances, karma, drama, fortune, Exploration, Ephemera and such. And do it in a way that actually makes understanding easier for the newbie, all the while keeping the theoretical meaning intact. If you have concrete ideas, I'm sure they'll be listened to.

I for one deem modern understanding about the relativity of language one of our most powerful tools of thinking. We are not bound to existing words or concepts like many of our forefathers were, but to the contrary are ready to invent new synthetic terminology with defined meaning. This is a great boon to exact thinking and ensures that we avoid a multitude of misunderstandings. Take "railroading". The word became useful for me exactly at the moment when it was defined as "unacceptable illusionism". Before that it was only a high ideal of certain kind of play, hard to classify or understand. I for one have rarely had any real trouble with railroading, so it's simply not relevant for me without a good definition.

You have stated good points, as expected, to my little provocative rant. I am of course not doing this for the pleasure of provocation, but I admit to formulate the initial text in a somewhat piqued manner, in order to provoce the debate. I will refrain myself to answering one material point, made by M.J.Young.

M. J. Young wrote: Why, then, should this enclave for professional game designers dumb down the vocabulary in its discussions so that amateurs can understand what we're saying and it takes the rest of us three times as long to read, or write, anything worth contributing?

M. J. Young wrote: Forge theory is intended to assist game designers in understanding the task and the options.

Hi Tomas,

I'm absolutely for simplicity in communication.

That said, the only responsibility anyone has, ever, in clarity of communication is making sure that the ideas discussed are clear to the intended audience.

If you feel that the ideas presented are not clear enough, the best thing to do is to start working on ways of representing them in a fashion that has more clarity.

Chris

Hi Chris; I do work on presenting them (my ideas, at least) in more clarity. It's slow progress though.

Eero: I'll have to come back to you. It's sunny here in Oslo, and my footballers are awaiting my insightful quest for the leather ball.

Hi, Tomas.
I have three challenges for you.

You state that you "[formulated] the initial text in a somewhat piqued manner in order to provoce[sic] the debate." Do you feel that posting in a deliberately inflammatory manner is appropriate behavior at this forum, or for that manner any forum at all? I do not, and I request that in the future you formulate your posts in order to express a point, rather than manipulate the responses with an adversarial tone.

You repeat and repeat and repeat that the terminology that has come into use here is unclear and impractical; I fail to see how this is the case, and I would like to know exactly what grounds you have for claiming such a thing.

Finally, my third challenge to you is that I would like you to develop and present a terminology that you feel would better serve the goals that you profess, rather than simply complaining about what is existing and in use. I would not complain about the colour of the sky unless I could change it, which I simply cannot do. It seems to me like you are asking that the colour of the sky be changed.

Just a couple points here from the academic peanut gallery.

First of all, let's just stop this business about what is and is not an academic use of terminology or jargon. That's a meaningless discussion, and goes nowhere. Eventually, that's just going to lead to "We're academic, so that's good" and "We're not academic jargon-users, so that's good," and so on. Pointless. Forge discourse is not particularly akin to any academic discourse I know of, but so what? Does that make it better or worse? Neither. It's a meaningless comparison unless it's clear why we're making it, and I haven't seen anyone formulate that clearly, and I don't see the point in doing so either. So let's just stop with this "academic" business.

Second, the use of precise terminology has nothing whatever to do with accessibility. The more precise one's terms, the steeper the learning curve. That's axiomatic. And we can't use words "for what they really mean" or anything of the kind, because there aren't any words in ordinary language that mean exactly what we need them to mean for a specifically RPG purpose. So we can coin new terms, or we can add by analogy or extension to old terms. What's the difference? Either way, you end up with specialized usage, with "terms of art." That's going to happen necessarily. Anyone ever noticed that "RPG" is specialized usage? What makes that "the right term"? The fact that lots of people use it, that's what. Of course there are more and less felicitous terms, but unless someone has beautiful terms to suggest that exactly replace current terms, and furthermore gets significant approval that yes, these are better terms, I don't see the point in arguing about terms -- only definitions.

