Drama? Russell Bailey got offended; Eddy Webb backed away slowly. Or something. It all started with some horrified reactions to my positions in an extended (and in my opinion, productive) talk with Jim Henley about the decline of friendship and its effects on RPGs. I apologize if I upset either of them. Honestly, there is no useful, inoffensive way to say that the tabletop RPG community’s values are deeply messed up.
Eddy and Russell both proposed that no matter what, we shouldn’t tell people they’re playing it wrong. We should support their creative choices by giving them tools to make their own. That’s interesting, but . . .
. . . oh Christ. Can I say first I think they’re both nice guys? Creative? That I like their work? I hope they take that to heart because I don’t agree with them. I mean that in the nicest way, but not so nicely that it’ll adulterate my response.
I think toolkits suck. I hate trope-remixes and elevator pitches for any serious gaming. I think openmindedness is overrated. It sounds friendly and impresses hardcore gamers (especially gamers who waste words emphatically telling you how non-hardcore they are) who, thanks to the decline of friendship, believe other hobbyists and designers are trying to fuck them over. I don’t think that’s the motive behind Eddy and Russell’s opinions, but I do think that gives them significant traction.
But I don’t agree with those guys, as smart and friendly as they are. I think game designers should tell you what to do, and tell you if you’re doing it wrong.
You might have some questions at this point, like:
Aren’t you always saying that narrowly focused games are bad too? Doesn’t that make this position a contradiction, since you’re saying that the designer can recommend that you play a narrower set of possible scenarios?
I don’t like games where the system does its best to enforce the its themes and core story types. The ideal Forgey game is probably one where the rules make sure you never play it wrong. Or to put it another way:
. . . not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees . . . but to make all other modes of thought impossible.
(Yes, that is a quote.)
You can have fun with the resulting story choreography. It’s a great way to ritually imitate other more popular media. It’s also implicitly recognizes of where cultural power lies, because these all tend to be about abasing oneself to the constraints of another form, like the short story (as you learned it in school, with Rising Tension! and crap). You know the score: If you loudly wish fantasy games are more like fantasy literature, you’re an intelligent fan aiming for something better than the cesspool; if you want it the other way around, you’re a lame fanboy drowning in it.
Roleplaying should be capable of more than imitation. It should create a distinct set of experiences that aren’t literature, theatre, or movies in the head. Games benefit from systems that allow people to “play them wrong” because they can use them to play in a dialogue with the game’s intended themes and stories. If you can’t argue with your games they’re probably not worth playing.
Isn’t it perverse to make something possible, then recommend against it?
No more than life! That’s what I love about RPGs. Game sessions are messy spaces where justify things post-hoc, go off half-cocked, tell bad jokes, piss each other off, wander off topic and eventually pull it all into a narrative. This isn’t a story because stories are bullshit. They’re simplified manifestations of experience.
Tabletop RPGs occupy a strange interstice between mimesis and diagesis. I’m my warforged character, but I think about him as a third person when I describe his actions, or even when I contemplate his motives. (Sometimes he’s a second person too — “Cinnabar, what are you doing?” is a common mental refrain right after I decide my conflicted machine-man does something strange.) There’s too much going on for simple storytelling. Sometimes the important story is my relationship with the other characters, so our quest fades into the background. Sometimes I need to pass on a bloodless after-action report.
It’s virtually impossible to enforce a play style through hard rules without destroying this side of the game. Sometimes it’s fun to provoke things a bit with a toy, but don’t make that toy the main interface for play. In Vampire I can Wuxia backflip and shoot folks with my twin gats and crap but every once and a while Humanity prods me: “Hey asshole, you’re a monster!” That means I have to find a frame of reference that includes my action movie persona and my withering empathy. But if Humanity (or derivatives/relatives) was all I used, then by gun roll would be Wrath of something, the system would spit out a pat answer about who I am, and there’d be no depth. The system doesn’t take over; it just inspires.
The drawback to designing with a lighter touch is that you need guidance to make the connections I’m talking about. You need fluffy stuff: the strong background and fictional societies that create shared social expectations. You need ways to figure out if you’re playing it wrong. If that fluff’s good enough you don’t even need a system: the tension between your milieu and personal desires becomes the sole, powerful engine for dramatic action.
(Yeah, I know: We’re not supposed to talk about gaming with no rules any more. That would make us lame 90s types, as long as you don’t pay attention to the fact that all the kids are doing it that way. Why is the cutting edge of RPG thinking assbackwards as far as the rest of the world is concerned?)
