Post by Aleks Samoylov in Can the RPG Theory well be un-poisoned?

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In my view, and I'm a bit of a broken record about this lately, a lot of the problem stems from the tendency to use theory as prescription. This is not unique to games, but seems to be a greater problem in media that are still comparatively young, vaguely defined, and potentially still insecure in their legitimacy. Instead of saying, "this is what works for me" or "this is what I like," people say, "this is good, that's bad, this matters, that doesn't matter." Sometimes this is an attempt to pin things down, make them less confusing and nebulous, and sometimes it's an attempt to retroactively validate one's own choices. Either way, it does have the tendency to alienate, exclude, and upset people.

There's a reason why couples counselors and support group facilitators encourage people to use "I feel statements" during points of conflict. "I feel like I'm not being heard" and opposed to, "You are not listening to me." It seems silly and cliché, but it really does serve to frame things in a more palatable, less confrontational, and ultimately more realistic way (the other person may, in fact, be listening, but that has no bearing on the fact that the first person does, clearly, feel like they're not being heard).

For me, the physics and aerospace engineering analogy ultimately breaks down when poked, because I see tabletop design as an art and not a science (and I also don't tend to draw a strong distinction between art and craft). A big part of the toxicity, for me personally, seems to result from the conflation of the two very disparate modalities of thought. Though I do understand why people with highly analytical minds, many of whom are in the sciences themselves, might be drawn to that approach, at the end of the day I can't effectively talk about what is essentially a free-floating miasma of dreams and wishes held together by golden string as if it were a set of concrete formulae, compounds, schematics, or equations.

Aerospace Engineering is a field wherein certain immutable laws are impossible to ignore and must be factored in, because they make up the very foundation of physical reality. In engineering, you are trying to make something that "works." In engineering, there are things that are true and things that are false, things that will definitely work, and things that just plain won't. You can't make working jet fuel out of creamed corn and gravel. You can't make a working bridge out of marmalade. Etc.

In the practice of ttrpg design, as in any art form from musical composition to baking, there are no immutable laws. It's basically Calvinball, and I think that that's ultimately a good thing. There are certainly principles that may make the creation of a certain kind of "thing" easier or more reliable for a certain kind of person or purpose, just as there are techniques, for example, to effectively paint trompe l'oeil paintings or harmonious combinations of colors, but there are no Laws Of Design. Even those principles are there on a "take it or leave it" basis. There is no universal or reliable formula for a Good Game. And I strongly suspect that any attempt to find one is doomed to failure.

Things only "work" and "don't work" in relation to a specific individual or a group. Pathfinder simply doesn't "work" for me: to me, its design makes no sense, feels clunky, and has a tendency to direct play in what I perceive to be boring and problematic directions. I personally find Pathfinder to be a poorly designed mess - just a bad game that does almost everything poorly and isn't (to me) worth playing at all (and god knows I've tried). In my eyes, it just plain doesn't work, like a space-shuttle engine cobbled out of used soda cans and fueled by cheese whiz.

And yet it's one of the best selling games on the market and, more importantly, one of the most played. That means that to the people happily playing it and having a grand old time, Pathfinder just plain works. Some of them might contend that it's a very well designed game that does most things well and is extremely worth playing, whereas some of them may think that it's simply good enough for their purposes: they know it, are used to it, and they don't have the time, energy, or money to learn a new system.

And they are all correct, and so am I. No accounting for taste. At the end of the day, there is only one condition that I feel may be necessary for a roleplaying game of any kind to "work," and that's mutual buy-in. Honestly, having just typed that I immediately began to wonder if it IS in fact necessary, and, on comparing it to "willing suspension of disbelief" in other media, I'm starting to think that even that may be subverted or ignored. Some designers may want to make games that purposefully alienate the players, that use mechanics, or lack thereof, to intentionally create frustration of confusion.