Remember, these terms do not point to things; they point to intellectual and formal categories. "Narrativism" does not exist in a strong sense; behaviors and so forth exist that we may choose to classify as narrativism. But there is no "right" term for this "thing" -- there isn't a thing there, and there isn't an absolute necessity for there even to be a term to classify in this fashion, but now that we have the category we need some term, and "narrativism" is the one we've currently got.

Tomas, you have a habit of using your own terminology that is parallel to but different from others'. It seems to me that this puts you in a particularly weak position to criticize what has become established terminology within the Forge. Why "forgerite"? Why insist upon "gamesmith"? And so on. Do these words have special meanings for you? If so, why are they preferable to other terms more commonly used here, such as "game designer"? I can't see that we can come to terms on terms, if you will, without you showing your hand; as it stands, we have to guess what you're thinking about your special terms, while you stand back and snipe at ours.

To what terms, exactly, do you object? Why, exactly? Which would you prefer? Why, exactly? Bearing in mind that as soon as we adopt a new term to replace an old one, we have just radically limited the range of people who will understand the discourse, why would changing terms now be a good thing? All this burden rests with you, the one who wants to uproot terms.

I am proposing for you all to use your creative, intellectual and argumentative power to sharpen up the common language of roleplaying games. I also propose for you all to use these powers to create new terms of a higher standard than the present set.

OK, Tomas' critique doesn't seem terribly coherent to me, but I think he brings up a good topic. First of all, let's be clear about how terminology works currently at the Forge. As far as I see, there is no official Forge FAQ. There are various terms which develop in discussion, which are coined variously. However, the closest way that there is to becoming "official" is for a term to be defined in Ron's essays. But there are terms which do not appear in the essays, like "Beeeg Horseshoe" and others.

The weak link, as I see it, is that those essays are at once expressions of Ron's personal grand unified theory -- but simultaneously serve as the closest thing to an official glossary for the discussion group. I would say that these should be two separate functions. In particular, I think that a glossary for the discussion group should reflect multiple, possibly-contradictory theories about RPGs; and possibly conflicting usage of terms. The Forge has many diverse viewpoints, and I think that any "official" glossary should reflect multiple points of view.

The question is whether such a FAQ is a good idea. If so, how should it be organized? Someone would have to volunteer to maintain it, of course, but perhaps there should be a voting procedure to determine whether changes should happen to it. I'd be willing to give it a shot -- although I'm perhaps non-ideal since I've only been around for one year.

John,

I think a lot of your concerns should be resolved by the Glossary that's I believe undergoing final revisions as we speak. As I've said over on the Site Discussion forum, once that is available there should be further discussion about making the Forge more newcomer-friendly, as well as putting together a really good FAQ.

My hope is that Ron will consent to write the FAQ, once the Glossary is done, and will take suggestions for this.

But you make a good point about the division of GNS terminology from other Forge terminology. I don't think there's any way to do this rigidly, given that the Big Model tends to absorb terms as they become useful, but I would like to see somewhat less use of GNS terms in the RPG Theory forum for example. At the same time, some of those GNS terms are very useful even isolated from their home framework. Seems to me that an important project has still to be done in clarifying which terms are fully embedded in GNS presuppositions and which can stand on their own as simply useful designations for categories and concepts. Of course, there's no ultimate way to cut these apart, leading to all sorts of genealogical fun a la Nietzsche, but the effort is worth it nonetheless.

Still, I think a lot of this has to wait on the Glossary and the ensuing discussions.

Shreyas Sampat wrote: I have three challenges for you.

Shreyas Sampat wrote: Do you feel that posting in a deliberately inflammatory manner is appropriate behavior at this forum, or for that manner any forum at all?

Shreyas Sampat wrote: You repeat and repeat and repeat that the terminology that has come into use here is unclear and impractical; I fail to see how this is the case, and I would like to know exactly what grounds you have for claiming such a thing.

Shreyas Sampat wrote: Finally, my third challenge to you is that I would like you to develop and present a terminology that you feel would better serve the goals that you profess, rather than simply complaining about what is existing and in use.

Tomas,

The term you're looking for (that is, the term whose meaning you are trying to approximate by redefining "railroading") is GM Force or sometimes simply Force (since apart from Star Wars games, it's the only kind of Force we talk about here).

