Crossposted, because, hey, what the hell.

People that aren't gamers sometimes engage in RPG-like activities - mostly, younger folks, and mostly just for a few minutes here and there.  I've been thinking about this a bit.

Instant characterisation
I've seen groups of good friends jump "into character", often using characterisations from media, and comment back and forth on whatever struck them as fun.  I've heard, for example, "I say, good chap, doesn't that dear heart there possess the most striking of posteriors?"  "Indeed, sir!  Indeed!"

What would you do if...?
I've also seen people suddenly jump into something vaguely like GM / Player roles - "What would you do if thing X?"  "Oh, I'd do Y"  "Well, then, X would happen."

And storytime
Finally, I've seen folks start off with something like "Wouldn't it be cool if...", followed up with "Yeah!  And then...", ad infinitum, just making stuff up.

Now, my first conclusion to this is that the various ways that we game all spring from what are, really, pretty basic activities - that while adding this stuff to wargaming was pretty brilliant, the stuff itself is simpler and older than that.

Boiling it all away, what I end up with is the idea that by taking this stuff, making it clear, and adding the kind of stuff that defines a game - goals, obstacles, and a structure for resolving them - you're in tabletop RPG-land.

I'm wondering just how simply that could be done, how intuitively.

Your thoughts?

Sorry, I read the title and immediately thought "naked roleplaying?"

I'll, uh, blame the late hour I'm posting. Yeah, that should do the trick!

Quote from: Levi Kornelsen...I've seen groups of good friends jump "into character"...I've also seen people suddenly jump into something vaguely like GM / Player roles - "What would you do if thing X?"  "Oh, I'd do Y"  "Well, then, X would happen."...by taking this stuff, making it clear, and adding the kind of stuff that defines a game - goals, obstacles, and a structure for resolving them - you're in tabletop RPG-land.

I'm wondering just how simply that could be done, how intuitively.

Apparently, if you have some confidence, you can do this with complete strangers, as related by NeverCool here in the SJGames forum

Quote from: NeverCool, on SJGamesI saw this in action, and I thought it was so incredibly cool that I just had to share it, particularly because a lot of people in here ask how to get more people playing GURPS, or how to find players for their own groups. Please note that it is unlikely to be useful if you're not willing to do the GMing; the way I saw it, it can get players, but not GMs (of course, after a few adventures, one player might be interested in GMing, but that's another ordeal).

The 'incident' occured when I was at one of those semi-trendy cafes with a friend, who is both a real talker and a fellow GM (who always has more games going than I, for reasons that will maybe become clear). We had an overpriced shake and an overpriced coffee, and were sitting around swapping ideas for adventures, worlds and the sort. We got into a minor debate over some detail so insignificant that I have already forgot what it was, and Jonas (my friend) leans back and asks the people at the next 'table' (okay, beanbag chairs and a round log for placing beverages on) for their opinion. Total strangers, but something anyone might do. They answer as best they can, and he asks if they agree, causing a brief debate amongst them. Two minutes later, everything was back to normal.

A coffee and a shake (I like shakes) later, he starts spontaneously chatting with the neighboring 'table', based partly on what they answered, and our two 'tables' 'merge' into one.

Now up till this point, it's all just casual socializing, even if it is a bit 'expansionist'. But the interesting things hapen after this...

Based on the earlier question and some chat about movies, Jonas starts asking "what if" questions to these people. "What if you had to stop a homicidal maniac?" "What if you had to check a crime scene for clues", that kind of stuff. Finally, I realize where he is going, as he asks them "okay, if you were all private investigators...". Basically, he turns the "what if" questions into an improvised game session based on an occult investigation adventure I had myself been a player in once (I did not participate in the cafe, I just watched), complete with "okay, the house looks like this..." and character impersonation. An RPG adventure, just without stats; characters were kinda improvised by saying "okay, you're good at this but bad at that" as events occured. Some of the unwitting players noted it on napkins, some just remembered it.

The thing lasted about 40 minutes. They didn't get through the 'adventure', but when Jonas himself ended it, he invited them to continue "with some stuff I normally use", which I knew to mean GURPS Lite. Three out of five complete strangers became a new gaming group that way.