And here's the thing, all of that sort of stuff is actually really fun to talk about and theorize about, assuming we don't end up prescribing anything to anyone else, avoid making broad declarative statements about How It's Done, and start focusing on "I wonder if someone might be able to do that," or, "I personally would love to see more games that try this," and so on. "In my opinion, systems don't matter" is still a declarative statement, despite the disclaimer at the beginning. "Systems don't really matter for/to me, in my personal design practice," on the other hand, is less likely to get people up in arms, because you're not telling them that, in your opinion, they are wrong. You are simply saying "I do it this way because it works for me." There's an implied "your mileage may vary" that makes a ton of difference.

I tend to avoid theory discussions mainly because folks often lean towards the former, and at the end of the day I prefer making games to talking about them, but I would enjoy "shop talk" a great deal more if we all just learned to use "I feel" and "I prefer" more often. Of course, on twitter, it would take more characters to type out "Systems don't really inform my personal approach to creating and engaging with the medium" than it would to say, "Systems don't matter."

So I guess, in conclusion, twitter is, as always, to blame.

PS: I don't playtest any of my games, and I sell them for money. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

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GameMaru3 years ago(+3)

I see tabletop design as an art and not a science

And aircraft design isn't an art? A lot of aircraft designers would probably be surprised by that take! My view is that engineering has elements of both science and art.

In the practice of ttrpg design, as in any art form from musical composition to baking, there are no immutable laws.

It's interesting that you chose baking as an example, in lots of shows I've seen that focus on baking they stress that it's a much more scientific discipline than cooking since there's a lot of chemistry that goes on while baking so recipes matter a lot more.

Things only "work" and "don't work" in relation to a specific individual or a group.

Presumably you're aware that this itself is a definitive statement. Personally I think relativism and treating everything as utterly subjective goes too far. I agree that people shouldn't be jerks about asserting that they have answers they don't really have. But I also think that presupposing that everything is arbitrary entails that game design (or cooking) is not a craft or skill that can be learned or developed, and I disagree with that. Asserting that everything is due to individual differences among people or groups seems to me like jumping to a conclusion.

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Hardcore Narrativist3 years ago(+3)

I'm not sure I can effectively put it into words, but I have the impression that both statements ("Things only 'work' and 'don't work' in relation to a specific individual or a group" and "game design is a skill that can be learned or developed") can be true at the same time. There are many aesthetics, goals, and styles of games and play, and many different player expectations. I think the first statement basically means that games are not objectively good or bad, which I agree with. The second statement I also agree with: you can get better at expressing certain aesthetics and designing for certain principles or player expectations.

Although I have never actually played Pathfinder, I have the impression that I wouldn't like it and that I would have specific gripes about its design, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad game. It maybe makes it a bad game for me and for the outcomes I expect from such a game. So one could argue about whether or not its design is good for the style of play it wants to produce/encourage, and that could teach us some things about design. But because people want different things from a game, ultimately games will always "work" or "not work" only for specific people.

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Aleks Samoylov3 years ago(+1)

Yeah, I definitely agree that the two are not mutually exclusive. And the upshot of that, broadly speaking, is that I personally am not interested in "debate" (as distinct from discussion) because I feel like at the end of the day a debate on any art form, when given enough time and energy, will always devolve into "relativism vs. empiricism," and trust me I've already been made to sit through way too many hours of art school students and professors literally screaming at each other, sometimes nearly coming to blows, about that very topic, while all I wanted to do was go back to the studio and work. I feel that debate, which I essentially discussion with the specific intention of convincing someone else that you're right and they are wrong, leads to conversations getting mired in particulars and to the participants scouring the thread, the internet, and their local library (god, I miss libraries ...) for "gotchas" to spring on one another.

(Note: the following Big Wall of Text is intentionally a Big Wall of Text. Most of it is basically just one long sentence intended to be read in a single breath. It's intended as kind of a joke about the way these conversations can spiral, in my experience. Sometimes (often) I do write too much. I kind of get into a groove, and it's just how my brain works. Sadly, this can often be interpreted as hostile online. In reality, it usually does mean that I am interested in or excited by what I am writing, but does not mean that I am feeling overwhelmed with internet rage or negative vibes or wishes of any kind. It's a curse, but I find that adding these disclaimers can sometimes help prevent people from taking my longer posts or emails as indicators of any particular kind of emotion. Yeah, I do have clinical OCD and am definitely on the spectrum).