In some old discussion threads, the term GM Oomph was also used. A search on "oomph" should turn up some interesting threads from between one and two years ago.

Here's the whole panoply of related terms, as I currently understand them.

GM Authoring is the parent concept. What is being authored is the plot of the outcome of play, the broad outlines of the sequence of events that happen in the shared imagined space. "Authoring" means decision-making on the basis of making the outcome a more asethetically pleasing story, potentially overriding other decision-making concerns such as what players might want to happen, what game mechanics might suggest should happen, or what most plausibly follows from in-game causality. Not all games have outcomes that are GM authored; some have shared authorship between all participants, are authored by the players only, or are not authored at all and instead permitted to evolve by happenstance results of game mechanics and/or plausible causality.

GM Force is reducing the extent of players' ability to affect the outcome in order to put GM authoring decisions into effect. Not all GM Authoring necessarily involves GM Force. When the GM makes authoring decisons about events that have already occurred in play after they've happened, it's called Retroactive Continuity. When the GM makes authoring decisions during play and puts them into effect by adjusting facts about the setting prior to establishing those facts in the shared imagined space, it's called No-Myth Technique. When the GM puts authoring decisions into effect by manipulating game mechanics elements in unanticipated ways, it's sometimes called fudging or cheating.

Railroading is the use of GM Force in a manner or to an extent that violates the Social Contract.

Participationism is the use of GM Force sanctioned by the Social Contract.

Trailblazing is a Technique of Participationism, in which players accept that part of the challenge of the game is to find the course of action that conforms to the GM's pre-planned plot. Individual player choices aren't constrained a priori in any particular unusual way, but only choices that lead along the planned "path" yield rewards.

Illusionist Technique is concealed GM Authorship of any kind.

Illusionism is concealed use of GM Force.

Note, therefore, that Illusionism can also be Railroading but it doesn't have to be. You can have Illusionism without Railroading, and Railroading without Illusionism. Fudging can be Illusionism with or without being Railroading. No-myth and RetCon are often concealed, making them Illusionist Techniques but not necessarily Illusionism.

If you want to talk about Techniques for GM Authoring, this elaborate and carefully wrought framework gives us many different reference points for that discussion. Let's have that conversation. If you have practical Techniques in mind that are overlooked in the framwork (like I did when Fang and I started the ball rolling on no-myth play), let's fix those gaps. But if you want to throw the whole framework out the window so that "Railroading" can be defined in a way that you like better, I'm not interested in the slightest.

- Walt

clehrich wrote:
Second, the use of precise terminology has nothing whatever to do with accessibility. The more precise one's terms, the steeper the learning curve. That's axiomatic.

neelk wrote: Precise use of language makes it easier for readers to understand what you are talking about, because the same word is always used in the same context, and different words are used in different contexts. It's when you introduce a lot of distinctions that the learning curve becomes steeper -- firstly, there's just more stuff to remember, and secondly, there's more explanatory text, which most readers just skip.

Really, I think much Forge jargon is best understood as simply a social gatekeeping device: members and nonmembers can be distinguished by their command of the particular slang. But regardless of whether or not one finds this desirable, it's an inevitable social dynamic; one may as well command the tide not to come in, Canute-like.

Tomas wrote: Seth L. Blumberg wrote on the style of communication at the Forge in the "Railroading"-thread.

clehrich wrote:

neelk wrote: Precise use of language makes it easier for readers to understand what you are talking about, because the same word is always used in the same context, and different words are used in different contexts. It's when you introduce a lot of distinctions that the learning curve becomes steeper -- firstly, there's just more stuff to remember, and secondly, there's more explanatory text, which most readers just skip.

Unless one is discussing issues that are simple to comprehend and easily covered under normal use of ordinary language, precision of word-use will entail distinctions. This is what a lot of GNS, for example, is really about: distinctions. And the more useful they are, the more precise they must be, and that entails that the terms will become more specialized.

Really, I think much Forge jargon is best understood as simply a social gatekeeping device: members and nonmembers can be distinguished by their command of the particular slang. But regardless of whether or not one finds this desirable, it's an inevitable social dynamic; one may as well command the tide not to come in, Canute-like.

