Against Method, or, The End Of All Typology
Bruce Baugh
Note: I'm going out on a limb here. To save myself a bunch of phrases,
I'm writing here with more definiteness than I generally feel. Part of
this is a deliberate rhetorical ploy to give myself room to give up
ground :-)
It's occurred to me on and off that all efforts to produce a universal
taxonomy of rolegaming are doomed, because they depend on some
assumptions that simply aren't true. I want here to spell out some of
those assumptions, and challenge them explicitly.
1. People are self-aware enough to know just what it is that they like,
don't like, and don't care about in their gaming.
Now, hold on a sec, this isn't an insult. Rather, I intend to point at
the complexity of the situation and the fallibility of memory. Any
gaming session involves a lot more than disembodied intellects dealing
with each other - there's the physical environment, the preexisting
social interactions, one's physical (and mental and spiritual)
well-being, the whole deal.
1a. The directly game-related aspects of the situation are vastly more
important than the others.
The more I think about this, the more it isn't true in my own
experience. There are a number of people on rec.games.frp.* who have
styles of play very different from my own...but I'd gladly jump at a
chance to play with them. I enjoy them as people, enough so that the
game differences get smoothed over.
2. We can accurately interpret others' intentions, and judge both
whether the results lived up to them and how much we value either
intentions or results.
I can't be the only one who's compared notes with the other people
involved in a session and found wildly different, even downright
contradictory views. And this of the actual physical events, let alone
intentions.
3. Categories of game elements exist in both enough discreteness to be
meaningful and small enough number that we can talk about them.
Not to get too terribly Fortean here, but a lot of things _don't_ come
in discrete bundles. I'm somewhat inclined to guess that gaming style is
as diversified as the spectrum, but without the advantage of primary
colors - each element is as "fundamental" as the next.
And where there's been a tendency to play Dueling Taxonomies - this
scheme _or_ that - it seems to me at least possible (and just right now
quite probable) that in fact all the styles ever identified in these
threads exist. Quarks, anyone?
Insofar as a taxonomy is possible at all, I think that it would need to
start at a far more basic level than any I've seen so far, and to take
up the real-world questions of personality and environment. But even if
we did this, I'm unconvinced that we really can hammer out anything more
precise than "I like these things, and you like those things, which sort
of overlap here, here, and here".
Bruce Baugh <*> br...@aracnet.com <*> http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce
See my Web pages for
New science fiction by Steve Stirling and George Alec Effing er
Christlib, the mailing list for Christian and libertarian concerns
Daedalus Games, makers of Shadowfist and Feng Shui
John H Kim
Hmmm. Bruce has gone off a bit against attempts towards
"universal taxonomy". Personally, I agree that the taxonomies are
of limited usefulness -- but then, how many things are of *unlimited*
usefullness beside duct tape?
There is a direct and practical problem in gaming -- in that
it is a social activity with an unclear sort of contract between the
people. Often a player will get a vaguely dissatisfied feeling about
a game, but he doesn't really know what annoyed him -- or conversely,
he really liked a particular game, but has trouble reproducing that
because he doesn't know what exactly made that game so good.
-*-*-*-
Bruce Baugh <br...@aracnet.com> wrote:
>It's occurred to me on and off that all efforts to produce a universal
>taxonomy of rolegaming are doomed, because they depend on some
>assumptions that simply aren't true.
Just because we invent taxonomies doesn't mean that we believe
in the absolute dominance of only those categories -- this isn't particle
physics, after all. Rather, we invent the taxonomies to help us
*express* what sort of things we like and dislike about these games.
_My_ hope would be that the taxonomies would help players
understand and express what they want out of the game to the GM -- and
conversely help the GM to explain to prospective players what his
game is like.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
[Re: False assumptions made by "Universal Taxonomies"]
>
>1a. The directly game-related aspects of the situation are vastly more
>important than the others.
This is only a partial assumption -- That is, no one has seen
fit to tackle the non-game-related aspects of the situation, hence it
has been neglected. We might start asking questions like: what sort
of people do you like gaming with?
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>And where there's been a tendency to play Dueling Taxonomies - this
>scheme _or_ that - it seems to me at least possible (and just right now
>quite probable) that in fact all the styles ever identified in these
>threads exist. Quarks, anyone?