For example, baking was a very imperfect word choice, but it was one word out of hundreds, and whether or not baking is a science or an art is ultimately going to lead down rabbit holes that might be fun to explore among friends, but can risk causing misunderstandings and irritating people when they're still essentially internet strangers if they are not extremely careful to emphasize that their perception is merely that, perception. Our discussion here was, originally, about reducing toxicity and acrimony in discussions of theory, so, *DEEP BREATH* having slid off topic, the rabbit hole becomes even less fun and more perilous, as suddenly we're in the weeds again, arguing over whether relativism goes too far or if it can coexist with the notion of "craft," and then we have to talk about definitions for the term "craft" and that's a whole can of worms, and that will probably lead us back towards value judgments, since it's very difficult to discuss craft without exploring the concepts of value, of good and bad, pleasant or unpleasant, etc. and then we inevitably end up back at baking again, and I probably say that, in my view, baking is an art form/craft that relies on the fundaments of reality, such as chemistry, to be possible in the first place (true of pretty much everything), and then someone else would make a compelling case for it being an applied science, albeit not one with utilitarian applications, and then I'd quote Oscar Wilde and talk about how "all art is essentially useless" and relate it to the concept of science, engineering, and utility, then someone would bring up the harmony between form and function, and we might get back to the aircraft analogy, so now I take the opportunity to address the argument about aircraft design as an artform (which is in itself a good argument) by pointing out that we were talking about engineering, which is, by definition, a means of solving problems for utilitarian ends, and while aircraft design overlaps with engineering (aerodynamics), it is nevertheless unrelated to any of the points made above, as the most beautiful aircraft in the world is ultimately a sculpture if it can't reliably and safely get off the ground, it has to work, and it has to work consistently, correctly, and in accordance with the laws of physics or people will die, so someone else would then come in and say that the two are not extricable from one another, and that games need an "engine" as well, and that the most poetic Sword Dream game in the world is ultimately a poem without solid mechanics, and then we'd have to talk about which mechanics are considered solid and which are considered frivolous, and someone would chime in and say that mechanics must serve the nature of the game in question, its genre, narrative intent, and the style of experience we want to encourage players to have, and now we're almost back in our own territory, where maybe we can talk about the somewhat unique challenges of making a work/piece/object the purpose of which is to facilitate the telling of stories that we ourselves will likely never hear, and that's cool for a while, at least for me, because now we're back to games again, but then we still haven't resolved the relativism issue, since the argument about mechanics serving a purpose is inherently divisive, and the Lyric Games folks are feeling excluded again, because someone suggested that their work is less valid if it adheres to the more fundamental tenets of their very movement, and currently a sizeable contingent of Lyric Games people belong to marginalized groups, so now we're in an argument about cultural and political norms and gatekeeping, but then the OSR people start to feel like their craft is being reduced to wishy washy, structureless nonsense, and then we're back to relativism vs. empiricism / absolutism / etc., and everyone is sad and confused and offended, and everyone is tired because the conversation is going in circles and is becoming increasingly distorted and abstract with each consecutive cycle, and then someone inevitably brings up the fact that "everything is relative" is, paradoxically, and absolutist statement, and then we have to talk about dialectical paradoxes in general, and then, and then, and then, and, and, and ... *GASP*

As y'all can see, toxicity in discourse is something that I think about a lot, and it's not really an easy problem to solve. It's a whopper of thread already, and I think there are only three or four of us here right now. And some very good points have been made by everyone, but there's so much to navigate.