It is an unfortunate effect, to be sure, that technical terminology limits the audience. But I flatly deny that anyone here wants to exclude people by such means. People here are responded to on the basis of what they write, not whether they have mastered any particular terminology. If you post to the GNS forum and say, "Gee, I'm not getting X about Narrativism, and I don't understand this part of the Story Now essay," that's a perfectly legitimate post. If you post to RPG Theory and use no GNS terminology whatever, that's perfectly legitimate as well. What's social gate-keeping about this?

I double-dog agree with Neel.

Or, well, whether setting a bar is the main function of GNS-talk I don't really know, but it's certainly a crucial function of GNS-talk.

-Vincent

neelk wrote: Don't be silly. The Forge is a community constituted for the express purpose of encouraging new and experimental modes of roleplaying. In order for this community to work, some people have to be excluded. There are, first, people who aren't interested in experimentation. Almost all of these will simply ignore the Forge, and the remainder (the residual collection of disruptive trolls found in any sufficiently-large collection of people) can be moderated away. The second, and more interesting, category of people who need to be excluded are the people who are interested but just plain don't work well with others.

This is why you see a lot of flamewars erupt in other communities when Forge jargon gets used. It's a status marker in this community, and participants in the other community tend to see it as an assertion of status "over there" -- and the resulting flamewars are as predictable as they are tedious.

clehrich wrote: 1. Nobody gets "moderated away" here. Nobody gets banned here. Simply does not happen.

clehrich wrote: 2. People who choose not to read the Forge are not "being excluded." You might as well say that the African continent has excluded me because I have never happened to choose to visit it.

clehrich wrote: I'm sorry, but this comes up periodically, this notion that somehow the Forge is this elitist community that creates special overcomplicated jargon in order exclude the proles, and is policed by the savage thought-policeman Ron Edwards. What a lot of nonsense! The best I can say about this sort of argument is that it desperately wants to be proven right, that it wants Ron to exclude and exclude and exclude.

clehrich wrote: The Forge excludes no one but those who exclude themselves. No one gets banned here. No terminology is required here. End rant.

Kester Pelagius wrote: By the same leap of logic one could say that animals are elitist because they aren't talking to you in language you can understand, or that aliens are excluding you from their club because they wont land on your front lawn, or that the dead are snubbing you because you are alive. Isn't that, and these above examples, just a tad specious?

clehrich wrote: The Forge excludes no one but those who exclude themselves. No one gets banned here. No terminology is required here. End rant.

Ron's essays are nothing if not full of terminology. To understand GNS one has to learn a sub-set of terms, with a unique application in context, related to yet another sub-set of unique terms (role-playing consists of nothing less than a set of specifically applied terminologies) yet you proclaim "no terminology" is required?

Chris: oh no, I think that the Forge's terminology excludes people. And very profitably, too.

Now you're absolutely right that nobody's banning or barring people because they haven't learned GNS (I mean, I'm not Ron or Clinton, so I'm just supposing that you're absolutely right, but I'm positive you are). But when I start a thread, I can exclude people from it in the opening sentence or two if I want to. That's good! It's very good. It lets me have the conversations I need to for the sake of my games.

I'm not excluding people on the basis of me being an elitist excluding bastard. I'm excluding people on the basis of: can they contribute to my game?

Furthermore, I want people to be able to contribute to my game, the more the merrier. That's why I'll explain the loodly poodly to anybody who asks and talk rules and answer questions. The bar isn't capricious, it's not "elite," it's sensible and anybody can meet it who cares to.

...But again, the main use of GNS-talk: is it setting the bar, or is it communicating efficiently? Whatever. It accomplishes both and I wouldn't give either up.

(And I wouldn't expect the lexicon to help newcomers too much. Mostly it'll help us - when a newcomer asks, we'll just refer them to the lexicon, and when they come back to us their questions will be a lot more concrete.)

-Vincent

Because my own academic specialty is related to the sociology of knowledge, I see this thread as a hashing-out of a question that's bigger than just the role of the Forge lexicon. That question has to do with how knowledge-producing communities function -- and I definitely see the Forge as a "knowledge-producing community," albeit not an academic one (or at least, not a purely academic one).