Much of the debate has simply been over semantics -- i.e. what
is the most appropriate name for such-and-such a style? The debates
are more over how to refer to styles and how to break them up than
over the *existance*.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>Insofar as a taxonomy is possible at all, I think that it would need to
>start at a far more basic level than any I've seen so far, and to take
>up the real-world questions of personality and environment. But even if
>we did this, I'm unconvinced that we really can hammer out anything more
>precise than "I like these things, and you like those things, which sort
>of overlap here, here, and here".
Well, that's pretty damn precise, IMO. What more would you
expect out of a taxonomy? The ultimate product is simply to help
people find games they like -- or more specifically, to help a
group of people find a game which will satisfy them all the most.
Taxonomies at the "basic level", though, I think is biting
off far more than we can chew. I think it is helpful to divide
things up into somewhat more understandable categories like genre,
goals of play, narrative stances, etc.
As I see it, spontaneously coming up with a taxonomy which
would cover things from the "most basic level" is extremely difficult.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kim | "Faith - Faith is an island in the setting sun.
jh...@columbia.edu | But Proof - Proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Columbia University | - Paul Simon, _Proof_
Andrew Finch
John H Kim (jh...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu) wrote:
: Hmmm. Bruce has gone off a bit against attempts towards
: of limited usefulness -- but then, how many things are of *unlimited*
: usefullness beside duct tape?
Ah, a kitten and a roll of duct tape. :)
David
Bruce Baugh
>: of limited usefulness -- but then, how many things are of *unlimited*
>: usefullness beside duct tape?
>
>Ah, a kitten and a roll of duct tape. :)
Ah ha! Clearly you are Scott Ruggels! :-)
Karen J. Cravens
>: Hmmm. Bruce has gone off a bit against attempts towards
>: "universal taxonomy". Personally, I agree that the taxonomies are
>: usefullness beside duct tape?
>
>Ah, a kitten and a roll of duct tape. :)
You're weird, David, and clearly you got hold of my cat while he was
young: given the choice, he would subsist on a diet of tape.
Scotch brand cellophane tape is best, but he'll settle for masking
tape, duct tape, you name it. It's a particular delicacy when full
of his own fur (the better to make hairballs, one assumes), so the
proper method of feeding is to stick it securely to him, the more
inaccessible the better. Back of the head is best. Duct tape is
useful during gaming sessions, because without something better to
do, he'll recline in the middle of the GM's notes, the players'
notes, the hexmap if one's out, on top of Cardboard Heroes(tm) even
better. He's also a strong advocate of diced play, as long as he
gets to make all the rolls. Come to think of it, maybe you didn't
influence him early after all.
Silver
--........................................................................
Keeper of the Phoenyx Roleplaying Listserver
majo...@phoenyx.southwind.net
..........................................................................
Mark Grundy
In article <4njrrp$1ck...@marid.friedlander-bey.org>, br...@aracnet.com
(Bruce Baugh) writes:
> It's occurred to me on and off that all efforts to produce a universal
taxonomy of rolegaming are doomed, because they depend on some
assumptions that simply aren't true. I want here to spell out some of
those assumptions, and challenge them explicitly.
I like taxonomies when they're kept in perspective. By having words
for different elements of style and different dramatic devices, I can
think about different ways to get my games across, and choose one I like
best. It also gives me some way of relating my experiences in playing
other peoples' games to my experiences in running my own.
Universal taxonomies don't appeal to me though. Our purposes in
playing are very different, and we want our taxonomies to reflect that.
It would make me very grumpy if someone classified me as a high X/low Y
player. I'd see such a classification as dismissive and prejudiced,
since my roleplaying interests grow as my experience grows.
Having said that, I confess to having been caught up in eighties in
aus.games.roleplay, in the same dramatic/simulation debate thing that
bubbles periodically in this group. After all the flurry died down
there, what I discovered was that I could and did use devices from both
camps in my games, when my purposes demanded it, and so the taxonomy
wasn't as powerful as I'd thought was at the time.
The main use of taxonomy for me is to highlight devices that anyone
can use, and not to identify competing `schools'. I think that founding
and promoting `isms' in roleplaying is a waste of time. Better to just
document your methods, and let people use whatever bits they like, and
ignore what bits they don't.
