In an attempt to help re-rail what I already helped derail, I think that the GNS theory fails because it looks at the mechanics of a game as tools, rather than as representations.  Were I to go down the path of positing game theory, mine would flow more along these lines:

Internal consistency: does the game produce results that model the narrative purpose of the game?  For example, if the narrative/thematic baseline expresses a certain conceits (let's say, like the Matrix films, that bullets can be dodged with high frequency), then the actual gameplay should result in the same conceits holding true most of the time (if the characters can't dodge bullets, or very infrequently, then this does not live up to the conceits).

External consistency: Anything not expressly defined as operating under a different paradigm in the game world should resolve (mostly) the same as it does in our world.  If super-strength or cinematic leaping abilities are not a conceit of the game world, then a game that consistently results in people jumping 40' will violate the expectations of the players in a jarring way.  So, as game systems become mechanically unified, you get more possibilities of this occurring.

Granularity/Abstraction:  How detailed should the game be when it comes to simulating the results of actions (or the factors that influence them)?  In a game about political intrigue, a personal combat could be a single die roll.  In a zombie game, where players are expected to cut their way through dozens of zombies, any more than one to-hit and damage roll might feel unwieldy.  In a game centered around personal duels, things like stance, hit-location, parries and feints, might all be a necessary component of the combat.

Agency:  Players can be given a large range of agency over their characters' actions and behaviors, and even the game world itself.  When, where, and how much agency a player has is an important component of game systems.

All of these are sliders, not on/off buttons.  And they don't have "right" amounts; it varies by genre, table-taste, and purpose.  Story-games like Blades in the Dark might be described as having high abstraction and high agency (with perhaps a high internal and low external consistency), whereas something like Riddle of Steel might be described as medium internal, high external, high granularity, low agency.  I think AD&D sat on the high internal, medium external, high granularity and low agency, whereas 4e D&D would be low external, high internal, medium abstraction, and medium agency.

Honestly, were I to delve into this further, I would assert that the goal of any theoretical framework should be to first categorize games in such a way that we can explain how the conceits of the game and the mechanics of the game work together to create the "feel" of the game that people describe as being positive or off-putting.  AD&D and 4e are both "D&D," but the choices made to privilege abstraction over external consistency can explain why many "D&D" fans felt it was too different from what they enjoyed about AD&D...

Thanks all very cool ideas.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on May 29, 2023, 03:25:55 PM
Internal consistency
External consistency
Granularity/Abstraction
Agency

I think something like that is a better start than GNS. Ultimately any theoretical model is only good for theory, but I'd say you first start with a taxonomy of games and their elements, then start finding what's in common and build a model from there. It seems more of an academic project unless it yields useful language for people to use to make discussion about games more productive. GNS in that sense was slightly successful, but people to this day still assert the pillars as in conflict with each other, so IMO the GNS model was still harmful overall.

Minor complaint: internal consistency as a term to me means that once a game commits to a claim or fictional element, it doesn't contradict itself later or suddenly forget this claim was made or element was introduced. You see it a lot in fiction but even in games it's commonplace. Once you hand me a matter replicator, you are now constrained in how the rest of the game/world can react. Scarcity is less of a thing. You give me a teleporter, suddenly the game and world needs to react. If you give me a spell that lets me fly and hurl fireballs hundreds of yards, the design of castles kinda needs to change. I'd say "Theme" might be a better name for your concept of internal consistency. Verisimilitude is maybe another aspect of what I'd normally term internal consistency.

Granularity and abstraction are good concepts to be in tension, but I don't think it affects internal/external consistency much. The 4e complaints were about a lot of things, but one of them that should be part of the model is symmetry/asymmetry. 4e was highly symmetrical in the name of "balance", and for me that was a major element which was insufferable. Verisimilitude was another big one, and the concept of balance itself doubles down on this idea that it's all an artificial environment. 4e was also a horrible slog because of inflated HP and the heavy miniatures/abilities focus when it launched.

I question the utility of any theory. Whenever I read anybody's work that involves any type of RPG theory the most useful parts are the parts that focus on what the author did to handle specific situations. The theory part invariably comes across as useless cruft.

In my view, the two central issues of tabletop roleplaying are Sportmanship and Effective Communication.

