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In RPGs there are different layers as well as different kinds of creativity. Creativity as a concept is usually connotated with positive attributes. Still, there are many areas in which creativity is left to lie fallow, and some are even made impossible by specific RPGs. On the other hand every RPG lets room for creativity of some sorts, so generally speaking about creativity is basically meaningless unless creativity is further defined.

As I´m unaware of preceding categorizations for creativity in RPGs, I´ll introduce some words to better differentiate. If there are other terms that have more of a history, please feel free to point that out.

situational: An attribute delineating the ad-hoc nature of the creative task.
Example: Using a lie to pass the guarded gate to Waterdeep.

design: An attribute delineating the planned nature of the creative task.
Example: Creating Waterdeep

recombinatorial: the creativity can be described as recombinatorial, if it takes the building blocks of the game system, be they true rules elements or setting chunks, and arranges them in a new way. This can be done for changes sake, or to solve a problem.
Examples:Most D&D 3rd Edition characters, designing the power structure of a Vampire, the Masquerade city with it´s clans etc.

constructed: an attribute regarding the nature of the creative work. If it follows axioms, for example, it is constructed. Many game systems provide codified construction rules.

original: A point could be made that nothing is original, and everything is derivative. This stance shall be relegated without further discussion into the realms of sophistry. For something to be talked about as original, the context must be preserved. In critical discussion of RPG Settings for example, a rather objective approach must be taken, whereas in the discussion of situational creativity, a more lenient usage of the term seems natural.

derivative: a strong case could be made that all creativity is derivative in one form or the other. For the sake of our discussion, a strong understanding of the term shall be our standard, e.g. if the lineage of the creation is obvious and non-subtle.
Now, as we haver introduced this concept, we must further stratify, as the cultural source is important for an aesthetic judgement, as well as being fruitful for discussion.

primary derivate: real-world source material is translated into RPG building blocks
secondary derivate: literary works, which are based upon real-world source material, are translated into RPG building blocks
tertiary derivate: Gaming source material is translated into new RPG building blocks

The definitions are a bit limited, but can be easily expanded to other media. For example, an RPG about Margaret Rutherford´s Miss Marple would be a secondary derivate, as the movies are already derivative of the novels. Delta Green is definitely a tertiary derivate for obvious reasons.

More strata could be introduced, as they are relative in nature. So, for actual discussion the degrees of seperation between primary source material and RPG building blocks should be spelled out. As the Delta Green example shows, some building blocks can be secondary (X-Files) while the structure of the games is tertiary. Again, actual discussion must spell out what is talked about in which context.

So, what´s the point?

The point is one of Calithena´s mind blowing threads, wherein he laments RPG design theory as having it gotten all wrong.

He implies, that the foremost interest he has in RPGs, is the creative aspect, situational as well as design.

And he says, that no RPGs are constructed/written to actually cater to situational and design tasks. He also argues, that these forms of creativity haven´t been systematically reviewed, no one cares or knows what helps them, no one cares or knows what furthers them.

I, back in the day, argued that his stances ultimately lead to the abolition of all commercial RPGs.

How did I come to this conclusion?

The inherent value attached to certain forms of creativity in Calithenas posts.

IF you value original or primary derivative design and if you value situational creativity, there is nothing else left, than to write your own setting and possibly rulesset.

Because playing OD&D is just as playing 4th Edition, creatively speaking. Maybe OD&D leaves more room for situational creativity. But the building blocks would be all secondary or even tertiary derivates.
Whereas Gary Gygax was original or primyry derivative when designing the building blocks (Monsters, Spells, magic Items) for the game. And everything in D&D is still derivative of his building blocks.
The prevalence and staying power of Gary´s building blocks is frightening if you compare D&D versions. Smart people like M. Cook or M. Mearls have NEVER EVER been as creative as GG with building blocks.
That´s astonishing, at least to me.


Sure, there´s tons of settings being way more creative than Greyhawk, in any direction that word can take. But the Gygaxian building blocks rule everything in D&D. There is no escape.

So, if these building blocks are the real genius, you must kill Gary with your Crossbow. And start doing it yourself. Only in this way can you really get creative in an objective sense.

