"Come up with something new," Jombob says. OK, here goes (at least this is all off the top of my head. I reserve the right to be influenced by stuff).
THE BASICS OF RPG THEORY
OK, what
is RPG theory? Well, that's the tricky thing, isn't it? RPG theory is a lot of different things to different people. "It's all about the
people, the game is secondary!" "It's all about understanding the Creative Agendas people pursue!" "It's all about Morgenstern and Neumann's Game Theory!" "It's all about dice mechanics and probability curves!"
Well, let me state straight up that I'm not concerned with which of these is properly called "Theory," the distinction between "Theory" and "Craft," or any such thing. The fact is that "RPG Theory," rightly or wrongly, has come to mean "stuff used to analyze and improve on our roleplaying experience," and it's
that which interests me, whatever it's called.
And let me also state straight-up that I think
all the above, plus a good many more, are fit and useful fields of inquiry for understanding our games. In a perfect world they wouldn't be battle-lines, but
complementary subjects that would enrich and aid each other. "Oh, that social problem you observed? Looks like it could be at least partially rooted in this clash of creative agendas." [
not necessarily as codified by the Forge] "Hey, that creative agenda [again, not Forge-approved] you're after? Well here's a probability curve that would probably yield the results you're looking for." In a perfect world.
Where I'm coming from in all this: I've roleplayed for a lot of years and rarely felt really satisfied. I went through a lot of those years fuming and grousing about all the badwrong ways that players around me were approaching gaming, and wondering why they didn't (through mental telepathy, presumably) simply
know, and respect (IE convert to) my style of gaming. After all, it was the
right way, so they should've known.
:combust:
Well, fuck that. The first step is to recognize that their gaming preferences are just as valid as mine, even if I can't stand them. Some of 'em probably wouldn't be able to stand a game run purely on MY preferences, either. It's not
prima facie a case of victims vs. dicks (though dickery CAN surely play a role).
The second step is to recognize that the solution, or at least the
optimal one, is not to just mash everyone's preferences together and try to accommodate 'em all. But then, neither is it necessarily best to part ways if you're not a perfect match. It's a balance each group has to find. But it's a false dilemma to assume those are your two choices. "Stuff used to analyze and improve on our roleplaying experience," (AKA Theory) is useful for exploring options in between these two extremes, though an individual may of course determine that Extreme 1 or Extreme 2 is the choice for them.
So what's my new thing? I dunno, maybe just a pick-and-choose approach at first, considering all these insights as potentially equally useful. Like, I could look at something from the Forge and go, "well, I think much of it is crap, and this bit is overstated, but there is one truth here that I can use," and then I could take it over to, say, Jimbob's Cheetoist observations about social behavior, and see how the two truths inform each other. It may seem a small thing, but I think such an attitude adjustment is vital to even begin to construct something useful, especially to have dialogue about it in an environment with a wide disparity of viewpoints.
So my proposal--you can call it "Melinglian Syncretism" or something if you like
, is to begin, in earnest (schedule permitting) to examine different insights from different disciplines/schools of thought/etc to see how they fit together and how they useful they can be to as many people as possible. I propose to do this
without Forge Jargon, expressing concepts in plain English and seeking agreement or understanding of
those concepts, not how they're expressed or the identiy politics associated with them. I could reserve the right to say, "over on the Forge they call this Blahblahblah," but I'm not sure that even that is wise or necessary.
Oh yeah, and observations based on
actual play would be important too. Dissecting a gaming incident from a multitude of perspectives is probably the most fruitful way to approach this.
So there we go. That's all I have time for right now, and I've got a lot of reading to do (Game Theory, Cheetosism, etc), but when I've ruminated and have more specific, I'll be back.
Peace,
-Joel