My thinking about knowledge-producing communities has led me to appreciate the importance of the concept of discipline--that is, the organization of people, material, and ideas for the purposes of producing knowledge. A "discipline" (whether that's high-energy physics, literary criticism, or independent theory-driven role-playing game design) has to do three things, two of them all the time and one of them occasionally:

(1) Boundary Work. This is the social dimension of disciplinarity, and it gets done all the time. Disciplines socialize new members -- frequently by initiating them into what is viewed by outsiders as an "arcane jargon," provide methods for recognizing and rewarding the contributions of members, and provide mechanisms for identifying actions that are "extra-disciplinary"--that are, in other words, not done. Think of all the "Welcome to the Forge!" posts you've seen; these are boundary work.

(2) Paradigm Work. This is the cognitive dimension of disciplinarity, and it also gets done all the time. These are attempts to solve problems by means of a generally accepted set of tools in order to develop a more-or-less commonly held theory. Problems can be theoretical ("What is 'Exploration'?") or practical ("How does GNS tell me I should proceed with this specific design?") A "paradigm" identifies important problems, and it also indicates what problems aren't worth worrying about. Most of the posts in RPG Theory are paradigm work--because they grapple with the ideas that are central to the Forge paradigm.

(3) Reflexive Work. This is a weird hybrid of boundary work and paradigm work; it's the self-reflective assessment by members of the community of the extent to which their current methods, mechanisms, problems, tools, and theories advance the purposes of the community. Reflexive work tends to be occasional rather than on-going, since too much reflexivity is paralyzing, preventing the work of the discipline from proceeding. This thread is reflexive, to a certain degree: It discusses whether Forge "jargon" is exclusionary, and if so whether that's a bad thing. However, such a question means less coming from a peripheral member than if it came from a central member. If Ron were to say, "We need to think about cleaning up all this jargon," it would be far more consequential than when someone else (as in this case) says it.

The value of reflexivity, however, is in occasionally reminding people to think about the "why" of "how we do things around here," since disciplinary practices often become "sedimented": we do things this way because we've always done them this way, and we see the world this way because that's how the world is (rather than that's what we've chosen in the world to focus on).

But those who complain about jargon are indeed missing the point. The terminology, as the meat of the paradigm, serves important cognitive and social functions (i.e., it gives us tools to think with, and tells us who's worth talking to). Calls for "reform" ignore the value of the intellectual history that's encapsulated in the evolution of specific terms and concepts.

But the commitment to a discipline invokes its own cognitive costs, which may include isolating oneself from potential useful extradisciplinary sources. Which is why interdisciplinary boundary-spanners are sometimes useful.

Greetings clehrich,

clehrich wrote: The argument is certainly specious, which is my point. To say that one is excluded from the Forge because one does not choose to participate in it is ludicrous.

clehrich wrote: The strongest claim one can make, I think, is that the terminology is required for active participation in the GNS Forum. But there are lots of other forums, and they do not all require or even use GNS terminology. Sometimes the line gets thin, which I think is something that could use a little more care on posters' parts -- myself included -- but in principle GNS terminology is only required for the GNS Forum.

clehrich wrote: I think I've pretty much made my points here, and will now bow out.

An interesting debate all round for me since I am still new here. The general language usage seems to me to be fairly clear most of the time to anyone with a university background, but perhaps discussion falls into some areas that anyone who has not experienced academic discourse would find problematic at times. Im not sure if this really should be seen as a problem though, so long as people are happy to clarify any points that they make if asked (and this seems to happen naturally since in general posters here have a strong desire to communicate their concepts). The GNS model does seem to be an exception-but the essays are all there to read and anyone not familiar with them always seems to be pointed to them (Im still reading them). Since most GNS discussion happens in the GNS section of the forum I dont see this as a problem. The only difficulty with communication would come from use of terms that have other meanings elsewhere, or when the users are unwilling to recognise they are using specialised jargon surely?

