Quote from: droogWell, no--if narrativism is a newly created thing, that would be the case. But if it is a description of the way people have played in the past, using the term is fine. It's more like using terms such as 'kinship system' or 'primitive accumulation'.

This is the nub of our disagreement. I say it is newly created, because of the history of its construction and ongoing usage; you say it's a purely descriptive term. I think you're engaging in idealization here, trying to separate your reconciling of the theory's problems from the problematic context in which it developed and thrives. No doubt we can go back and forth about this for quite a while but ultimately as demonstrated here it amounts to derailing the thread.

Quote from: ImperatorThis I agree completely. I'm currently running Horror at the Orient Express (Call of Cthulhu), which is maligned by many as the biggest railroad ever. Well, it's one of the most popular Cthulhu adventures I've ever run, so much that my girlfriend played it, loved it so much that he read the campaign cover to cover, and she asked me to play it for a second time (playing NPCs and a support PC) just because she loved the colour so much.

This I also agree.

I disagree with you here, Arcane. I'm no fan of GNS/ Big Model but I think that systematic critique can help people develop their own ideas, which seems to be your proposal. Critiquing a jargon does not validate it, IMO.

There's only so many ways you can beat a dead horse.

Quote from: StuartI'm not sure why you think it's so vague.  I think it's fairy specific -- more specific than a lot of terms we've seen in use to date.  It's much more specific than "Narrativism" or "Simulationism".

A lot of people have defined "Simulationism" in a very specific way.  A lack of specificity is not the main problem with that category.  The fact that it includes many things in the same category that don't have a lot in common is.

Yes, you've provided a very specific definition of "immersion".  But if I put everyone who does something that falls into that definition into the same game and apply a particular technique to help the players immerse, will it be likely to help them all or will it help some, do nothing for some, and make the game worse for others?  

What's the benefit of a player saying that they enjoy "immersion" if what they mean, on a practical game-play level, means something very different from what another player means when they say that they enjoy immersion?

Quote from: RPGPunditWhen a theory only EXISTS in order to satisfy the resentments and ideological agendas of its authors, then that means the entire theory is itself irrelevant to serious evaluation.

Is there some way this isn't the spiritual subtitle to The Landmarks?


Now there's a heading you can be proud of.

Quote from: John MorrowTo be honest, I don't think that's always true.  Discussions like those on rec.games.frp.advocacy developed their jargon pretty organically (and some of the Forge terminology seems to have been organically created, too) because people wanted a shorthand to talk about ideas that can't be neatly compressed into plain English of a reasonable length and/or because the original terminology where people used plain English seemed clumsy.  In some cases, I think the original terminology is actually more clear.

Here is an early attempt to summarize the theory discussions on rec.games.frp.acvocacy that, in retrospect, is often a lot clearer than the terminology that was polished over time.  For example, it defines the points that would become the GDS as "Interactive Storytelling", "IC [In Character] Experience" and "Problem-Solving", which are all more clear and straightforward than "Dramatism", "Simulationism", and "Gamism" and, yes, that's the origin of those three styles.

hmm, organic or not, I meant there is a predisposition for jargon. Non-techies do it as well. Just about every profession does. It has to do with basic human nature to be special, to have secret knowledge that can only be gained by the few who are smart enough. This also adds to the idea that something must be complex. If it is complex, and shadowed in mystery, then you are special for knowing it and even studying it. It could just be me, but game theory is complex because it has little to do with actually playing games. Playing games is such a subjective endeavor as to defy abstraction and objective quantitative analysis.

Do not get me wrong, there are complex things in this world. I feel gaming is not one of them, at least not one requiring a whole new lexicon of words to describe it.

Bill

Quotetrying to separate your reconciling of the theory's problems from the problematic context in which it developed and thrives

This is how theories should be read, IMO. With respect to your disagreement, there has always been a subset of gamers specifically interested in imaginative content which focuses on wrestling with moral and emotional challenges, even back in the misty 70's.

As promised in my earlier post, though, I'll leave it to you guys to decide what that means about the Big Model.

Quote from: ImperatorDude.

The scenario is called like that because PCs go from one location to another in search of fragments of a statue, using that train. The adventure doesn't take part on the train (except for two brief spots): it's done in the cities along the route. So, you play in London, Paris... and the scenarios there are not very much railroady, at all.

I frankly feel that many complaints of railroading in that adventure come from people who have not played it, but YMMV and all that.

Dude.

A railroad is about having to follow a prescripted plot. Horror on the Orient Express does it one better. It is a concatenation of singularly idiotic coincidences, linked in time and space by a ride on the plothole train. The Russian Formalists would call that laying bare the device.

"B-But did you play it, PI?"

Dude.

Seduced by the handouts, I bought the most expensive campaign of my gaming career, then read it through cover to cover and realized: My players will eat me alive if I ever serve them this pile of shit.

Coincidentally, I'm with Pundy on this one. As soon as a thread devolves into Ron Edwards exegesis, it's off topic for purposes of this site. The last thing TheRPGsite should become is a substitute for the Forge's closed theory forums.

Quote from: HinterWelthmm, organic or not, I meant there is a predisposition for jargon. Non-techies do it as well. Just about every profession does. It has to do with basic human nature to be special, to have secret knowledge that can only be gained by the few who are smart enough.