Shortmanship is about the group outside of the campaign. About all the things that folks have to do keep a small group activity fun and interesting for all. I use Sportmanship because RPG campaigns have at their center a competitive system. Maybe not between players but there is a chance of failure.

Effective communication is why we use games as the primary form of description and adjudication in RPG campaign.

Remember what makes an RPG an RPG is the following.

1) The referee describes a setting.
2) Players describe characters to play within that setting.
3) The referee describes the circumstances in which the players find their character in.
4) The players describe what they do.
5) The referee adjudicates and describes what happens next.
Loop back to #3 until the session or campaign ends.

We use systems to make description and adjudication fun and enjoyable within the time we have for a hobby. More importantly, it lowers the barrier of entry for folks who just want a fun pastime.

Sure you could run a fun and interesting campaign with just notes and verbal communication. But to do to that the referee has to understand their setting thoroughly. They will have to be a good coach and an excellent verbal communicator as the players will no reference other than the referee to describe how things work in the setting.

A well-designed rule system eliminates that issue for most folks and allows more of the group's verbal bandwidth to be devoted to moving the campaign forward. 

What GNS is about, what Bartles is about, what Eirikrautha wrote about and so on are about focus. The core mechanic I outlined above is silent on what the setting is about. What part of the setting is focused on? What part of the setting is detailed? And how much detail is there? That is pretty much up in the air and left to personal taste and preference. There is no right answer other than the one that is consistent with what the group wants to have fun with. And when there is conflict over what is fun that is one reason why you learn the techniques of good sportsmanship.

As for game authors, like myself, the key is effective communication about what you are writing about and why. Don't hide things for the reader to figure out. Be upfront about why you are doing what you are doing. Don't assume the reader understands where you are coming from. Using jargon like GNS or any other popular RPG theorywank it is just the author trying to market their ware. This includes praise about the OSR and Sandbox campaigns which I personally have to watch out for. I take pains to make sure when I write about my stuff I explain why it works well for what I focus on. Establish how it stands on its own merits before mentioning, "Oh also it works well with little changes to X and Y classic editions." or "This a sandbox setting" or "It supports sandbox campaigns".



Finally, if you want to be a good RPG author, referee, or players then learn as much as you can in the time you have. The more type of games you try, the more you read, the more tools you will have in your kit. Also don't rely on RPG authors to teach you sportsmanship especially when it comes to small group interactions. Branch out and read up on stuff that specializes in that area. People are people and being a gamer doesn't change the basics.

The above will be far more useful than any other theories being talked about in this thread.

"Theory" in the sense of "all encompassing guide to different game models" that you can follow to produce something useful without other inputs is not only not useful but also counter-productive.

"Theory" in the sense of "modest idea of what will work or not work in this particular situation" that you can use as a starting place to save some time--at least get in the ballpark before you start writing and testing in earnest--can be useful.  Not least because there isn't one unified "theory" in that sense, but a host of competing and collaborating theories.  In fact, some are barely hypotheses.  If that were not true, we couldn't talk about "game design" as a meaningful thing at all.

It's very much like a creative writing course.  Assuming a good teacher, there's nothing particularly harmful about such a course.  You may even pick up a small theory or two that is useful in your writing, or at least clarify what you want to do to get over a hurdle.  However, it's no substitute for rolling your sleeves up and writing a lot.  The good teacher will even insist upon that point, requiring a lot of practice as the primary focus of the class.

Quote from: estar on May 30, 2023, 12:50:15 AM
I question the utility of any theory. Whenever I read anybody's work that involves any type of RPG theory the most useful parts are the parts that focus on what the author did to handle specific situations. The theory part invariably comes across as useless cruft.

While I like your general communications and adjudication model, I want to focus on this because I think you misunderstand the purpose of theory. (This isn't really surprising considering Ron Edwards got this wrong, too.)

Attempts to make a Quantum Gravity theory of RPG games which covers all games in all circumstances is probably destined to end poorly because RPGs practically exist to have exceptions. It might be possible, but at the moment especially I think that it's too much reach and too little value. In many cases, it's a pure ego-trip.

The value of theory discussion is pedagogy. Your average poster here has roughly 15+ years of gaming experience, and designing a roleplaying game can require even more because you actually have to look beyond just roleplaying games to learn game design. I had to focus almost two years on learning about video game design even though I have no real intent of making a video game. Even though theory discussion will have exceptions, it is easier, faster, and more thorough to start the learning process of roleplaying game design with some abstract theory and the exceptions to those theories than it is to study 3 dozen games. When you start with theory (or at least introduce it early on) you can see the patterns the theory discusses and the exceptions that make each game unique more easily. When you study a billion games with no theoretical understanding, it just becomes a mess of figures.