If posters on the forum used jargon but were unwilling or unable to clarify it for others then any sort of meaningful discourse with newcommers would clearly break down, but instead all the examples I have seen suggest that forge users tend to go a bit overboard in their desire to share with others and generate meaningful discourse. If someone makes a post that shows problems or issues with the use of language or concepts they tend to greeted by the text equivelent of an over affectionate puppy! Please note-this is not a criticism, but a complement. It means that the forge is transparently eager to welcome and include people whenever it can.

Ultimately anyone joining a group will need to learn to recognise and to some degree adopt the particular expressions of that groups identity-its as true of the Forge as it is of any group. This takes time, and can sometimes be frustrating or confusing, but it happens just as much for people starting to role-play for the first time as it does here. The only difference that seems significant here is that newcomers to rpgs in general probably have greater difficulty because most rpgers are unaware when they use jargon because it has become second nature to them and they are not focused on opening a discourse to the same degree. This goes a long way to maintaing the 'nerd' culture tag for rpgs.

Having said all this-I feel that comments about using Forge jargon outside the Forge are very important. Since the structures (previous posts, essays, other community members) present in the Forge are not present outside of it, attempts to use Forge terminology and concepts elsewhere can become a minefield. The same may also apply to many gamers outside the Forge (and that can include playtesters).
Once use of jargon becomes a barrier to communication outside of those clarifying support structures Forge members need to become expert in switching their modes of discourse (and Im sure most are).

Overall the 'academic' approach of the Forge seems to be a valuable one to me, and perhaps more important than the issue of jargon (though it can become a part of it). I would compare it to the activity of Philosophers-obscure and confusing to 'outsiders' because it makes reference to terms and concepts they have not yet assimilated, but the discourses they produce have a profound 'knock-on' effect over time as the conceptual issues eventually trickle down and filter into surrounding cultural expressions. It serves as a sort of 'feedback loop' between high concept and culture-both expressing existing movements in cultures and in turn influencing them. I feel it is a very useful and constructive process that can greatly enhance the ability of emerging forms of gaming to spread and gain wider acceptance and understanding. The games themselves are quite rightly the point at which this happens-not the forum.

lumpley wrote: I think that the Forge's terminology excludes people. And very profitably, too.

Bill_White wrote: Because my own academic specialty is related to the sociology of knowledge, I see this thread as a hashing-out of a question that's bigger than just the role of the Forge lexicon. That question has to do with how knowledge-producing communities function -- and I definitely see the Forge as a "knowledge-producing community," albeit not an academic one (or at least, not a purely academic one).

My thinking about knowledge-producing communities has led me to appreciate the importance of the concept of discipline--that is, the organization of people, material, and ideas for the purposes of producing knowledge. A "discipline" (whether that's high-energy physics, literary criticism, or independent theory-driven role-playing game design) has to do three things, two of them all the time and one of them occasionally:

Speaking from a newbie perspective,

While it is true that creating a developers lexicon might be useful for conveying concepts more "efficiently," as I heard it termed, specialization hurts newbies increasingly as time goes on and posts collect. For instance, if someone made a theory one year and lots of people started using it then early on each person might define it or hyperlink it when they put it in a post. As time progresses though the definition will appear in posts less and less as it is excepted. Eventually you have a system with confusing backlogged roots that have to be sorted through by each newbie in order to be able to understand something that probably isn't all that hard a concept.

Perhaps the best suggestion then is that if you want the broadest range of experience, knowledge, and talent to look at your post you should use use simple terms or include footers that have handy links to where any theory or specialized word definition is held, this is common courtesy and in Scientific Papers that is how it is done, especially if what is mentioned is only a hypothesis and not a proven theory, as many established ideas on this board aren't in the stricter sense.

Varis_Rising wrote: Eventually you have a system with confusing backlogged roots that have to be sorted through by each newbie in order to be able to understand something that probably isn't all that hard a concept.