Don´t limit yourselves to a recombination of someone elses building blocks made out of HIS literary background.

Bake your own building blocks out of YOUR literary background.

Quote from: SettembriniDon´t limit yourselves to a recombination of someone elses building blocks made out of HIS literary background.

Bake your own building blocks out of YOUR literary background.

In order to do what, PRECISELY?

Create a whole new game using totally different building blocks interlocking in a totally different way, or create a new set of building blocks for a new kind of D&D?

The former seems extremely easy (VtM, duh), and the latter extremely difficult, because it may well be inherently contradictory.

Also, examples would be nice. I'm struggling to distinguish this idea from what's known as "homebrew."

Quote from: Pierce InverarityIn order to do what, PRECISELY?

Create a whole new game using totally different building blocks interlocking in a totally different way, or create a new set of building blocks for a new kind of D&D?

The former seems extremely easy (VtM, duh), and the latter extremely difficult, because it may well be inherently contradictory.

To what end? That is for everyone to decide for himself.
Ultimately, you have to satisfy yourself.

Who am I to know what your "creative agenda" is?

I´d argue though, that there have been original game structures for primary derivate building blocks in Traveller for example. The Traveller tropes are derived from Sci-Fi, the structure of interaction is original in an RPG sense.

If you are concerned with getting enjoyment out of the creative aspect, than you have to make up your mind what degree satisfies you.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityAlso, examples would be nice. I'm struggling to distinguish this idea from what's known as "homebrew."

There is no inherent difference. I´m argueing that to reach true originality and to keep the degrees of separation down, you have to homebrew.
Thusly a longing for thorough creativity is a longing for the death of the commercial hobby.
Maybe replaced by a community of homebrewers who chat with each other sharing methods and the like.

Quote from: SettembriniBecause playing OD&D is just as playing 4th Edition, creatively speaking.

I'm not so sure about that.  Let's go back to your example of creating Waterdeep.  3.5 provides some structure for building a city.  OD&D, not so much.

QuoteThusly a longing for thorough creativity is a longing for the death of the commercial hobby.
Maybe replaced by a community of homebrewers who chat with each other sharing methods and the like.

You're one small step away from being able to call the Forge sell-outs.  Why did you hesitate?

Quote from: jrientsI'm not so sure about that.  Let's go back to your example of creating Waterdeep.  3.5 provides some structure for building a city.  OD&D, not so much.

Splendid point. I was exaggerating, but it´s exactly observations regarding creativity like this, that I think are fruitful. For this aestehtic debate, that is.

Quote from: jrientsYou're one small step away from being able to call the Forge sell-outs.  Why did you hesitate?

I´m not sure I´m getting you. Care to elaborate?
I don´t see them generating any building blocks.
Maybe structures but heavily, if not solely, slanted towards shoehorning
situational secondary derivative creativity. Of a very special aesthetic quality.

I mean, there´s more new building blocks in your Asteroid Supplement than in three random Forger products. Or the whole Forge?

Oh, and @Waterdeep:

You can´t create Waterdeep in 3.5. It already exist. just as you can´t create the magic missile spell anymore.

@others:

Keep in mind, this is a continuation upon an idea originating in the "All RPG design theory is fucked" (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6248&highlight=design+theory) - thread.

Does any RPG Theory deal with creating building blocks? Does any RPG theory exist that explains how the awesome came into Rifts?

How Kevin S. does his shit?
How Jeff Rients pulled together his fabolous Asteroid-Module?
Does any Design theory even consider design creativity as a force unto itself?

These were the questions in that thread.

Quote from: jrientsYou're one small step away from being able to call the Forge sell-outs.  Why did you hesitate?

Not "sell-outs", traitors. There's a subtle but significant difference.

RPGPundit

Quote from: SettembriniI´m not sure I´m getting you. Care to elaborate?

It was just a joke.  You were talking up the opposition of creativity and commercial success.  The Forge seems to want to have their cake and eat it too in that regard, so it looked like an easy jab to make.

Oh, ok.