It's the difference between studying to pass a test and studying to understand. This isn't about making a perfect theory; it's that it's easier to understand how a game works when you have a theoretical framework in your head.

EDIT: Frameworks are also good at identifying points where you can innovate. The more a theory describes the games being played, the more you incentivize designers to carve exceptions into it to stand out and to outperform games which follow the framework to the letter. For example, one of the things I am working on is parallel game processing. If you can allow parts of the game to occur in parallel rather than insisting on adjudication, then your game has a much higher crunch tolerance.

Since we're throwing concepts out; one of the things I discuss in my GM's guide under the heading of "setting the tone" are a series of axis;

-Serious vs. Silly
-Linear vs. Sandbox
-Heroic vs. Horror (i.e. how competent are the PCs relative to the monsters)
-Combat vs. Non-combat

Each one is a dial rather than a binary and discusses how to change the setting and rules to reflect either extreme and discusses where the game's default rules sit in relation to the axes; slightly serious (with room for heroics and levity), "guided sandbox" (open world but with events that can sweep up PCs if they're too close at hand; ex. a war breaks out in the region, undead lay siege to a town), heroic (but not superheroic), and balanced respectively.

For example to go from the default to more serious you can add in the included "death spiral" rule that inflicts debilitating injuries along with "hit point" loss, and/or "emergency medicine" where the raise dead ritual only works if begun within 10 minutes of death and leaves the subject critically injured... basically there is no raising the dead, just keeping someone on the verge from going over the edge.

By contrast, if you want to go sillier it discusses how to take the sting of consequences out of otherwise deadly actions. Which could range from making dying harder (fewer consequences for dropping to 0, longer periods between death checks, easier raise dead use) or even impossible (people just fall unconscious for a period of time a la Toon).

And puns. Pun early and pun often.

Basically, I find where games fall in relation to these axes to be far more useful in determining whether I'll enjoy a system than the GNS model ever could.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 30, 2023, 08:12:15 AM
because RPGs practically exist to have exceptions.

The reason for this is inherent to the basic mechanic of RPGs. The players describe what they do as their character within the setting of the campaign. While it may be simplified in the interest of playability and enjoyment, at most expansive it means anything the character can do within the setting given what has been described about the character. Since what is playable and what is enjoyable is subjective this means for the hobby as a whole this makes attempts at categorization futile.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 30, 2023, 08:12:15 AM
Even though theory discussion will have exceptions, it is easier, faster, and more thorough to start the learning process of roleplaying game design with some abstract theory and the exceptions to those theories than it is to study 3 dozen games. When you start with theory (or at least introduce it early on) you can see the patterns the theory discusses and the exceptions that make each game unique more easily. When you study a billion games with no theoretical understanding, it just becomes a mess of figures.

The only way to teach RPGs (play, referee, design, etc.) easier, faster, and more thorough is to start with a constrained setting. Limit the choices so as not to overwhelm the novice. A setting that is comprised of multiple maze levels with rooms filled with monsters, treasure, traps, and puzzles is a good constrain setting for a novice starting out with RPGs. Playing a crew of a tramp starship making their way from port to port is another. Then you keep broadening the setting covering more situations and more variations until the student gain the skills needed to handle an arbitrary setting from first principles as a player, referee, or designer.

At each point, you stress but do not go into details about the possibilities not covered. That despite the artificial limitation imposed all the situations used throughout what is being taught are but a small slice of a larger world. Even the multi-level maze with rooms filled with monsters, traps, treasure, and puzzles.

As for the rules, you show them how regardless of the details all RPG systems share a single central mechanic that I outlined in an earlier post. RPG systems have a way of using a game to describe characters. Use that game as an aide to adjudicate what the characters do. How most deliberately limit their focus and adjust the level of detail of the mechanics in the interest of playability and fun. Show how different systems model the same reality and fantastic elements in different ways.

You need a few different systems to do this properly but it won't be 36 different ones. Another important skill to be taught is how to extrapolate from how a system works to cover when the players try something that their character can do but is not covered explicitly by the system.


