RPG Errata: Introduction
So, what’s all this then?
Well, it turns out that people didn’t stop making RPGs once I finished writing and posting The RPG Medium. Go figure. On top of that, it turns out that there are a lot of games that I didn’t see before I wrote the treatise, some of which fit better than the ones I had chosen to support a specific concept or question.
I’m not going to rewrite my old work, but over time enough new RPGs have crossed my path that it makes sense for me to continue the treatise; an Errata, if you will, that brings in new ideas and supports some old ones.
So to start with, I’d like to lay out a few assumptions going forward; things that are important, but aren’t substantial enough to warrant their own post.
The Table
A lot of RPGs have a clear delineation between “Players” and “GM”. It’s an outgrowth of the olden days when RPGs were a new form of board/strategy-game. It’s easy to look at the original D&D booklets, listen to interviews with Gygax, Arneson, et. al., and view D&D not as rules for a specific game, but rather a base set of rules for game-designers to make their own games. Couldn’t you say that Sorry!, Monopoly, and Clue all use the same SRD? Could you not call them “Powered by Backgammon?”
This framing assures that the GM isn’t a player, they are the designer. They make the maps, the monsters, the world, and then stand to the side as the Players jump in. Imagine a video-game where the game-designer sits at their computer, editing the code as you play when you want to try something they hadn’t expected, and you’ll have some idea of what this means.
While I accept this is a valid way of playing RPGs, it’s not the only way, and talking about the GM and Players as separate entities doesn’t make sense when talking about, say, Wanderhome or Alas Vegas; games where the “GM” responsibilities are shared equally. In RPGs where the “players” do as much “GMing” as “playing,” why not call them the GMs instead of players?
And to bring in some language from the kink community: Consent is key when roleplaying. House-rules exist for all games, and because the game-designer is sitting at the table with the players, judgments and rulings are a natural part of play. If GM makes a ruling and the players decide the ruling is wrong or bad, the game can end right there. The GM only “rules” through the consent of the players.
So I won’t be talking about GMs or Players, because those are the same thing, in my framework. Instead I’ll be talking about the Table: the group of people who are sitting down with a shared goal of creating and sharing in a game, in play. Even if they divide themselves into GM and Player roles, their responsibilities are shared.
The Platinum Rule
It really is the best rule: All players share responsibility for making the game fun for everyone. It’s a natural byproduct of viewing the Table as a cohesive group, rather than delineated teams. If you still prefer the GM/Player separation, it’s a recognition that when you sit down to play the game, you’re playtesting, rather than playing a finished product. It’s affirmation that roleplay — like theatre, therapy, and romance — requires other people. No one is playing alone, and the combined efforts of the Table will result in a better experience for everyone.
It’s not just abiding by the rules; this isn’t poker, where you can do whatever you want so long as you don’t cheat. This isn’t football, where fouls and penalties are just part of the game. This is a collaborative project, and collaboration requires…well, working together. It may seem tautological, but I’ll take any chance I get to chip away at the walls we erect to separate our responsibilities to others.
What is a Game?
I brushed past this idea early on in The RPG Medium, fully intending to come back to the idea later, and then…didn’t.
What are we talking about when we discuss an Roleplaying “Game?” Are we talking about the Ruleset? The module/campaign? This evening’s session? Somewhere there is a line that separates the “game” from an instance of the game. Where should that line be drawn? What is the fundamental difference between “The game of D&D,” a game of D&D, and this game of D&D?
Ultimately it’s a bit of a spectrum, and the independent nature of the medium makes it hard to establish a hard-and-fast rule.
On the one hand, an RPG is a rulebook1 that provides a framework. It’s rules that decide what can and cannot occur, and how narratives unfold. With this framework, it is the D&D Player’s Manual that is the game, and everything else that makes your table’s play different from my table’s play is merely part of that game, much like how baseball stadiums can be built very differently, yet still lay claim to being “baseball.”
On the other hand, an RPG is also a set of rulings and judgments. These judgments not only change from table to table but from person to person, if not session to session. With this framework, each evening is its own game, where the rules and practices can shift drastically. Last session was rule-heavy tactical combat, while this session is narrative-focused political intrigue. Warhammer 40k is a different game than BALIKBAYAN, with completely different goals, methods, and rules; so what do we do with Lancer, which combines aspects of both into its mission/downtime framework?
Ultimately, I’d like to avoid the hard-and-fast rule trap, and instead say that an RPG is the entire spectrum. When you are playing an RPG, you are starting from a base set of rules that the table agrees upon, but from that point forward the entire game is malleable. One session will naturally be different than the next, and ultimately becomes its own thing.
While there is a difference between “the game”, “a game”, and “this game,” they are all fundamentally a part of playing the game. To address one without addressing the others is a bit of an absurdity, because…
All RPGs are Hacks
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is the “this game” framework of RPGs, and it’s a framework that goes unaddressed in most discussions of the medium.2 There is a tendency for house-rules to be viewed as an unfortunate necessity. “House-rules” are what you use when the game-designer screwed up, not the point of the whole process.
But RPG rulebooks are sets of tools. There are a hundred ways of handling combat, conflict, chases, obstacles, and relationships in RPGs. If you rely on rulings over rules, then every ruling is its own house-rule. If you rely on rules, choosing which rules apply does the same. Even if you don’t adjust any of the rules and hold the rulebook as the sole arbiter of judgment, each table will play the game differently.
I’ve mentioned Dan Olsen’s Why it’s Rude to Suck at Warcraft video before, and the difference between “Instrumental” and “Free” play. Instrumental play is how certain behaviors can be considered “being good” at a game, while free play is more about personal enjoyment. Free play is building a castle in Minecraft, while instrumental play is getting good enough to beat the final boss.3
D&D doesn’t have a final boss to beat, so D&D as an RPG is focused entirely on free-play. You can’t really “git good” at D&D. At the same time, the Princes of the Apocalypse module does have a final boss, so it does have instrumental play of a sort. But you don’t have to “beat the boss,” you could do anything, and still have the game fundamentally be D&D, and Princes of the Apocalypse.
The point of this framework is to remind RPers that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to play an RPG, beyond what the Table agrees on.
So, with those assumptions firmly in place, where do we go next?
Well, to start with, I’d like to offer some suggestions for applying some of these assumptions to their games. In short, I’d like to talk more about Session Zero.