Now, the problem is not commercial success. if YOUR setting is commercially successful, then YOU were creative in some fruitful way!

BUT: Playing in an established setting written by SOMEONE ELSE makes us all tools, and let´s us be creative only within our allotted boxes.

Do I delude myself by seeing a middle ground between homebrews and spoonfed settings?  The sandbox settings (Spinward Marches, original Greyhawk, etc) seem to leave a lot of room for creative endeavor.

Yeah, that´s why I introduced the terms above.

So we can talk about different degrees and kinds of creativity.

Frex:

My Megatraveller campaign was a sandbox campaign in the Far Frontiers sector. I created the sector all by myself.
The basic framework was constructed using the MT-Rules.
The extrapolation of the UPPS into real worlds was a mix of using published sub-models, and original, primary and secondary derivative contributions from myself. When I dropped some detailed planets from published Traveller into the sector, like Raschev or Darkmoon, I was being tertiary derivative.
The Imperium, Droyne, Zhodani were recombinatorial tertiary derivative additions to the sector .
The Nations within the sector were a mix of the original (League of Free Worlds, based upon my experiences in South East Asia), and primary derivatives (God Emperor of Dune), with some secondary derivatives (Star Republic Vesta = Space: Above and Beyond, which is the Sci Fi version of a "greatest Generation" Pacific War America).

When I used published modules, I forfeited design creativity, but maintained situational creativity for me and the players.

What is good or bad in being original or not only depends on the creators intentions and standards.

But ultimately, Calithenas longing for originality leaves only one way open: total homebrew.

Anything short of that is the situation what we already have.

Sett -

It will help other people reading this thread if you re-post that diagnosis of the four elements of early RPGs, the one that has I think Braunstein (?) + Arneson (dungeons) + Gygaxian building blocks + that fourth thing (roleplaying? wargames? you gotta say it again, man) as the 'conceptual anatomy' of early RPGs. Don't know where that got off to.

QuoteIF you value original or primary derivative design and if you value situational creativity, there is nothing else left, than to write your own setting and possibly rulesset.

Well, of course everyone writes their own setting, right?

I realize they don't. It's funny, though: the RPG culture I grew up in, my high school RPG club in the south SF bay area and my friends up in Berkeley and the east bay, everyone had their own secondary world. Even the crap GMs had their own maps, etc. Some of those were pretty cool and weird, others were totally by the numbers or boring despite their variations, but the point is, that was what you did if you were a DM. Nobody ran in the Wilderlands or Greyhawk or Blackmoor or the Realms or Arduin or Glorantha or Tekumel or anyplace like that...we had the stuff 'cuz it was a good idea mine, but real DMs made their own fantasy worlds, pretty much period.

Now, this is only about 150 RPGers we're talking about, maybe 20 GMs. But seriously, no-one used canned secondary settings in my circles. You made your own, and conversations started "Well, in my world..." so much it could make you sick if you weren't in the mood.

Those are the norms I grew up with, and the culture I was part of. I've had a real shock coming back in the last eight years and finding that so many GMs don't do this any more. For me it was a big part of the fun of the hobby.

---------------------

If nothing but D&D continues to exist as a mass market product, if we all write our own settings and rulesets, and sell each other PoD books over the internet, and a few dozen stars settle in with low five figure incomes, and a couple hundred satellites make low four figure bonuses, and a couple thousand fringers make beer money, and people are loving and enjoying these games and playing them, I don't see that as a bad future for us at all.

----------------

I'll mull over the rest of your thoughts but off-hand I don't prize creativity for its own sake. I think people should be able to explore their own fantasies and have rules that help them do that, partly by providing other kinds of fun. Don't care if they wind up taking over other people's building blocks to do that, so long as those are the ones they want.

Cal, is this the post you meant?

Quote from: SettembriniWell people, neither of you listened to me, so this thread is where I predicted it to be.

Theres different kinds of innovations. The ones Jrients has in mind, might be called "basic innovations", and can be likened to product life cycles and even kondratieff cycles. If you believe in those concepts that is.

Mearls on the other hand is talking about procedural innovations in D&D rules. Way more narrow.