The key element again the fact that what makes an RPG, a RPG, is a single mechanic. The referee describes the circumstances in which the characters find themselves. The players as their characters describe what they do. The referee adjudicates on the basis of what has been described about the setting, describes the new circumstances, and repeats. Throughout the teacher keeps showing how everything is tied back to this. Along with showing, over time, how this can be expanded to cover anything you can imagine characters in a given setting doing.

Finally what RPGs ultimately focuses in terms of setting, characters, and system is why you learn about sportsmanship and small group dynamic. Basically learning to listen to figure out what to apply to an RPG campaign for a specific group.

Alexander Macris has similar views but a different take on the essence of RPGs. It is little more verbose than I think it needs to be but ultimately in the ballpark of how I view things. (Sorry Alex)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP_K9ddFGus&ab_channel=ArbiterofWorlds

Quote from: Fheredin on May 30, 2023, 08:12:15 AM
I had to focus almost two years on learning about video game design even though I have no real intent of making a video game.

I have been a software developer for over forty years and still chugging along. The thing about software development is that computers and programming languages are just tools. The real value of getting a computer science/software engineering degree is not to learn how to program. The real value is learning how to listen to people with a need that software can address. The most valuable thing beyond the fundamentals of computers and programming is how to take often incoherent ramblings of someone and through a process of asking questions and listening to feedback get a plan for developing software that will do what that person needs.

End users do not want to be told that because of the computer and programming language being used that X can't be done. Sometimes it can't be avoided but in most cases by starting with what the user wants first and then work your way back until you get to the specific type of computer, programming languages, and software tools you need.

With RPGs the starting point is the setting and the type of characters players want to play in that setting. Then from there, one can learn how to work their way back to the system and other tools needed to play that campaign.

As for teaching this, you learn it the same I learned to do software engineering. Learn the fundamentals along with starting with simple situations and keep challenging yourself with more and more complex situations until you can handle starting from scratch on your own.

And this is not theory for me. Off and on for the past couple of decades I had the occasion to teach people about RPGs. Starting around 1985 when I taught D&D at my local YWCA for a summer.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 30, 2023, 08:12:15 AM
When you study a billion games with no theoretical understanding, it just becomes a mess of figures.

It's the difference between studying to pass a test and studying to understand. This isn't about making a perfect theory; it's that it's easier to understand how a game works when you have a theoretical framework in your head.

RPGs are an activity with the purpose of pretending to be characters having adventures in some imagined setting. That is very easy to understand.

Next is how does one make this more interesting than playing "Let's Pretend". tabletop RPGs answer to that is the procedure I outline in this and other posts. The referee describes a setting, the players describe characters to play in that setting, and so on. This also is easy to understand.

Now we finally to the game part. Which is an aide to make this happen in the time on has for a hobby. By using the rules of a wargame focused on what individual characters can do in a setting (or genre) makes running a campaign more playable and enjoyable.

But make no mistake playing that game is not the point. It is the procedure I outlined above that is the point. Otherwise, we doing another form of gaming. The crucial thing to teach about RPGs is not learning to design good games. But how to design good settings, interesting character types to play, and how to find (or make) the right game to make a campaign fun and playable.

But Rob, it has to be more complex than that? It isn't, you and I can sit down in discord, I describe to you a setting, you can describe to me a character and we would be off playing a tabletop RPG campaign with no game in sight. Where it gets complex is the fact doing this opens up a pen & paper virtual reality where the choices are only bounded by your imagination. With so many possibilities, takes learning some skills in order to focus things down to make a campaign that is fun and enjoyable. Plus since using a game system is so advantageous it helps tp learn about how different systems work so you and the group can find one that enjoyable and playable.

Hope this clarifies things despite my lengthy reply.

The 5 parts of the RPG estar lists is not too far off from how I look at it. And his mention of bandwidth is also worth noting, and it's something I talk about a lot as well. Steps 3 through 5 is the main cycle of the playing of RPGs as I see it, which I term Situation --> Action --> Adjudication.

I'd argue that Step 1 and Step 3 are not appreciably distinct. Yeah, as listed above, Step 1 is definitely much bigger picture. But realistically the scope of circumstances throughout the game is going to vary, and it doesn't require any stretching or twisting at all, not even a single ounce of it, for #1 to be included under the umbrella of #3.