Personally, I feel like the semantic "is a hot dog a sandwich" labyrinth can, again, be a fun time with close friends ... for a while (we all know how tedious that game can get after a few turns), but is potentially a minefield when talking with peers that one doesn't have a personal connection with just yet and who clearly do things very differently, and for whom doing things in that way just plain works. For me, the big challenge is in figuring out a balance between outright denying ourselves the potential pleasure and edification that can come with shop talk, discussion, theory, and exchange, both with likeminded designers and those belonging to radically different schools of thought, and pouring poison back into the well. That's the thing that I can't seem to definitively get a grasp on. There has to be a way to maintain the former without allowing it to devolve into the latter.

In my personal view, and again, I can't claim that it's necessarily correct, whatever our opinions on the excesses of relativism or absolutism may be, we may ultimately have to function within a very relativistic space, and formulate our discussions accordingly. Again, prescription , even when presented with good intentions, feels pretty bad when it's framed in absolute terms. I don't think any one designer will ever be able to convince another designer that something that they are doing is "wrong" when it's clearly been working for them and is, in fact, a major part of their personal philosophy, design modality, or "school of thought." Or, rather, I don't think any one designer will ever be able to convince another designer of the above *without hurting them in the process:* there are many people in the field who will likely give the authority of others priority over their own inner voice and, if their own practice, wants, or needs do not align with that voice of authority, will allow their imposter syndrome to deeply discourage them. They may then end up forcing themselves to work in a way they find unsuitable and unpleasant, simply because they think it's "right," or may write themselves off entirely and leave the design space, convincing themselves that they were simply "not cut out for it."

I do think there are practical skills that are involved in the craft of ttrpgs (especially in the indie space, where we often end up having to do everything from layout to copywriting on our own), and, as I mentioned above, there are design principles that are worth passing on, teaching, learning, and applying because they may aid one in developing a particular kind of experience. But principles that may apply to most Lyric Games may very well not apply to most OSR games and vice versa. In some cases this will be true and in some cases this will be false.

So whether or not one may personally believe that there is a prescriptible methodology for good game design, or even just a prescriptable methodology for good OSR design, or good PbTA design, and so on, I think toxicity and acrimony are best avoided by avoiding prescription in "mixed company" (so, most generalized online design spaces, including twitter and this forum and whatever else exists) and accepting the fact that everyone is going to be bringing their own theory into it, that everyone feels passionate about what they are doing, and unpoisoning the well is mostly about making sure people feel welcome and do not feel attacked on a personal or ontological level.

I don't know. Just my two thousand cents on the matter.

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Aleks Samoylov3 years ago(+1)

On a side note, I do think that the forum format has the advantage of very clearly delineated categories/sub-forums, which can help set expectations to an extent. When one goes into the DnD forum, for example, one can reasonably expect discussions of DnD, which, like all systems, has its own set of core assumptions, problems, and values. And, since I rarely have anything nice to say about DnD, I would likely not spend much time in there (except for moderation purposes, obviously). Participants should of course still always try to avoid stepping on toes, but at least they can be aware of the parameters of their discussion based on where they are posting. Now, I definitely don't think we can solve the whole issue simply by keeping things on topic by category (and this forum is not currently active enough for all of those categories to get much play), but that is still something we can take advantage of.

I can't create new sub-forums at will, but I can ask the good folks at itch if we want to make changes to the structure of the forum. They are generally fairly responsive and quick. So do let me know if there are any categories your think might be useful to have or are missing.

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GameMaru3 years ago

I feel like at the end of the day a debate on any art form, when given enough time and energy, will always devolve into "relativism vs. empiricism," and trust me I've already been made to sit through way too many hours of art school students and professors literally screaming at each other, sometimes nearly coming to blows, about that very topic, while all I wanted to do was go back to the studio and work.

Here's an idea: how about we ask the relativists to let the empiricists try to do the work that empiricists think they can do in peace rather than being screamed at by relativists? If the empiricists are wrong their own work should eventually do a good job of demonstrating it. If it's all fantasy then what's the harm in letting them fantasize in peace?