Hi Mattijs, actually you don't have to read hundreds of threads to understand forge gargon, only a couple of centrally located articles. Depending on how much you want to delve in, you can read one:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_matter.html

Or two:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/

Or five:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html

The last two actually have a comprehensive glossary in the back. At least that's the offical "cult of Ron" list. So read already! Then you can spend many healthy hours staring at a computer screen debating the value of metatextual analysis in early 80's Zombie RPG's with a high points of contact and a Pervy Ars Magica influence! Trust me, it will get you chicks! ;)

Matt-o, I just noticed you joined last October. Are you really unaware of the articles and glossary? If so, maybe we do need some sort of BIG F'ING POINTER on the front page. Maybe something like FORGE TERMINOLOGY and a link to the 5 essays, or maybe just the glossary. If you have been aware of them, but have not read them, you really don't have anything to complain about. Read them first, then you can complain :)

BPetroff93 wrote: Hi Mattijs, actually you don't have to read hundreds of threads to understand forge gargon, only a couple of centrally located articles.

BPetroff93 wrote: Matt-o, I just noticed you joined last October. Are you really unaware of the articles and glossary? If so, maybe we do need some sort of BIG F'ING POINTER on the front page. Maybe something like FORGE TERMINOLOGY and a link to the 5 essays, or maybe just the glossary. If you have been aware of them, but have not read them, you really don't have anything to complain about. Read them first, then you can complain :)

I see. Well, would a link to just the glossary help? Or would it be impossible to understand do to lack of context?

Hi folks,

Funny enough, I've found that the jargon isn't terribly complex, when you read the basic GNS essay and do not read extra assumptions into anything there.

What happens is that folks mix up all kinds of things while reading it, such as assuming Stance = CA or some other weird thing, that, if you look at the actual writing itself, simply is not there. Most of the threads are unentangling assumptions on the parts of readers rather than anything else.

Personally, it took me over a year and a half to get into it at all, and it was because as I was interested in a topic, I would learn a term at a time, digest it, then come back. Many folks get the idea that the whole theory has to be taken in at once to "get" what is going on here and that's simply not true.

Chris

I hope I am not coming across as too harsh, only sarcastic when I point out that this thread is in the RPG THEORY forum.
As such, I expect an awful lot of Theory in most, if not all, of the posts, and if I want to participate in the Theory discussions, then I better know enough Theory to hold my head up, or post a lot of IMHOs until then.
If somebody tells me "Interesting Theory, but what about {link}THIS{/link}?," then I'll read the link and find out about that.

My gods, the Internet is the home for gamers (edit: and p0rn) more than anything else, and if you want to see examples of someone else's game without them using the Forge-design jargon for RPG Theory, then just type "'House Rules' Games" into Google and see what comes up!

I get plenty of pleasure just reading Actual Play. Heck, many of the threads are like reading a short story, being the interesting parts of the game (few people post about the pizza break). Better than fanfic, because it's in my favorite Genre, RPG. That Cthulupunk plus Twenty has more interesting characters than the Tom Clancy book I just read! And reading about Inspectres is better than reading Tom Clancy, because I can have my own adventures.

Perhaps he hasn't found the right Forum on the Forge. Perhaps there needs to be a Forum separate from Actual Play for the Practical Application Forum that many Forge posters seem to desire (and that The Big Model is not designed for, and all that.) But THAT is a comment for the "About the Forge" forum, not this one!

Part of the terminology issue, I fear, really has to do with the relationship GNS and this community have to the wider discipline of artistic criticism and gaming at large -- not as much of one as, I think, it should. Part of it is that this is an online community composed of people with a wide variety of backgrounds, so you can't really point to much in broader academia that people will all get. Part of it is the collapse between aesthetic goals and theory; clearer distinctions between the two would, in my view, enable much more coherent communication.

For a contrast, look at some of the documents created by the Nordic/Finnish LARP/Indrama movement. They give you theory, but there's a strong commitment to the praxis of creating the games they want to fulfill their own visions. If someone's playing by Dogme '99 ideals, for example, they won't have much use for what the Forge calls Illusionism. You'll know why and that, in turn, explains what it is more clearly

I've read over the "Dogme '99" rules and I fail to see the connection with what you're proposing as "the problem with GNS."

GNS is a terminological reference used to get everyone with different styles together on the same page in understanding of their preferred modes of play, to diagnose problems when modes conflict, and understand how those modes lie in reference to one another and to the social act of play itself. It is not a set of aesthetic principles created for game design, as the D'99 rules are.

Those following D'99 rules of course don't need to know what "Illusionism" is in order to play according to D'99 rules, but someone understanding GNS would be able to look D'99 as a system and in play, and be able to determine what sort of play was being focused upon in relation to other systems and other groups.