So what are we talking about? Decide!

@Braunstein & D&D:

The REAL and HUGE as well as BASIC innovation in D&D was the following:


1) Providing radically new building blocks for fictious situations.
2) Providing a robust model for interaction of said building blocks.
3) Providing the idea for interacting building blocks

Building Blocks:
- spells
- magic items
- monsters
- special abilities
- traps
(- planes & gods)

the combat stuff was already there in some form. Just look at the monsters, at the spells and realize how this stuff was basically made from whole cloth!
I cannot emphasize the importance of that enough.
Whole cloth!

Sure there are conceptual sources. But the procedure in which source material and original ideas were mixed and mashed and formed into interactive building blocks for challenges and their resolution, is creative genius of the highest degree!

And no matter what nice little precedural innovations mearls (whom I hold in the highest respect, I even wrote him a filk song) cited, they don´t matter much.
The reason why D&D is so robust is because neither of him, Monte, not even Mentzer, Moldvay. And surely not Arneson or Weseley. It´s Gary´s freaky mind that created the building blocks (AFAIK).
That´s why you can even drop the thief class and different damage for different weapons: The oeuvre of building blocks Gary created is the BIG THING that jumpstarted our hobby.

What 3.x did so very right is concentrating and polishing the

1) building blocks
and
2) their interaction

Keep in mind, that from this perspective, the RQ/Traveller line of tradition is actually a conceptual step back: it´s like the Kriegsspiel supplements made by officers to enhance "realism" but within the single character framework.

Traveller is conceptually Braunstein+Kriegsspiel Supplements, whereas D&D is Arneson+Gygaxian Building blocks and RQ is Arneson+Kriegsspiel Supplements.

So we have:

- the Braunstein flavour MoR
- the Arnesonian Dungeon
- the Gygaxian building blocks
- the Kriegsspiel supplement tradition

I totally have that post bookmarked.

Quote from: jrientsCal, is this the post you meant?

I totally have that post bookmarked.

Yep, that's the one.

Quote from: CalithenaI'll mull over the rest of your thoughts but off-hand I don't prize creativity for its own sake. I think people should be able to explore their own fantasies and have rules that help them do that, partly by providing other kinds of fun. Don't care if they wind up taking over other people's building blocks to do that, so long as those are the ones they want.

Sure, I obviously don´t fetishize creativity for itself neither. But for a critical discussion, some considerations must be made.
At least I structured my own thoughts on that.

OK.
Great if somebody else could follow those thoughts!

People bookmark my posts?

I remember being puzzled by the reference to Kriegsspiel supplements. Sett, could you clarify?

I was referencing mostly the 1828 supplement written by a group of young officers to enhance realism. It was called:

"Supplement zu den bisherigen Kriegsspiel-Regeln, von einer Gesellschaft preußischer Offiziere bearbeitet". Berlin, 1828."

It began the clogging of the Kriegsspiel. A spiral of rules add-ons to "update" the game to new technology and more "realism" made the original game very hard to handle.
EDIT: And totally took out the GAME aspect, the original had!

The first instance of rules bloat, and that rules bloat went on for over fifty years!

Hi Eliot -

For further context read Rob MacDougal's article http://www.robmacdougall.org/index.php/2007/05/dungeon-master-zero/ and the follow-up post. Sett's also posted in the comments there.

That is getting way away from the point Sett started the thread with, but it's still good stuff, so what the heck.

Sett, your thinking on this stuff is valuable, even if the way you express yourself is sometimes contentious and choppy.

Quote from: CalithenaSett, your thinking on this stuff is valuable, even if the way you express yourself is sometimes contentious and choppy.

As long as it´s not pretentious and sloppy, I can live with that.

OK, reading those links put the matter in context.

Settembrini, your thoughts on the elements of creativity and the levels of their implementation are far more important than refuting somebody else's personal playstyle.* It's not like Cali's running around the internet proselytizing for the downfall of the industry.

Keep working on that model of creativity. It's very, very interesting. Ditto that whole Braunstein thing--very impressive historical analysis. As you say yourself, neither the Forge nor the WOTC mechanics monkeys have ANYTHING comparable going for them.