Personally I feel that the "nothing can ever be said to work better than anything else" position is far more aggressive than most theory ideas I've seen articulated, and it's often tossed around without any of the "I feel that..." "It's my opinion that..." "I could be wrong, but..." caveats that anti-Theory people often insist on from others. I think it is fundamentally anti-game-design: If I make a change to a game I'm designing that I believe makes it "work better", are you claiming that I'm deluding myself, and that neither version works better or worse than the other? It is not an intrinsically friendly, neutral position, it is making strong claims.

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Aleks Samoylov3 years ago(+2)

The question here was not which one is better or worse, or which one is right or wrong, or even what views, in the past, you have found to be inherently aggressive because certain unidentified people didn't preface their statements as I personally suggest they should have. It's not about the specific chips on our specific shoulders.

The question you posed at the top of the thread was "Can the RPG Theory well be unpoisoned?" If we are to answer that question we have to ask ourselves how to do that for everyone who comes to it in good faith (with the obvious caveats that bigotry of any kind is not tolerated). It's not about making sure that your viewpoint is accepted as truth. It's about making sure that people with different viewpoints feel comfortable and show one another courtesy, respect, and understanding.

I am not implying that anyone has to actually buy into my philosophy (and I am not a strict relativist, by the way - I simply think that if certain rules or systems work *for* someone, even if that's just one person, then they have a valid reason to exist, and that most configurations can work *for* either specific people or a specific purpose). My point was that even if you privately think someone is dead wrong, let them, as you put it, do the work they think they can do in peace, without being screamed at by anyone.

Nobody should be trying to keep someone from doing what they want to do if what they want to do isn't hurting anybody, and that also means that, when you're out there talking theory, it might help to avoid "yucking their yum," so to speak.

And let's be realistic, as passionate as we might get about the topic, game design really isn't a life or death affair - we can afford to let other people hold vastly different ideas about the process of design because at the end of the day we aren't commanding troops, building jet engines, or developing vaccines. What we do has value, but it's not something that warrants vitriol.

Again, what I am speaking to right now has nothing to do with actual game design, because this topic was not about game design but rather about how we discuss it. This is not about what methodologies, systems, approaches, or "factions" are right or wrong. This is about making sure that when people do talk about those thing, they can do so without their blood pressure going up (because that can cause actual harm).

And to that effect, I am more than happy to make some definitive statements. Like I said, not a strict relativist. I try to be pragmatic.

I feel that in some cases, hard lines must be drawn so that people don't get hurt. How one comports oneself among one's peers is subject to that principle for me. I am not interested in creating needless anxiety for people just because someone thinks dice pool resolution mechanics are inherently better than reading the shapes in the clouds. It's not worth it. So I am more than happy to make a strong statement on that: let them do their work in peace and if you can't simply respect one another's approaches and engage without prescribing, do not engage.

I also feel that in some cases, drawing a hard line will in fact be counterproductive and will result in more anxiety. The example above works for this purpose too, as it contains both scenarios in one. It's not worth insisting that dice pool mechanics are inherently better, even if you think they are. The way we talk to each other has the potential to do harm, and has to be approached with that in mind. If we want to avoid toxicity, we have to draw hard lines, establish certain norms. The way we design games, on the other hand, is, frankly, our own business at the end of the day. It isn't worth it to cross the lines or violate the norms established in the previous "step" for the sake of dice pools. Let the other person do the work they think they can do in peace.

This topic, I thought, was about exchanging ideas about theory in a way that doesn't lead people to dread reading the replies to a post they made in good faith, and your question was "can we do that."

I think we probably can. Whether or not we will is a different matter entirely.

In any case, I'm probably going to retire myself from this particular thread going forward. When I am into a topic and passionate about it, it can be a bit of a double edged sword. I just can't keep myself from writing novellas every time. I think at this point I've articulated what I wanted to and will just end up going in a circle if I keep at it.

Everything having been said, I really appreciate what everyone's brought to this discussion so far, and would like to thank the OP for starting it up, even if we seem to disagree on certain points.

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