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1. What the creators think is one thing. Marketing is another.I guess the creators are wrong too?
"Marc Miller's Far Future Enterprises is raising funds for the legendary Fifth Edition of Traveller on Kickstarter! Traveller was born July 22, 1977 as a now-iconic Little Black Box with three Little Black Books. ... This is Traveller’s 35th year, and Marc has worked for several years on what he calls the Ultimate Edition: Traveller5. It includes so many things that players have asked for, or that have been imperfectly handled previously."
They are clearly advertising it as an update of older stuff.
I don't care how similar it is or isn't to classic traveller, and I'm not going to read 1000 pages of poorly playtested rules to find out. My point is there's no way T5 would have had a successful kickstarter if it wasn't trading on the old traveller name. And "sucessful" here is relative, there have been D&D supplements, "story game" rpgs, and video game rpgs that have had order of magnitude more successful campaigns. It's evidence that people have nostalgia for Traveller, it's not evidence that overly simulationist games are still relevant on their own merits. Technology has passed them by.
Fiction vs Non fiction though. Your trip to Greece was an experience, your game at your table is still an interactive collaboration where a bunch of people create and interact in a scenario.
You have to do that if you want to use the rules of a game as the mechanism to collaborative story. But in a traditional RPG how the temple is described is how it is in the reality of the setting.If you go to Greece and experience the Parthenon, that is non fiction. You are there and simply experiencing it. If you take your characters to a purely imagined destination and describe a temple to them, they then interact with it, and the temple can change from people's input where as the Parthenon does not.
There are slways exceptions to the rule. I still see any fluid interaction like in a tabletop rpg to be collaborative. Players add to it all with actions, interpretations and so on.Point 1
Fiction vs Non Fiction? I do see that as a consideration. See the Recon RPG You can run non-fiction tabletop roleplaying campaign depicting real places, and real people. The US Military does it all the time.
Point 2
Collaboration is a preference not a requirement for a successful tabletop RPG. The first tabletop roleplaying campaign ran, Blackmoor (and others) didn't have much in the way of NPCs. All the characters in the games were players. Dave Arneson major tasks as referee was a neutral arbiter. The cleric was developed because one of the "bad" guy players managed to turn his character into a Dracula style vampire. The other players pointed it would be reasonable that there would Van Helsing type that hunts vampire. He mixed in other stuff like the legend of Charlemagne's Paladin and that how the Cleric character class was born.
I guess one can call abiding by the rules of the campaign and the decisions of the referee collaboration. But since many were acting in their own best self interest it doesn't seem the same type of collaboration when multiple artists work together to produce something.
You have to do that if you want to use the rules of a game as the mechanism to collaborative story. But in a traditional RPG how the temple is described is how it is in the reality of the setting.
However because it created and adjudicated by a human referee all the details of the temple are not described. So if there something that could be there it needs to be made up on the spot if relevant.This is not the same at what done in collaborative storytelling. Where the temple and its details are made up because it been judged convenient to the narrative. Whereas in the other approach the details are made because it ought to be there for the players to interact with as their character.
I realize that the point is nuanced. However it have very different implications for a campaign.
I agree there's more to the trends than technology, but I am specifically talking about the human effort of high simulation games relative to technology.
Do you seriously believe a decade from now someone is going to come out with a brand new RPG that requires people to calculate square roots at the table or look through hundreds of charts in order to resolve attacks and have it be a million seller?
Terribly sorry, but it's not gonna fly, cody !
You don't get to claim it's "an update of older stuff" and then, when disproven, to turn around and claim it's all about the brand name.
You do understand that players are free to choose anything that their character can do? It possible that the group agrees not to choose to leave Saltmarsh because the referee spent $50 on Ghosts of Saltmarsh. That metagaming, maybe done for a good reason because the referee has time for a game but doesn't have much prep time so using Saltmarsh allows everybody to get together and have fun.There are slways exceptions to the rule. I still see any fluid interaction like in a tabletop rpg to be collaborative. Players add to it all with actions, interpretations and so on.