You should talk to Jonathan Tweet. Seriously. Look at the games he wrote. Whole cloth (or nearly so), every time. Essentially, you are working on a model for which his games would be paradigmatic examples.

*Totally coincidentally, check out this historical document, which I came across last week and which lists the most important RPG homebrewers circa 1978. But you can't set the clock back, or can you?

http://www.diffworlds.com/images/different_worlds/my_life_and_role_playing.jpg

Great letter, Pierce. Yeah, we wanted to be like them, not just enjoy their creations but make them ourselves. Making your own fantasy world was a calling.

The fantasy worlds of my youth: D. Beaudry's Oceania, P. Farley's Elderaan, J. Wilcox's Phantasy Realm, my own Advent, numerous others.

The published ones were models, but the message we took was not "find the best world and play in it." It was: Go and Do Thou Likewise.

A lot of what seems like odd minutia in the AD&D DMG were actually tools to help people do that, and Gygax in places speaks of creating a fantasy world as a kind of GMs calling.

Quote from: CalithenaHi Eliot -

For further context read Rob MacDougal's article http://www.robmacdougall.org/index.php/2007/05/dungeon-master-zero/ and the follow-up post. Sett's also posted in the comments there.

:D Rob couldn't have written that if I hadn't posted the link to Weseley in my Livejournal, where he found it. What I didn't know about was the Supplements from 1828. (Thanks, Sett.)

One thing that Rob probably gets wrong, and certainly doesn't demonstrate adequately, is the "specialness" of Totten in the RPG lineage. I.e., there's nothing there which shows Totten was much different from any other teacher of Kriegsspiel concepts, either "free" or "rigid". He may have been the first American to bring them over from the Prussians, and he may have been the direct source for other American military wargame developers (such as Farrand Sayre), but Rob doesn't make the case. Instead he talks up Totten's eccentricities and connects them tenuously to modern geek personality traits. In the process, the nature of the "referee" in wargaming--in terms of responsibilities and prerogatives--is relegated to a side-note that obscures both the nature of the game and the radical changes (in responsibilities and prerogatives) that only occurred after D&D hit a mass audience.

But this is a digression, too, so I won't carry it any further.

QuoteIn the process, the nature of the "referee" in wargaming--in terms of responsibilities and prerogatives--is relegated to a side-note that obscures both the nature of the game and the radical changes (in responsibilities and prerogatives) that only occurred after D&D hit a mass audience.

I also think Rob doesn´t know how military exercises are run.

Quote from: SettembriniThere is no inherent difference. I´m argueing that to reach true originality and to keep the degrees of separation down, you have to homebrew.
Thusly a longing for thorough creativity is a longing for the death of the commercial hobby.
Maybe replaced by a community of homebrewers who chat with each other sharing methods and the like.

Sounds grand.   From a Settings perspective I couldn't agree more.

- Mark

(Okay, a little thread drift...)

Well, Rob does say that Weseley contributed to the "re-introduction of an impartial, all-powerful referee" and "complicated war games had long enlisted neutral referees" That sounds pretty unequivocal. For that matter, Rob did clearly understand the sea-change emblemized by the appearance of Dragonlance, when he contributed to these two Forge threads: Precursors to AD&D2 (http://indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=4991.0) and History of the GM? (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=14360.15).

It's unfortunate though that the message of those threads was transmogrified in the minds of many Forgers (including Edwards) into a history of "Narrativism betrayed". I think it's far more likely that (a) except under an overly elastic definition of "Narrativism", it was rare to nonexistent--the closest thing being nonrailroaded world-based gaming that in Forge terms would be considered incoherent today, or maybe grudgingly acknowledged as Sim, and (b) the appearance of the storyteller GM, which came out of "Narrativist impulses", was due to a misapprehension of the function of the rules and resulted in almost immediate recognition of the concept of "railroading".

Anyway, to connect this back to the thread--the 80's transition is an interesting bifurcation of realms of creativity. I think a lot of the homebrewers--basically the mainstream of the existing hobby audience--essentially dropped out of the mainstream, or rather were passed by, as comprehensive game worlds and/or heavily-plotted adventure series became the commercial norm.