That leaves #2, and in my view this is where monkey wrenches get lobbed into a lot of different theoretical models of RPGs. I would assume "describe characters" includes game stats and personality traits, not just the physical appearance of the characters, and so players are making creative decisions from the dreaded "author" stance about their characters. Yeah. It's a universal part of normal RPGs, not just forgey games or story games or touchy feely bullcrap games.

And you know what else? It's not just line 2 of a code whose last line is GOTO 3, never to be revisited again. Even the character's physical description will be updated from time to time. #2 is part of a secondary cycle, an "author" stance cycle. It doesn't have the same periodicity as the main cycle. And so Forgey types might be tempted to say the relative periodicity correlates to one pillar versus another. To which I say not so fast.

Even if you're one of these throwback Neanderthal players who is somehow versed in Forgespeak who insists that you don't care about the weirdo storygame malarkey, and you also don't care about that munchkin min-max rules-lawyer powergaming nonsense either, you just want to immerse yourself in playing your character, that's what "roleplaying" means and that's what it means to play a real roleplaying game, with your answer to the question put to you perpetually by the main cycle of "What do you do?" is to be answered only in terms of what your character would do, there's a tiny little problem. What *would* your character do? Seriously. At some point you have to define enough information about your character to answer that question. For most of is, when the game puts us in weird, unforeseeable predicaments, if we want to just play our characters, we're left to author on the spot how the character would act in that situation. If you're some kind of unbelievable soothsayer who was able to define everything you needed to define in advance, then fine, you do all your authoring up front. But you're still doing authoring.

That's the rub. The more you want to get away from author stance and just play yer character, the more you're forced into author stance. With foresight, you can have that cycle hum less frequently and more meaningfully, but hum it will, and all your preferences in the world can't and won't stop that. To the extent that even games of make believe are played by real people, reality still imposes constraints on you. You can't just do exactly what you want, just can't just play the ideal game you prefer. That stuff only gets sliced and diced and separated for you in theoretical abstractions. In reality, you have to take it as it comes, and the only choice you have is in what you do with it.


If you want a theory of RPGs that reflects the real play experience, I propose Bicycle Muffinism theory. Muffinism is a reference to the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine observes that the top of the muffin is the best part of the muffin and suggests the baker just sell the top of the muffin. So the baker tries making just muffin tops, and it's a huge flop. When he asks where he went wrong, Elaine explains that you have to make the whole muffin and twist off the top. And so he tries that, and it works. And then hilarity ensues as he tries to figure out how to get rid of the stumps.

When we speak of subjective preference in RPGs, you get to choose between a blueberry muffin or a bran muffin. You don't get to choose not to have the stump. Yes. I understand you prefer not to have it. Pretty much everyone does. But that's not something reality is putting on the menu. There might be theories that give you that option, but those theories are false. A GM might be willing to at least try to swallow all the stumps like Newman to allow players to have a top of the muffin experience. And if the GM doesn't mind doing that, that's blessing to the extent that the GM is able to pull it off. The principle remains, however, that everyone is responsible for their own stumps.

The Bicycle part of the theory refers to the two cycles I've already discussed, but also to bicycle movies of the 80's. On the one hand, you have Peewee Herman who falls off his bike, gets up, dusts himself off, and says, "I meant to do that." The idea being that the output of many players, GMs, and designers is just absolute shit and rather than being honest, owning that, and trying to improve it, they hide behind subjectivity and don't even try to do better. This is in contrast to Cru Jones in Rad who is willing to push his comfort zone, remove the safety cushion, and even take advice from Aunt Becky, leading to a painful wipe out, only to get back on the bike and try again until you get it right.

Quote from: S'mon on May 21, 2023, 11:12:53 AM

Quote from: Lunamancer on May 20, 2023, 08:26:14 PM
I believe it's most fundamental idea is wrong. I do not believe the pillars fundamentally oppose each other. They compliment one another, in the sense that one pillar is better satisfied by the inclusion of the others rather than the exclusion of the others.

For a guy I have on Ignore List (saw it quoted by Eric), Loony does speak some truth here.  For instance the Simulation element in Gygaxian D&D strongly supports the Gamist play. Likewise, Dramatist games (or fiction) without a Simulation element feel weightless and hollow.

Not really. GNS was a hallucination and ever since the cults been trying to prove pink elephants are real.