Regards,
Mark
--
Dr Mark Grundy, Phone: +61-6-249 0159
Education Co-ordinator, Fax: +61-6-249 0747
CRC for Advanced Computational Systems,
The Australian National University,
0200 Australia Email: ma...@cisr.anu.edu.au
Rodney Payne
br...@aracnet.com (Bruce Baugh) writes:
>It's occurred to me on and off that all efforts to produce a universal
>taxonomy of rolegaming are doomed
Yes, a universal typology is a bit much.
>1. People are self-aware enough to know just what it is that they like,
>don't like, and don't care about in their gaming.
This seems self-evident, but I wonder whether it's entirely true. I, for
one, have been able to crystalise my preferences more strongly because of
the discussions here.
>Now, hold on a sec, this isn't an insult. Rather, I intend to point at
>the complexity of the situation and the fallibility of memory. Any
>gaming session involves a lot more than disembodied intellects dealing
>with each other - there's the physical environment, the preexisting
>social interactions, one's physical (and mental and spiritual)
>well-being, the whole deal.
>1a. The directly game-related aspects of the situation are vastly more
>important than the others.
>The more I think about this, the more it isn't true in my own
>experience. There are a number of people on rec.games.frp.* who have
>styles of play very different from my own...but I'd gladly jump at a
>chance to play with them. I enjoy them as people, enough so that the
>game differences get smoothed over.
I feel similarly, but a caveat: I often find myself enjoying the company
of friends with differeing roleplaying preferences, but not so much the
games themselves. This dissatisfaction can increase over time. (This
isn't a huge issue for me, because I have no set preferences, but I know
many players for whom it is.)
>2. We can accurately interpret others' intentions, and judge both
>whether the results lived up to them and how much we value either
>intentions or results.
>I can't be the only one who's compared notes with the other people
>involved in a session and found wildly different, even downright
>contradictory views. And this of the actual physical events, let alone
>intentions.
I've had this experience too, many times, but this seems to me *more*
reason to try and hammer out exactly what our differing preferences are.
It's much harder to produce a satisfying game if I have no idea about my
players' preferences or how they see the end result.
Of course, as I said in a recent reply to Mark, for gamers who are not
too concerned how their games turn out, the plotting typology, and no
doubt other typologies, are of limited usefulness.
>3. Categories of game elements exist in both enough discreteness to be
>meaningful and small enough number that we can talk about them.
>Not to get too terribly Fortean here, but a lot of things _don't_ come
>in discrete bundles. I'm somewhat inclined to guess that gaming style is
>as diversified as the spectrum, but without the advantage of primary
>colors - each element is as "fundamental" as the next.
Yes, but there are certainly techniques or styles which have much in
common, and these can be grouped together. There are advantages to this:
if three `techniques' each have the same and only the same drawbacks, and
a player is happy with one and not the others, it may be efficacious to
point this out - thus increasing the options in a given game.
>And where there's been a tendency to play Dueling Taxonomies - this
>scheme _or_ that - it seems to me at least possible (and just right now
>quite probable) that in fact all the styles ever identified in these
>threads exist. Quarks, anyone?
No doubt they do. The more explanations the better, I say.
>Insofar as a taxonomy is possible at all, I think that it would need to
>start at a far more basic level than any I've seen so far, and to take
>up the real-world questions of personality and environment. But even if
>we did this, I'm unconvinced that we really can hammer out anything more
>precise than "I like these things, and you like those things, which sort
>of overlap here, here, and here".
I don't think a typology need start at the basics to be useful - that
seems to fall into the trap of reductionism. Better, perhaps, to keep the
typologies we do have very specific - this way, the specialist language
that they use will hopefully not become confusing or meaningless by
diffusing into general use.
--
Rodney Payne | The artist should organise his life. Here
| is a precise record of the time taken by
spur...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au | my daily chores: I get up at 7.18,
rgp...@cfs01.cc.monash.edu.au | inspiration 10.23 to 11.47.... Eric Satie
Scott Taylor
pho...@southwind.net (Karen J. Cravens) wrote:
>In article <4nq9ip$i...@crl.crl.com>, bcks...@crl.com (Andrew Finch) wrote:
>>John H Kim (jh...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu) wrote:
>>: Hmmm. Bruce has gone off a bit against attempts towards
>>: "universal taxonomy". Personally, I agree that the taxonomies are
>>: of limited usefulness -- but then, how many things are of *unlimited* usefullness beside duct tape?