@sett and everyone- great thread. Good thinking. Great reading. Funny thing, i'm brewing a star sector right now, as I'm reading this.

Wish I had something to contribute. I will say, though, that the drift towards using published settings has always bothered me. If it lights your fire great, but setting books are nothing more than entertainment for me. I've always known this, but it was really hammered home to me when I read the Midnight setting book last year, and then someone at this site (or maybe elsewhere?) told me that my ideas on how to play demonstrated my inability to "get it". I don't want to "get it". I want to do my own thing. For me, homebrew is gaming.

I am blown away by my own post. :D

Well no, but, seriously, I mean that letter by Tadashi of Chaosium--when he says that the magazine title was going to be changed from "DM" to "Different Worlds."

Think about it: a magazine in which homebrewers, each of whom at the time is in the very early stages of designing their own game-plus-setting, talk about these, well, different worlds. As a way of promoting them, sure, but also as a way of showing people how it's done so that they might do it themselves in turn... create their own worlds.

That is simply unimaginable today. (So is Chaosium's Thieves World, on which three years later a bunch of said homebrewers converged in order to produce a gameworld collectively.)

Elliot, it's definitely stunning how many of my generation gamed the hell out of the 80s (but stopped buying mid-decade or so), dropped out completely in the 90s, and got pulled back in in 2000 by 3E.

I'd been planning on get the Wilderlands boxed set once my current round of eBay auctions* came to a conclusion.  But this thread has me wondering again whether or not I'm doing myself a disservice by not tackling a new campaign world from scratch.

*List here (http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZjrients), if anyone cares.

I´d say in the case of the wilderlands, it´s the same for the players. But something different for you.

Settembrini, the forms of creativity you catalog largely look at RPGs as works - the products are things that could be written down (codified rules, situational responses, setting elements, etc.).  But at the level of actual play, I suggest that they also create relationships among the players, and that this may be one of the most important creative processes involved.

This kind of creativity is necessarily collaborative.  It often arises in your situational creativity, but it's more than that.  It manifests in anecdotes (not usually narratives), in-jokes, favorite dice, and so on.  It depends on the construction and elaboration of shared meanings using common symbols.  Because of this, and because it gains its relevance and power from accumulation (repetition and adaptation), it is not in any strong sense original.  It must be bootstrapped from existing shared symbols and meanings, so it is derivative.  Which of your categories it falls into (primary, secondary, or tertiary) isn't necessarily important, because the chief reason it must be derivative is not to aid in the creative process of a particular author, but to make possible sharing with others.

Though most shared meanings remain within a group of players, some extend beyond them into the RPG culture at large.  They are tied to widely shared symbols (often the building blocks you mention) and accumulate around them.  Thus outside a given play group or cultural subgroup it becomes very difficult to compete with, say, Gary Gygax's set of building blocks - not necessarily because Gygax was the most original or skilled designer (though he may have been), but because in the relationships between many players over many years these symbols have accumulated more and more meaning.

The most successful alternatives (among diverse groups of gamers) will draw on other already existing and widely shared meanings by using symbols from the shared culture, whether that be history (e.g. Call of Cthulhu), subcultures (Vampire), urban legend (Delta Green), or other media (Serenity) (these examples may not be ideal - I'm using them for illustration purposes).  Roll-your-own settings etc. aren't necessarily "better" - because that kind of creativity may not be so important.

Geof,

EDIT: Great post!

what you say is mostly correct. But I think that´s not what I´m talking about. It´s more an elaboration on the play experience.

Anyway, wouldn´t that "situational creative play experience" be enriched/different if you would see the players and yourself building up those experiences on YOUR created elements?
And their input into the game world, rules, etc.?

These experiences aren´t communicable anyways, aren´t they?
So using idiosyncratic foundations isn´t harmful in regards to this.
I DO see some form of communication going on with players of the same modules. This is not creativity, but it´s a different fun that would be lost with everybody being idiosyncratic.