My personal lines in the sand agree with Balbinus', Pundit. I think your first and third points are telling and well put, but your second point is not. In my private definition, the GM is custom, not an integral part of the concept. It's a custom I like, but a custom nonetheless.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;340641My personal lines in the sand agree with Balbinus', Pundit. I think your first and third points are telling and well put, but your second point is not. In my private definition, the GM is custom, not an integral part of the concept. It's a custom I like, but a custom nonetheless.

-clash

I'm not sure - I think that RPGPundit is onto something.

Speaking personally, while I enjoy playing a number of Indie RPGs, I find that they push very different buttons for me compared to traditional rpgs. In particular they transfer ownership of the game from the GM to the group as a whole, and because of this the environment of the game is usually 'created as you go along' by the group during play. This is a very different experience to either playing in, or especially GMing a traditional rpg, where so much of the experience is based around the GM creating and owning the environment where the game is played, and doing this work in advance of play.

Quote from: Glazer;340647I'm not sure - I think that RPGPundit is onto something.

Speaking personally, while I enjoy playing a number of Indie RPGs, I find that they push very different buttons for me compared to traditional rpgs. In particular they transfer ownership of the game from the GM to the group as a whole, and because of this the environment of the game is usually 'created as you go along' by the group during play. This is a very different experience to either playing in, or especially GMing a traditional rpg, where so much of the experience is based around the GM creating and owning the environment where the game is played, and doing this work in advance of play.

I don't disagree with his tack, but he goes too far.  His rule b does exclude both Adventure! and Buffy, and whether you like them or not they're both actually fairly traditional rpgs.

What's the problem with GM improv?

It seems like you could parse this out further, in to "role playing game" s. "role playing collaborative storytelling experience."

My example in question is with my wife, who plays on a role playing server on WoW. She and her guild regularly host elaborate tales online in WoW that have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual game they are playing (outside of common lore) but involve tales of derring do, interpersonal conflict and adventure. Once in a blue moon they will target an "in game" event or feature as something to be acquired/destroyed/visited in relation to their grand internal plot. It's quite fascinating, as it depends entirely on the consensus of the guild as a whole, and has no rules of moderation outside of the perpetrator of the plot. I am also mystified as to how they resolve "he said vs. she said" situations, though it does seem to boild down to a lot of private negotiating and jockeying for story rights. Is it role playing? Absolutely. Is it an RPG? I am powerless to say.

One could strip this example away to the case of a wargame in which there is no cause or need for role playing, but everyone sits around pretending to be generals of their respective armies, I imagine. Or if everyone plays a game like Hero Quest or Talisman "in character" the whole time. In the end, it leads me to think that the defining point of an "RPG" would be if the "G" in that component lends itself to support for the role playing experience. At that point, of course, one has the problem of a general breakdown on agreeing what sorts of rules lend such support.

For example, I feel that most RPGs as we think of such usually include elements that help you define who and what your character is, even if the focus is combat heavy (like all iterations of D&D) or capable of supporting conflict-free engagements (such as GURPS, say). But I tend to balk at games that introduce collaborative story telling components, or which loosen the definition of who controls what. Atlas produced a faerie tale card game, for example, in which drawing cards led to an elaborate shared tale among the players. It was definitely a creative exercise, but most definitely not a role playing experience.

Quote from: Glazer;340647I'm not sure - I think that RPGPundit is onto something.

Speaking personally, while I enjoy playing a number of Indie RPGs, I find that they push very different buttons for me compared to traditional rpgs. In particular they transfer ownership of the game from the GM to the group as a whole, and because of this the environment of the game is usually 'created as you go along' by the group during play. This is a very different experience to either playing in, or especially GMing a traditional rpg, where so much of the experience is based around the GM creating and owning the environment where the game is played, and doing this work in advance of play.

My point is that you can play a role in a totally GMless game. Where playing your role is a minor bit compared to your world authoring duties, then RPG is perhaps a misnomer, but if the world-authoring bit is minor, then to me it's still an RPG. There are also GM-emulators - which I have not used - which generate world-stuff randomly. Would - say - D&D 3.0 played using a GM emulator be a non-RPG? I think his rule 1 covers these situations perfectly, and there is no need of 2. IMO, if the players spend more of their time creating story and world-stuff than they do playing their roles, then it has crossed the line.

-clash

Well, I disagree with all three of Pundit's points. About the only game I have seen around here which was not an rpg was We All Had Names, which was obviously some sort of teaching/acting tool. Story creation, player narrative control, dark subject matter (with does not negate player agency) are all rpgs IMO. To Glazer's point about Forge games "pushing different buttons" - this has been my experience as well, but this does not mean they are not rpgs. Diceless, GMless etc are just variations of the same theme.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;340660Well, I disagree with all three of Pundit's points. About the only game I have seen around here which was not an rpg was We All Had Names, which was obviously some sort of teaching/acting tool. Story creation, player narrative control, dark subject matter (with does not negate player agency) are all rpgs IMO. To Glazer's point about Forge games "pushing different buttons" - this has been my experience as well, but this does not mean they are not rpgs. Diceless, GMless etc are just variations of the same theme.