>>
>>Ah, a kitten and a roll of duct tape. :)
>
>You're weird, David, and clearly you got hold of my cat while he was
gunk)
Karin, Your cat's weird.... :-)
I have been blessed, apparently, with cats that are totally uninterested
in gaming except as regards the polymorphous permutations of
unanticipated directional vectors that can be arranged by the
surreptitous impact of a feline's perambulating appendages against a
variety of garishly decorated polyhedric solids. :-)
(and I didn't even use a dinosaur-that-knows-a-lot-of-words, either)
Scott Taylor
Rodney Payne
ma...@arp.anu.edu.au (Mark Grundy) writes:
> Universal taxonomies don't appeal to me though. Our purposes in
> playing are very different, and we want our taxonomies to reflect that.
I not sure that anyone is proposing a Unified Theory of Roleplaying - I
think Bruce has been somewhat misunderstood here (by me as well, I
confess). Nonetheless, I don't see that a well conceived typology of any
scope need necessarily fail to reflect our varied interests. If anything,
such a model should ideally succeed in crystalising those differences.
> Having said that, I confess to having been caught up in eighties in
> aus.games.roleplay, in the same dramatic/simulation debate thing that
> bubbles periodically in this group. After all the flurry died down
> there, what I discovered was that I could and did use devices from both
> camps in my games, when my purposes demanded it, and so the taxonomy
> wasn't as powerful as I'd thought was at the time.
> The main use of taxonomy for me is to highlight devices that anyone
> can use, and not to identify competing `schools'. I think that founding
> and promoting `isms' in roleplaying is a waste of time. Better to just
> document your methods, and let people use whatever bits they like, and
> ignore what bits they don't.
I agree that the purpose of a typology is not to set competing schools
against one another, or to exclude other `groups' from a variety of
techniques. However, I'll take this opportunity and attempt to clarify a
common misnomer about the Plotting Typology proposed by Leon and myself.
The model looks at two approaches to plotting - Dramatic and Directed -
and provides a rough measure of the extent to which either is present in
any given game. As such, the opposite ends of the axes - Realist and
Natural - are not themselves defined by the presence of an opposing
cluster of techniques, but the absence of the approaches to plotting
found at the opposite ends of the scales. This misunderstanding is most
prevailant in the use of the term `simulationist', which is characterised
by the absence of both Dramatic and Directed techniques, and is not a
cluster of separate methods opposed to Drama and Direction.
I'll repost an explanation of the Plotting Typology in a few days to help
clear this up further.
Bruce Baugh
In article <spurious....@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au>, spur...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Rodney Payne) wrote:
>This seems self-evident, but I wonder whether it's entirely true. I, for
>one, have been able to crystalise my preferences more strongly because of
>the discussions here.
I'm the same way - the views of others help me define my own, both
positively ("yeah, what she said!") and negatively ("he must be kidding,
I don't see that at all").
> Of course, as I said in a recent reply to Mark, for gamers who are not
>too concerned how their games turn out, the plotting typology, and no
>doubt other typologies, are of limited usefulness.
Right. I'm one of these myself - I like to set up situations and what
will happen _if the PCs do nothing_, and then see what happens when
things run together.
Ennead
Karen J. Cravens (pho...@southwind.net) wrote:
: In article <4nq9ip$i...@crl.crl.com>, bcks...@crl.com (Andrew Finch) wrote:
: >Ah, a kitten and a roll of duct tape. :)
: You're weird, David, and clearly you got hold of my cat while he was
: young...
<Sarah, just taking that first ecstatic sip of her morning coffee,
chokes and splutters, making one hell of a mess of her keyboard>
Er...
No. Never mind. I'm speechless.
Scott Taylor
<Snicker>
<Chuckle>
<Guffaw>
buahhhahaahaaahhaaaaaaa....
I *gotta* stop reading this damn newsgroup at work; people are starting
to wonder what the hell I'm doing with this PowerMac o' mine. :-)
Sorry about the keyboard though...
Scott Taylor
hoping this will be enough lines
Scott. A. H. Ruggels
> >: usefullness beside duct tape?