The GM telling folks to shut up and narrating is not a RPG campaign. It may have the same trappings but the referee is using his players as a captive audience for an exercise in oral storytelling. Probably very bad oral storytelling and the players won't showing up again.If the GM simply told everyone to shut up and narrated it all that would remove the collaboration but it would still be storytelling and therefor art.
We are cool. :-)One more thing... Sorry to have come on strong a few posts back. I ate a snickers now.
Your problem isn’t that you define collaborative storytelling as art.Your Greece trip a strawman argument. It actually does nothing to disprove anything. All it disproves is a point I am not making.
Bottom line is this... I see a collaborative story telling as Art. If you disagree, fine, but don't try telling me my opinion is wrong.
Once again, we disagree on what Art is. Once a performance (Which is art) is over, you can't revise or alter it, you can only refine it and do it differently next time. The same with a D&D session.
Umm you are arguing something im not here.You do understand that players are free to choose anything that their character can do? It possible that the group agrees not to choose to leave Saltmarsh because the referee spent $50 on Ghosts of Saltmarsh. That metagaming, maybe done for a good reason because the referee has time for a game but doesn't have much prep time so using Saltmarsh allows everybody to get together and have fun.
Or my case sitting down with Brendan, Adam, Nick and others and agreeing that they will accept the job offer that the bishop gives them or follows up the rumor that Radagast the Brown tells them about. Because outside of the game, our goal was to play through a authentic medieval adventures in the former, and a Adventures in Middle Earth adventure in the latter.
But if either were part of a normal campaign meeting periodically, the players would be free to decline (or accept) the Bishop's job offer, or ignore the information Radagast the Brown gives them. I would be prepared to handle the different possibilities including making up stuff on the fly if not of my prep covered what the players want to do.
All of this is in service of making one feel like they visited a fantasy medieval setting or Middle Earth as a character who had an interesting adventure. The outcome of which I can't won't even attempt to predict.
The GM telling folks to shut up and narrating is not a RPG campaign. It may have the same trappings but the referee is using his players as a captive audience for an exercise in oral storytelling. Probably very bad oral storytelling and the players won't showing up again.
Thats how I see them. Its not a problem though.Your problem isn’t that you define collaborative storytelling as art.
Your problem is that you apparently define RPGs as collaborative storytelling.
It is if you don’t realize that while you prefer to add storytelling to what you call roleplaying, there are many people who do not, and do no storytelling whatsoever when they roleplay, unless it is in-character.Thats how I see them. Its not a problem though.
It is if you don’t realize that while you prefer to add storytelling to what you call roleplaying, there are many people who do not, and do no storytelling whatsoever when they roleplay, unless it is in-character.
Just to be clear, I wasn't calling you, or anyone, out specifically. I've just noticed that the more abstract and theoretical an RPG conversation is, the more likely it is to get ugly. Also, any conversation about about differences between Traveller editions remain this forum's Kryptonite.There is no further problem from me. I'm stopping that conversation now before a problem arises.
Have you ever made a post that wasn't a desperate attempt to assert authority on a topic? You must have very low self-esteem given the way you constantly seek the approbation of strangers online.
Welp... it looks like I don't need to call anyone a Goose now....
No, I think EmperorNorton laid it out pretty clearly in that creating a split between art and technology is artificial. Art is created using technology, whether you are making paint by grinding pigments from rocks or playing around with Photoshop.
First, I consider improvised theatrical performances to be art, and I think that's widely accepted as true. It's difficult for me to see how that can be art, but the thing we do at the table during a typical roleplaying game isn't art.
Art and Technology are two different things and can co exist quite well. In fact, this coexistence is almost necessary in either case.The problem is, once you declare RPGs to be "art", extremism follows, aka The Forge*. Similarly, once you declare RPGs to be technology, extremism follows, aka The Gaming Den*, as certain people really only are interested in declaring RPGs to be one thing or another in a attempt to make their playstyle the objectively better way, played by the majority, etc etc and other playstyles are inferior, or worse don't even exist or are the result of a medical condition.