Regards,
David R

I suspect you're correct, but I guess it raises the issue of different types or classifications of RPG: narrativist collaborative games, traditional referee-centered games, and collective tale-telling with a shared character games, for example could all be their own specialized subgenres of RPGs in general. I think many people confuse the process for the nature...so if the method by which one role plays does not conform to how a person was taught such, it can be hard to recognize it as just another iteration of the same general form. Also, people might confuse preference for type....I know I've done that, although games like Burning Wheel indisputably opened up my eyes to the idea of alternative methods for delivering the role playing experience that defy traditional conventions. I'm an old school gamer at heart, and so I prefer the conventional "1 GM and a bunch of players" style, but indie games have been coloring outside of that box for a while now.

Quote from: flyingmice;340657My point is that you can play a role in a totally GMless game. Where playing your role is a minor bit compared to your world authoring duties, then RPG is perhaps a misnomer, but if the world-authoring bit is minor, then to me it's still an RPG. There are also GM-emulators - which I have not used - which generate world-stuff randomly. Would - say - D&D 3.0 played using a GM emulator be a non-RPG? I think his rule 1 covers these situations perfectly, and there is no need of 2. IMO, if the players spend more of their time creating story and world-stuff than they do playing their roles, then it has crossed the line.

-clash

To draw from PC games, a computer RPG is just a roleplaying game with a GM emulator built around it. I mean, I love games like Fallout 3 and Mass Effect....I think they definitely fit the bill as role playing games, by engaging in a process of player immersion and world/story simulation.

What if you're playing a "Role Playing Game" such as D&D (any edition) and during the entire session, nobody says anything that is "in character", but simply makes their moves, attack roles, rolls to find traps, decipher scripts, etc. (which is pretty much how our group plays D&D unless the DM goes out of their way to provoke character interaction). Is that "role playing"?

Quote from: David R;340660Well, I disagree with all three of Pundit's points. About the only game I have seen around here which was not an rpg was We All Had Names, which was obviously some sort of teaching/acting tool. Story creation, player narrative control, dark subject matter (with does not negate player agency) are all rpgs IMO. To Glazer's point about Forge games "pushing different buttons" - this has been my experience as well, but this does not mean they are not rpgs. Diceless, GMless etc are just variations of the same theme.

I don't know. I have pretty Catholic tastes where it comes to gaming: rpgs, miniature games, board games, card games, I play them all. Perhaps because of this I tend to put the games into different groups, depending on the buttons they push for me. So, for example, 4e didn't work all that well for me, as it felt like it was pushing my miniature gaming buttons, and that wasn't what I wanted from D&D.

What I've found interesting about the Indie RPGs that I've played is that they didn't seem to be pushing any of the sets of buttons I already had. They pushed a new set of buttons, and I ended up mentally putting them into their own, new, category.

So, for me, if I put the Indie games I play in the same category as the 'rpgs' I've play, then I'd also need to lump them in with all of the card games, board games and miniature games I play too. And that just doesn't seem right.

Quote from: Halfjack;340557If you had a perfect, objective definition, what would you do with it?

Change the arguement from "Is this or is this not a RPG?" to "What kind of RPG is this?", which I think is far more interesting.

The sad truth of this is, under Pundit's definition, Amber Diceless is not an RPG.  Oh, he denies this, but his denials really come down to "because I said so" more than anything else.  

Amber Diceless is as much an RPG as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  But, he likes one of those, and not the other, so works hard to pretend one is totally different from the other when at essence they are the same.

Quote from: Balbinus;340648I don't disagree with his tack, but he goes too far.  His rule b does exclude both Adventure! and Buffy...

Are you sure? I don't see how it does, but I may just be being dense

Quote from: Glazer;340683Are you sure? I don't see how it does, but I may just be being dense

Well, I'm rarely sure about anything, but both include dramatic editing which allows the player to exert direct authorial control over facts within the game world, which I think b prohibits.

Werekoala, I don't know, but if the definition excludes D&D then whatever it is the definition's wrong.

Quote from: Werekoala;340665What if you're playing a "Role Playing Game" such as D&D (any edition) and during the entire session, nobody says anything that is "in character", but simply makes their moves, attack roles, rolls to find traps, decipher scripts, etc. (which is pretty much how our group plays D&D unless the DM goes out of their way to provoke character interaction). Is that "role playing"?

Wrong dichotomy, still interesting. Because the crucial information is missing: do you ONLY engage in the rules, as a close redaing would imply?
I would assume that what you actually do is the ESSENCE of roleplaying:

"How far can Bob the Fighter see?"
"60 ft"
"Okay, so what does the wall look like?"
"Marble, sprinkled with residue of some gooey substance."
"Does Bob what it could be?"
"No."
"Okay, then he gets his grappling hook and..."