> >
>
>
> See my Web pages for
> New science fiction by Steve Stirling and George Alec Effing er
> Christlib, the mailing list for Christian and libertarian concerns
> Daedalus Games, makers of Shadowfist and Feng Shui
Scott
Ennead
Rodney Payne (spur...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au) wrote:
: I agree that the purpose of a typology is not to set competing schools
: against one another, or to exclude other `groups' from a variety of
: techniques.
Yay!
: However, I'll take this opportunity and attempt to clarify a
: common misnomer about the Plotting Typology proposed by Leon and myself.
: The model looks at two approaches to plotting - Dramatic and Directed -
: and provides a rough measure of the extent to which either is present in
: any given game. As such, the opposite ends of the axes - Realist and
: Natural - are not themselves defined by the presence of an opposing
: cluster of techniques, but the absence of the approaches to plotting
: found at the opposite ends of the scales. This misunderstanding is most
: prevailant in the use of the term `simulationist', which is characterised
: by the absence of both Dramatic and Directed techniques, and is not a
: cluster of separate methods opposed to Drama and Direction.
Even though you're my guru-of-the-month, Rodney, I have to quibble
with this. I consider a "plotting technique" to be any technique used to
determine what events happen in the game. I would consider Locational
Timetabling to be a Natural plot technique.
(Locational Timetabling is when the GM decides, for example, that
the Festival of Sponges takes place in the village of Garganzola during the
first week of the month. Should the PCs wander into Garganzola in this
time period, the Festival will be in progress; should they arrive right
before the festival is scheduled, preparations will be in progress;
should they arrive at the village the day after the festival ends,
the streets will be a mess and the locals will all have hang-overs; and
so forth.)
I can see that this argument might beg the question of where the
line is drawn between "plotting" and "world building." As I see it, this
is a plot technique when the impetus for its determination is the fact
that the GM suspects that the PCs might well be in the vicinity of
Garganzola in the near future, and so is fleshing out this part of the
world in preparation for the possibility of a high level of world detail
being neeeded in play. Alas, it is impossible to have a perfectly
detailed game world, and so it is often necessary to prioritize those
sections of the world with which the PCs seem likely to interact. This,
to my mind, is a type of plotting, and like any other kind of plotting, it
requires the use of *some* plot technique.
Locational Timetabling is a Natural plotting technique. Whether
it is dramatic or not, however, depends on other factors, such as whether
the choice of event is influenced by the characters' dramatic necessities,
by the GM's desire for there to be something "exciting" happening in the
area to prevent player boredom, and so forth. (And, on this subject, I am
fully convinced that GMs tend to be *unconsciously* dramatic in their
plotting choices. But that's a whole 'nother kettle of worms...)
-- Sarah
Jonathan E Cary
Bruce Baugh wrote:
>
> In article <spurious....@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au>, spur...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Rodney Payne) wrote:
> >too concerned how their games turn out, the plotting typology, and no
> >doubt other typologies, are of limited usefulness.
>
> will happen _if the PCs do nothing_, and then see what happens when
> things run together.
But, Bruce, you just provided a perfect example of a simulationist (am I
right, Rodney?). I don't think the typologies are about how your game
*turns out* but about how and why you play. Now, you may not be
interested in this much self-analysis, but let me put it in a different
light: How many times have you had clashes with a new player in your
group who had different expectations from RPGing than your regular
group? How many times would it have saved *both* you and the new player
a lot of heartache if you had a typology you could use to discuss
you preferences and his/hers?
*That's* one of the most important parts of this typology. For game
designers, for game publishers, but mostly for game *players* and GMs,
so we can a) learn what we like, and study how to achieve it, and b)
what we haven't been doing, but would like to try for varieties sake.
Anyway, back off my soap box.
--
Jon Cary
jc...@mn.uswest.net
*******************
If my opinions represented those of my employer or their clients,
I'd be making one heck of a lot more money than I am.
Bruce Baugh
>group? How many times would it have saved *both* you and the new player
>a lot of heartache if you had a typology you could use to discuss
>you preferences and his/hers?
Geez, if you're going to be courteous and stuff...:-)
Seriously, though, I have yet to find any of the typologies I've seen
here useful in this sense. I end up doing exactly what I advocated:
breaking things down into as simple language as I can find, with a very
strong emphasis on example and talking about what the individuals
involved actually do, with no particular effort to generalize. It works,
at least for me.