I don't know how long this 'sudden gaming group' will last, but watching it happen was impressing. If you have a friend like that, or are equally spontaneous, I'd love to hear of any similar experiences. Maybe there is a whole hunting ground out there for the taking :-)

NeverCool later describes his own attempts at it, and they're very instructive for those who want to recruit newbies.

I dunno, Levi. Most of the times my friends and I "slip into character" it's more about running gags and a good laugh than anything approximating a game.

"What if?", however, has a lot more ground to cover. Right after the Dawn of the Dead remake came out, I must have "played" that with a couple of non-RPG friends for hours at a time.  If I'd thought clearly about it, transitioning to an RPG would have been painless right then...  Maybe.

QuoteYour thoughts?

I think that, as a statement of the obvious, your post is absolutely fantastic.  

Seriously, just look at how often the comparison gets made in various "What is roleplaying" sections to "cops and robbers" and the like.

Playing make-believe is a basic part of human nature, and is even an essential part of how we learn and understand the world.  

And as you say, the rule-structered way of doing so that we have now, simply evolved from a tendency for wargamers to make-believe about their little armies of toy soldiers, a tendency that persists unto this day.  Walk into a wargame-heavy shop where a bunch of folks are playing Warhammer and you'll here players, if jokingly, darting off one-liners in the character of their chosen army.  Some of them will write whole bits of fluff about their army's history.  Others are just there to move the bits around and enjoy the tactical aspect of the game.

You get the same evolutions independently occuring in other things.  Stuff like fan-fiction is, the "anime RPG" boards, and the wierd re-invention of RP that came about in the early days of MMOs.

So in other words, I agree.  I just think it's a wee bit obvious.  

Quote from: J ArcaneI think that, as a statement of the obvious, your post is absolutely fantastic.  

Good!

I like starting with the blatantly obvious.

The question is, what's the next, actual, step after that?  The next point of structure?  And how does it ramp up intuitively?  If you did walk it up that slope, what would you get?

JimBob provided one hell of a neat example of 'guiding' it up into RPG play, and gave it as a method of grabbing newbies (which is always a good way to get my attention, though I don't know if it does anything for the rest of you).

I mean, here's another in: Pundit argues, consistently and clearly, that the GM / Player structure is natural.  That would mean that it roots straight out of this stuff, Alpha-player style.  Is that so?  HOW is it so or not so, when you get down to this level?

Tony had a bit to say in our debate about competition in RPGs, at this same level of 'basic natural play', too...  I'll go dig that out later, probably.

I'm pretty sure I've never seen the gatekeeping sort of role that is so common in RPGs emerge in these sort of spontaneous sessions.

I've seen people (albeit, mostly kids) contribute stuff to the imagined world, but I don't think I've ever seen them provisionally contribute stuff, then wait to have it validated by others.

"Oh!  And I've got a rocket pack that shoots lasers, and the lasers take all the electricity out of your bad-guy devices, and puts it all into good things like light bulbs and video games!"  Yeah.  I've seen that.

"Oh, can I have a rocket pack?" and then a look to a figure of authority?  No.  I, personally, haven't seen that in those types of situations.  Is that just my personal slice of the experience, or is it something broader?

I think it's simply a matter of trying to introduce structure into chaos.  

By building a rules structure around this freeform make-believe, you smooth over potential conflicts.  Again, I point to the stock explanation in so many RPG books:  Remember when you're a kid and you played makebelieve with your friends or siblings, and you'd wind up getting into an argument, because what he wanted to happen and what you wanted to happen were different.  "I shot you!"  "No you didn't, I shot you first!"

Rules allow us to introduce an impartial authority to the play, to allow something to appeal to when those sorts of conflicts arise.  Now you KNOW you shot first, because the rules say that if you say bang first, the other guy is dead.