In addition, having read the document, I'd hesitate to classify D'99 as a theory, seeming far more to be an application of mode and support for the reasons that mode was chosen; and even if I were to consider it to be a theory, its express purpose is so clearly different from that of the theory of which GNS is a part, that they are incomparable in basic function and thus in design.

One is "Here How You Should and Why You Should" and the other is "Here's What's Going On and Why It's Going On."

My issues with GNS are a whole other kettle of fish. What I'm saying is that of it is to be relevant, GNS has to form relationships with ideas like Dogme '99.

Otherwise, I see the perpetuation of the following vicious cycle:

1) GNS is used to identify different kinds of play and the problems that can come up.

2) But game X (which is usually a popular game) is, by its definition, "incoherent," but people enjoy it.

3) But GNS is not (as I've heard a couple of times) meant for the average gamer. It's meant for people who want to explore certain ideas in game design.

4) So what is GNS' preferred set of "certain ideas?"

5) Oh, GNS is used to identify different kinds of play and the problems that can come up, not any particular mode.

Variations of this circular train of argument will inevitably come up (and in my opinion, have come up), no matter the validity of any model, unless that model pursues points of interesection with other models or modes. Other fields of critical theory see this process of confroontation and negotiation as vital elements. The community here would benefut from doing the same in a structured fashion (as opposed to the ad hoc fashion that currently seems to be what's happening).

Okay, here I go again asking the same question that I ask everybody who makes these statements so if anyone is sick of hearing it, sorry, but I feel I must ask.

eyebeams, have you read the appropriate articles which detail Ron's theory which includes GNS? The reason I ask is that your talking points lead me to beleive the answer is no. If I am wrong, that's okay, I just want to know in what manner to communicate.

But GNS is not (as I've heard a couple of times) meant for the average gamer. It's meant for people who want to explore certain ideas in game design.

Hey man,

I'll probably look at GNS and Dogme '99 tomorrow, since I don't really have it in me to do it right now.

One thing, though, is that System Does Matter and it's successors definitely have implications for game design. After all, Ron's used it as a tool in several RPG reviews and, of course, you can see the linkages on this very site. With GNS being used so often as a way to look at a game's design, how is #3 a problem?

I've got a print out of a GNS essay by Ron Edwards, and chapter four in that essay is named "The Basics of Role-Playing Design". Certainly the GNS essay at least look into design. The sheer volume of the essay, and the many new concepts presented in it, makes it hard to read for the average gamer, yes indeed for the average gamesmith too.

While the model of thought offered in the GNS-essay is praiseworthy in many respects, and have opened many avenues of new thinking on roleplaying games, it is still a model that will leave you blinded to the reality of roleplaying games if taken as gospel. That's my general warning.

People at the Forge, as people in other communities, react strongly to such warnings. There is no need to do that. It is a general warning, and as such it may be read with some emotional distance; if the warning don't pertain to me, I'm in the clear, no reason to react. If it goes a long way to describe my behaviour in relation to the predominant model of thought in this community, I need to sharpen my independent thinking. The point is; any and all communities of thinking or belief really needs this kind of warnings, to stay healthy. We need to distance ourselves from ourselves from time to time, and reflect upon the quality of our thinking/belief.

Even though such a discourse may end in acceptance of status quo (kind of: our way of thinking is functional and dynamic), and may seem a waste of resources, the act of having such a discourse is important.

That's my final comment in this thread. I've enjoyed reading it. I have indeed spotted intelligent life in this forum once again, and value it all the more for it. Thank you all for contributing!

:-)

eyebeams wrote: I'll probably look at GNS and Dogme '99 tomorrow, since I don't really have it in me to do it right now.

One thing, though, is that System Does Matter and it's successors definitely have implications for game design. After all, Ron's used it as a tool in several RPG reviews and, of course, you can see the linkages on this very site. With GNS being used so often as a way to look at a game's design, how is #3 a problem?

Tomas,

I have indeed spotted intelligent life in this forum once again, and value it all the more for it.

Hello,

In fact, this thread is closed.

Best,
Ron