I think the motivation is far less sinister and far more mundane.  I think people are simply lazy and want to shorten complex concepts into simple words or phrases so they don't have to keep clarifying and repeating themselves.  

Quote from: HinterWeltDo not get me wrong, there are complex things in this world. I feel gaming is not one of them, at least not one requiring a whole new lexicon of words to describe it.

What makes a lot of this complicated is that people are trying to explain personal preferences of taste to other people who don't necessarily just "get it".  For example, I like spinach and I don't like broccoli.  That's simple.  But if you like broccoli and hate spinach, it's going to be difficult for me to explain to you why I don't like something you like and why I do like something that you don't like, and vice versa.

Quote from: CalithenaI did, Stuart. I even started a response post with the words "Good stuff", but then I didn't have enough extra to contribute to post it, so I didn't. I'd also add that Forge-associated people e.g. at Vincent Baker's "Knife Fight" have recognized that that's a place where the ongoing body of theory under discussion needs work. In addition to those discussions, some old exchanges between me and Victor Gijsbers and others at the Forge, between me and Morrow and Snead and Baker and lots of others at rpg.net, and some important diagnostic work at Mo's "Sin Aesthetics" blog have advanced things a little IMO.

But, you know what? There is a good moral argument against using Big Modelese, regardless of what the theory gets right or wrong, made most recently to me by Sett and Jreints, which is that it fucks up communication and personal relationships. I like and agree with a lot of what Pundit has to say about a certain kind of gaming, I think FtA is cool, and I also find his brash attitude refreshing on many (though not all) gaming-related issues. J Arcane forced me to be more intellectually honest in my thoughts about religion on the Big Purple, and I deeply respect Balbinus' opinions on eighties-style gaming. But I have serious conflicts with these three people basically solely because of Big Model wars.

So you know what? Fuck it. I'll take your challenge, Pundit. From now on, not only here but elsewhere, when I want to do systematic RPG theory, I'll do it either in English or by coining or appropriating terms that make sense to me and explaining what I mean by them when I use them.

Not because I don't think that Ron & the gang got at least some important things right, but because the language they used makes it impossible to talk about those things in a helpful way.

I suspect Levi got to this same point a long time ago, which is why he's gone the way he did: I know there are some important things he agrees with the Big Model gang on, but he just talks about them in his own way, and I think in light of what's happened to internet discourse on RPG theory, that's probably the best approach.

I'm very glad to hear this, Calithena. I think that you'll find that if you actually want to communicate your ideas about RPGs, this is the way to go, especially on this site.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Christmas ApeIs there some way this isn't the spiritual subtitle to The Landmarks?

Landmarks of Gaming Theory:
Which exist only to satisfy the resentments and ideological agendas of their author

Now there's a heading you can be proud of.

Well, the Landmarks aren't a theory, they're a manifesto about theory, demanding that any theory, to be useful, must base itself on certain inherent self-evident truths (particularly that regular roleplaying is what most gamers actually play, and ENJOY playing).

RPGPundit

Just to clarify my own position here: Discussions, including those on message boards, don't happen in a vacuum. They have a historical dynamic to them. What was productive about debating issue X in Spring 07 becomes tedium in November.

We know where we stand on issue X. What was to be learned was learned. We're done. The issue can be and occasionally is being kept alive, or rather undead, for all sorts of reasons, but just not for purposes of meaningful intellectual exchange aimed at producing mutual insight whether or not one may agree with one's interlocutor.

The very function of the debate about the issue has changed, and for the worse. That's why I'm increasingly hostile to this shit.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityCoincidentally, I'm with Pundy on this one. As soon as a thread devolves into Ron Edwards exegesis, it's off topic for purposes of this site. The last thing TheRPGsite should become is a substitute for the Forge's closed theory forums.

I am too! But fuck, you could have just nicely spliced the infested part off.

You know, thread splitting. It´s not unheard of here, is it?

Quote from: droogThe ideal (Platonic) sandbox set-up is absolutely more wide open to spontaneous discovery, but I think that if you make 'railroading' so broad there are no games without some form of railroading. "You're in the Wilderlands." "I leave and go to another continent." "Waitaminnit!"

Ironically... or perhaps I should say 'illustratively' my players did just that to me in my RQ AP thread.  They were in the big city, had a half dozen 'adventure hooks' they could follow up on, and they went half way across the continent (actually: Harder than if they'd simply hopped on a boat and sailed to the other continent....) with a pepper caravan... then stayed in the new land instead.

No real Waitaminnit! from me other than here. THey wanted to go East, they went East and I adapted.

Is that Platonic? Or just how the game played out?

Quote from: RPGPunditIf I get even the passing feeling that you're doing this sort of thing, Droog, you will be considered someone who is intentionally attempting to disrupt the functioning of this site.

So if I was you, and if you really give a shit about continuing to be here (I would think you might if only so that you can continue to try to spread your Forge doctrine for as long as possible), I would be very very careful to avoid injecting conversations in Forgespeak or attempts to dominate the conversation by creating assumptions with jargon.

RPGPundit

And you can suck my wanger.