Tabletop Role Playing Grows Up

[WFreitag@aol.com]

About two years ago I decided to renew my interest in tabletop role playing 
games, which (as I have mentioned in many posts to this list) was one of the 
paths that led me to interactive storytelling as a creative pursuit many 
years ago. Four months ago I was surprised to discover that after decades of 
relative stagnation in that field, at least one online group of role playing 
game designers, authors, and participants has recently (within the past two 
years or so) begun breaking new ground at a phenomenal rate. This group, 
which congregates at a site called The Forge, has been actively engaged in 
developing intellectually rigorous theory and terminology of role playing 
games, and putting that theory into practice in inventing playable games. The 
theory overlaps significantly some of the same areas as current theory in 
Interactive Storytelling, Interactive Drama, Interactive Fiction, and 
Narrative Intelligence. 

The site is http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php.

Areas of discussion that are of possible interest to idrama folk include: 

- The Gamist/Simulationist/Narrativist or GNS model of role playing games, 
which sorts out the different types of decision-making criteria participants 
use during play. This is something IS has barely begun to examine. 

- The notion of protagonization, which identifies and sums up in one term a 
fundamental problem with most interactive storytelling systems (including 
most mass-market role playing games). I believe Erasmateers, especially, 
should find this enlightening. It even sheds new light on some old 
foundational concepts. For example, a strong case could be made that the real 
problem with the "tree of death" branching story structure is not that the 
dead-end branches end the story, but that they deprotagonize the 
player-character. 

- The designs of some of the independent games themselves. Many are 
"narrativist" games meaning that they’re designed for players whose main 
concern is storytelling. Some of them are very concise systems whose rules 
often exist primarily to give structure to cooperative storytelling efforts. 
The most referenced in discussion are probably The Pool and InSpectres. 
Others are full-blown role playing game systems with all the conventional 
trappings, but with rules and approaches that revolutionize the actual play 
as a creative process. The Riddle of Steel and Hero Wars are the most 
extensively discussed examples. And there’s Sorceror, which is in a way the 
center of gravity of all the ideas discussed at the site. These designs, the 
theory behind them, and their significance are discussed in detail in 
specialized threads as well as being touchstones for the general discussion. 

- Practical concepts including stance, railroading, illusionism, 
drama/fortune/karma resolution mechanisms, conflict resolution vs. task 
resolution, bangs and kickers, currency, and others that have close parallels 
(but generally lack consistent terminology for them) in IS. 

As is usual when arriving at a site where discussion has already been going 
on for more than a year, there’s a daunting amount of material confronting 
the newcomer. A seminal article that introduces much of the terminology 
begins at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/gns/gns_introduction.html. To 
get an idea of the tenor of discussion, try this thread: 
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2000 (nothing particularly 
special about it, except I was a participant and it's a reasonable example of 
the intellectual tone maintained on the boards). 

I would encourage people to not be shy about joining into areas of discussion 
that strike your interest. The Forge correpsondents have proven, in my 
experience, very patient in helping newcomers catch up on the specialized 
terminology and on past areas of debate, especially those making an honset 
effort to comprehend the issues. I do recommend, though, that those inclined 
to post first read the local etiquette rules at: 
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1604. (For example, many 
newcomers have accidentally fallen afoul of the rule against resurrecting old 
threads with new posts, and though no one will hold a grudge if you make that 
mistake, it can be embarrassing.) 

Since the issue of communication is once again under discussion here, I 
should also mention that I believe that apart from its actual content, The 
Forge is also a useful model for how interdisciplinary communication can be 
facilitated. The GNS theory at The Forge lays out a terminology of useful 
specialized definitions that discussion is generally expected to adhere to, 
even though many do not fully embrace the theory itself. There’s no official 
glossary, but correspondents learn the technology in context, and errors in 
usage are pointed out as such. This sounds like it could stifle ideas but so 
far, from what I’ve seen in practice, it does the opposite. Free discussion 
is greatly facilitated by not having every participant start out by telling 
everyone else they’re wrong about what a "story" really is. Terminology is 
frequently discussed overtly, but such discussion has far less tendency to go 
in circles than I’ve seen elsewhere. What makes it all work is that 
discussion is closely moderated by one individual, not for content but for 
clarity and focus, much in the manner of a college seminar. 

This community, arising from a field so long stagnant, and achieving so much 
in terms of both formulating useful theories and producing demonstrable 
results, is very inspiring to me. I believe it's worth a very close look, and 
is well worth the effort that taking such a close look requires. Even for 
those who have had, in the past, reason to believe that tabletop role playing 
games held no interest for them. 

Best,
Walt