Take a car. Pretty much technology, right? Someone better tell those crazy Italians that cars aren't Art then. I can take a technological approach or an artistic approach, or both to nearly anything that exists, from a handaxe to a water bottle to a technical manual. Does that make anything that humans ever produced both Art and Technology? If so, then there's not much use in using that definition is there?
Beethoven probably improved his 5th Symphony before the final cut, so...technology? Playtesting is Art or Technology? Are we judging mechanic solely by what they do, or also by how they "feel" at the table when using them?
Artistic or technological elements or aspects do not make Art or Technology, unless everything is.
* Yes, both those sites were important in their own way, regardless of the shenanigans.
Take a car. Pretty much technology, right? Someone better tell those crazy Italians that cars aren't Art then. I can take a technological approach or an artistic approach, or both to nearly anything that exists, from a handaxe to a water bottle to a technical manual. Does that make anything that humans ever produced both Art and Technology? If so, then there's not much use in using that definition is there?
Like figuring out whether a set of mechanics is a wargame or a RPG it boils down to focus. Improvisational theater is spontaneous and unscripted like the verbal interplay that occurs while roleplaying. But the focus is to create a performance that entertains. Whether it an audience or the group itself if it is private.
RPG in contrast the focus on pretending to be a character in a imagined setting done in a way that emulate its reality to some extent. It is a nuanced point but lets to a different hobby than the one that surrounds improvisational theater. Similar to the difference between the Melee wargame and The Fantasy Trip RPG.
Ignoring the nuances of the role of audience vs. participant in private play, for example, your premise here would appear to require the conclusion that Critical Role isn't playing a roleplaying game because their focus has become entertaining an audience.
I would tend to argue that your understanding of the agendas of both improvisational theater and RPG players is rather limited here.
I still see aspects of play as artistic expression.
Yeah what do I know about this stuff right? I only ran LARP events for a decade. Been refereeing for thirty+ years. Ran conventions, managed gaming clubs, published a few things. I guess you are right my understanding of this stuff is limited.
My study of the history and development of RPGs plus my own experience over the decades is that in-game cooperation is a convention not a requirement or characteristic of RPG. An RPG campaign can be fun and enjoyable with every single player character being at odds with one another.
I think the issue you and other are having with what I am saying is because of the whole contract business with RPG campaigns. The heart of the idea is that we are there to cooperate not only out of game but in-game to make the campaign. Because improve also requires cooperation most, like yourself, view it as equivalent. Thus what the group does in a campaign is art just like what a troupe does with improv is art.
Yeah, I told you it might well be different from the one you prefer.Artful is akin to artisan. It also has another definition meaning conveying creatively.
Art is artistry which is akin to creative skill or ability
I think that is more the roots .
I most certainly do not. So please take my opinions with a handful of salt: the only humans that admire any of my accomplishments in any way are my children. Otherwise I’m an avatar of mediocrity. Anyways,Most people on this site have the cred to back our opinions.
I'm surprised this conversation is as friendly as it is. I'd imagine that a discussion of the definition of "art" would be even worse than one about the definition of "RPGs".
'Tis the Pub!
As a mod, I took a deep breath when I first saw this thread appear, but it's been fine. Plenty of disagreement, which is to be expected, but no name-calling yet.
First, apologies for my own contribution to the hostilities. I just grew bored with the shifting goalposts.I didn't post this in the Facebook group that prompted me to think about this, because the only place I could think of would be able to have a civil discussion on this topic was here. And, apart from a few posts, I was right.
Anyway, sorry for not being more on the ball with replying to my own topic. I've been busy with work and then a mini-convention yesterday. I think there have been a lot of good points made though. I do agree with Necrozius that if we decide everything is art, then the word sort of becomes meaningless. Maybe it would have been better if I had left out the words art and technology from my original post, but since those were the words that appeared in my mind when I had the thought, it would have been weird not to include them.