The GM is a further an extension of that authority position.  Now you have a second level of authority to appeal to, should the rules, for whatever reason, prove inadequate.  And in the case of what we are familiar with as RPGs, it evolved from there to being a sort of authority on world and story.  He can answer questions about the makebelieve world the rules themselves can't, because he creates the main story or world the rest of the make-believe revolves around.

It's interesting to note though, that in many of the alternately evolved forms of roleplaying I mentioned, the GM isn't necessarily in existence, especially not in the full form present in D&D-spawned RPGs.  

In anime forum RP, there's generally only a moderator who just oversees to make sure the rules are followed, and is often still a player himself.  In MMOs, there's very seldom an authority figure of any sort, just largely mutually accepted rules enforced mainly via social pressure.

Wargames in some ways, if you want to take into account things like worldwide campaigns like 40k's Eye of Terror, have actually had GM-like figures who took the story/world direction role, but took no part in the application of the rules.

Quote from: TonyLBI'm pretty sure I've never seen the gatekeeping sort of role that is so common in RPGs emerge in these sort of spontaneous sessions.

I have - but - that person was always a pre-existing and clearly demarked authority.  A kid and parent.  Little brother and big brother.  That kind of thing.

I have't seen it as an 'alpha player' thing that I can recall, but I only started trying to pull up and clearly sort my memories on this stuff recently.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenCrossposted, because, hey, what the hell.

People that aren't gamers sometimes engage in RPG-like activities - mostly, younger folks, and mostly just for a few minutes here and there.  I've been thinking about this a bit.

Instant characterisation
I've seen groups of good friends jump "into character", often using characterisations from media, and comment back and forth on whatever struck them as fun.  I've heard, for example, "I say, good chap, doesn't that dear heart there possess the most striking of posteriors?"  "Indeed, sir!  Indeed!"

What would you do if...?
I've also seen people suddenly jump into something vaguely like GM / Player roles - "What would you do if thing X?"  "Oh, I'd do Y"  "Well, then, X would happen."

And storytime
Finally, I've seen folks start off with something like "Wouldn't it be cool if...", followed up with "Yeah!  And then...", ad infinitum, just making stuff up.

Now, my first conclusion to this is that the various ways that we game all spring from what are, really, pretty basic activities - that while adding this stuff to wargaming was pretty brilliant, the stuff itself is simpler and older than that.

Boiling it all away, what I end up with is the idea that by taking this stuff, making it clear, and adding the kind of stuff that defines a game - goals, obstacles, and a structure for resolving them - you're in tabletop RPG-land.

I'm wondering just how simply that could be done, how intuitively.

Your thoughts?

I tend to use these moments to brainstorm a future campaign. Its times like these that a GM needs to keep his ears open to what turns their players on.

Quote from: TonyLBI'm pretty sure I've never seen the gatekeeping sort of role that is so common in RPGs emerge in these sort of spontaneous sessions.

I've seen people (albeit, mostly kids) contribute stuff to the imagined world, but I don't think I've ever seen them provisionally contribute stuff, then wait to have it validated by others.

"Oh!  And I've got a rocket pack that shoots lasers, and the lasers take all the electricity out of your bad-guy devices, and puts it all into good things like light bulbs and video games!"  Yeah.  I've seen that.

"Oh, can I have a rocket pack?" and then a look to a figure of authority?  No.  I, personally, haven't seen that in those types of situations.  Is that just my personal slice of the experience, or is it something broader?

Tony - you got kids?  I'm not asking to be snarky. It's just stuff I've noticed in our family and the kids play with each other and friends.

I've got two kids, and I hear that kind of provisional stuff going on all the time.  As someone (Levi?) said, there's usually some (informal) authority demarcation involved - be it older brother, oldest kid, babysitter, parent, etc.  The point is, if there is an (even informal) authority figure, it appears to be natural for that person to become a sort of gate-keeper. To be able to say "No, yours doesn't have a force field..."

What's interesting is the fact, with which I agree, that if there is no (even informally) recognized authority, much of what you're saying holds true. But in my limited experience from a raising-kids perspective, this, at some point, will degenerate. Not because someone wants to inject some crazy-ass think, but because an argument begins over the introduction of some small, relatively inane, detail.