How can you force me to play the right way? Fuck you — I won’t do what you tell me!
That’s what I’m counting on. What I said about tension? That’s important. Navigating the space between what you want and what you’re being told to do is a creative act. Some people believe that creativity flowers under freedom and an ample set of tools. I think that’s bollocks.
Say you want to design a version of Mage: The Ascension where modernity never did anything bad. Yes, you’d be doing it wrong, but responding to the game raises all sorts of interesting questions. How can you justify extraordinary rendition via Man in Black? (My friend Alex actually posited that the Technocracy held trials for “reality deviants.” How cool is that? What would you have to do to make that possible) The stronger the material, the better the response.
Creativity is a relationship with the social and political situation around you. It’s a negotiated response that scales from slight subversion to rebellion with a hint of parody, but it never completely rejects or obeys its influences. I could use fancy terms like “metatext” and “subject position” to make this point, but you can look those up.
Laying it on the line:
Game designers should absolutely tell you when you’re playing it wrong (while simultaneously giving you ways to do it!) because it sparks cool creative conflicts. Just laying out tools doesn’t work as well because there’s no sense of commitment. If the game doesn’t care, why should you?
That’s it. I have to admit, this wasn’t the easiest post to write because of the potential for (drama!) with people whose work I enjoy, but if I didn’t write it, I’d just be submitting to the messed up things in tabletop gamerdom, where every disagreement is an attack. This ain’t that.
I guess I don’t see this as a huge deal or some big revelation. Virtually all “toolkit games” (all games are toolkits for play no matter what anyone thinks or how they misuse the word, but I know what people mean, grumble gumble) made after the 80s have strong recommendations, guidelines and examples for how the designer wants you to use it. It’s pretty much the standard these days. Look at the D&D4 DMG. I think it hits what you’re saying right on the target. (Also I don’t see how this at all relates to your friendship thingy, isn’t this all just as good an idea for good-natured strangers at a con as it is for lifelong soulmates sequestered in a distant tower?)
It’s pretty much the standard these days. Look at the D&D4 DMG. I think it hits what you’re saying right on the target.
I think you’re talking about stuff like challenge implementation. This is a nonthreatening extension of the back of the Monopoly box. I’m talking about dictating the true nature of heroism or how your were-dude should act and stuff — the elements that drive the new freeform movement, but which TRPGers (are supposed to) loath.
The link between that and trust — someone is telling you who to be and how — is pretty obvious.
Hm, interesting. At that level, yes, it’s pretty rare that any game tells you how to act. In fact, I can’t think of a game that has in the history of ever. I suspect therefore the omission is a good thing until proven differently.
Anyway, thanks for the clarification.
Oh dear, now you’re back on your shtick. It’s in a bunch of games. For example, I can think of a couple of Vampire: The Masquerade books that provide very specific things about how you ought to do horror (Guide to the Sabbat suggesting GMs test player comfort zones, for example).
Hm, wha? Then how about the Ravenloft theme sections (all about horror-fantasy techniques and concepts), or the Dogs in the Vineyard play advice (all about how the point of the game is making and enforcing your moral judgment)? I thought I knew what you were talking about.
Ravenloft yes (though Ravenloft kind of sucks). In Dogs in the Vineyard’s case the system takes pains to prevent you from having the option of playing it another way, so it doesn’t create the tension I think is important here.
Okay, I’m with you again. I’ve never seen a case made for contradictory texts and games before – I like it.
I’m not ashamed to admit it… I don’t understand your post (game theory seems to escape me on the whole). I mean, what I’m taking away from this is “There should be one right way to game (not sure if you mean per system, or gaming as a totality). Game designers should stick to that one right way, and make sure that people know that it’s wrong to do it another way. But, if people do it a wrong way, that is okay because they are being creative and the system encouraged them to be creative.”
Is that right, or have I totally not understood? And if I am right… I’m still not sure of the point, aside from having the ability to tell someone they are doing it wrong…
“Wrong to do it another way” is a bit broad. It’s better to say that it’s a good idea to push some ways and discourage others, but not to let the system provide enforcement. The tension between what’s recommended and possible inspires a creative response.
I tell you the ideology of Splat X sucks or that humanity can’t change shit, and your path of least resistance to make the game your own means you have to confront those things — “The Colonialist Alliance are the real good guys because of X,” or “What about Space Jesus, who I just made up?” Play should be a kind of heresy — the intensity varies to taste. A heresy is usually more interesting than a toolkit. In my experience, heresies are also easiest to do with tabletop-style games and really bring out their strengths.