I probably wasn't clear about this point. Tabletop RPGs are used in campaigns to adjudicate the actions of players acting as their characters interacting
with a setting.
I certainly don't disagree with this! And in BMT, Characters and Setting are two elements of
Exploration.
You're right, they could. And the rules of
Dogs in the Vinyard would natively support this, up to a point. Push it past that point, and you've drifted the rules into a different game. Nothing intrinsically
wrong with that, but that's what would happen, from a BMT perspective.
In the most basic sense, sure. But HOW the character exists in the setting (i.e., what you as a player want to focus on), is a function of the Creative Agenda you prefer. IMO, what you're describing (gun/stagecoach/robbing/consequences) is an
approach to roleplaying a character, where the player is interested in playing out what feels like "realistic" cause and effect within that particular setting, which is an almost textbook example of approaching play with a Right to Dream (Simulationism) mindset.
The core mechanic of Tabletop roleplaying is this.
The referee describes the situation the characters are in.
The players describe what their characters do (or not do)
The referee adjudicate the character actions and the cycle is repeated.
Everything else is optional to be used as a tool, aide, or reference.
Your last sentence about simulationism where the players is interested in playing out what feel like a realistic cause and effect describes a motivation for a players to use when they decide what their characters are going to do. The TBM attempts to generalize these motivations. However the reality in my experience is that players have all kinds of reason to have their characters act they do. That that is so random along with varying enough over time to make generalization useless.
TBM is right in that the groups needs to be on the same page as to what the game is about. However what it fails to acknowledge that is ongoing thing and that it can and will change over the course of a multi-session campaign. Sometimes it will radically change for legitimate reasons.
This I have to disagree with completely. It's not that any particular approach to play is
lost; instead, the approach
supported by the rules is
clarified. And, if we're still talking about DitV, the text of those rules is crystal clear on what the game is about, i.e., what Creative Agenda is has in mind. In this case, it's Story Now (Narrativism). Players are
not even vaguely railroaded into anything, because the game is clear on what approach it supports. However, it would be a disastrous situation if the GM running the game (and DitV play happens to include a fairly "traditional" GM role) knew what the game was about, and
didn't communicate it to the players. If the hypothetical player above decides to go in the direction described, what you'll end up with is a conflict of Creative Agendas, creating seriously incoherent play, which will probably end in frustrated reactions by all.
What happens when everything is communicated, when at the start everybody understands what the campaign is about, then in session 3 the players decides that best way to handle what they experienced in session 1 & 2 is to quit being dogs and become Jesse James style outlaws.
What the TBM doesn't handle or address is the fact that players change their creative agenda throughout the campaign. Even during the course of a single session. The players do the things they do with their character because that whats interests. Their preferences and tastes dictate their actions. And this is key their preference and tastes are
not static. This makes the idea of games that are coherent silly because whatever is picked at the start will and can change as the campaign progress. A game that only focused on a narrow set of interests will have trouble handling the campaign when the focus shifts.
Then there is the fact that generalizations only work for a large number of people. You can't generalize a small group especially a four to five person group. The only effective method that works with smaller groups of people is learning to communicate and making sure you communicate with everybody to understand their expectations and they understand yours. And because we are dealing with small group different expectations (or in TBM terms conflict of Creative Agendas) are the rule rather than the exception.
In the 35 years I been refereeing tabletop I only found two method that works consistently under these conditions. The first is what I label in my head as the Dragonlance style campaign. Basically the campaign is about something so interesting and compelling that all the players care about is surviving to see what happens next. Pazio with their Adventure Paths are the masters of this. The players cooperate because that the best way to get to the end of the path.
The other way I found is to tell each player that they are to act as if they are really there as their character. That they are free to do anything they can do as their character. That they are part of a setting with a life their own. Contrary to what a person may thing this "freedom" actually tends to minimize the differences between the players. I did this at first because I enjoyed seeing the myriad ways players messed around with my setting. Later noticed I didn't seem to many of the problem that other referee were having with players fighting among themselves, torching villages, treating their characters like game pieces, etc. When I paid closer attention to this I found it was because I insisted on players playing as if they are there, they tend to act more like regular people even when they were acting with a different personality their normal one. If conflicting Creative Agenda arose more often than not they worked it out as their characters.
Understand either approach is not a panacea. The Dragonlance/Adventure Path require that your campaign be interesting in of itself. A hit or miss proposition at best. The second approach doesn't fix people who are not a very nice persons. Well correction sometimes it does but it is a special case when it happens. But most of the time the only solution is not to invite the person back to the game.
And where I disagree with TBM is that it is something that can fixed with better designed rules. What it boils down is a better referee helping others to be better players. The specific rules are being used to define characters, the setting, and to resolve conflict are irrelevant to these issues and to their resolution.
Absolutely true. But that doesn't in any way imply that designing games in such a way is inherently bad or pointless, or that they're somehow not roleplaying games; most, if not all, meet the roleplaying criterion you defined earlier. Carried to an extreme, sure, it doesn't feel much like a roleplaying game anymore. However, it's a spectrum. Personally, I've had some of the most awesome roleplaying experiences of my life engaged in one or another of these more tightly focused games.
It is great that you had a good experience with games with narrow focus. I had them too and know other who had fun. But it not new or novel. Ars Magica was a game that solely focused on being a mage that is a member of a group of mages living together in 1990. Before Ars Magica there was Paranoia and Toon before Paranoia.
However the hype about the big model was such that it even impact the biggest and more important game in the hobby, Dungeons & Dragons. The design of 4e was in part influenced by the criticism that earlier editions where "incoherent". So the result was a the new edition was presented pretty much as a wargame. Which resulted in the D&D brand losing the #1 spot for the first time ever to a rival D&D brand Pathfinder.
I'm a little confused here, because you seem now to be distinguishing between a "Tabletop Roleplaying Game" and a "Roleplaying Game". IMO, given your definition above, both MMORPGs and LARPs
are roleplaying games.
Roleplaying games that focus on players playing a individual character. Over the years there been several distinct types developed. CRPGs, MMORPGS, LARPS, Story Games and the original Tabletop Roleplaying. Dungeons & Dragons and similar games (Runequest, Traveller, the One Ring, Fate) are example of a specific category of roleplaying games.
This is opposed to wargames and board games which have a broader focus and or focus on specifically winning a scenario by achieving victory. I personally have extensive experience in LARPs (I ran events for ten years and a chapter for 4 years) MMORPGs (I ran a Neverwinter Night server for two years) and Tabletop Roleplaying Games (I played for 35 years and been publishing/blogging for the past 5 years). And I have playing the other major types as well.
My experience with the other types of roleplaying has led me to betterappreciate the strengths and weakness tabletop roleplaying. And because I had to complete specific projects multiple times with the goal of pleasing other people I had to put aside my assumptions and preconception and focus on what actually worked rather than theorizing what could work. The only useful generalization I can make that if a gamer cares about doing a good job with any type of roleplaying game they have to do the work and adopt the attitude of a master craftsman in paying attention to details. That as a craftman you have to tailor the campaign to the players and that every player and every group of player will be and is different. There is no type of generalization that is useful in describing the small groups that every roleplaying games, except for major MMORPGs, have to deal with.
FWIW, (in relation to your "2.0"), I've never been able to find much value in claims that rules for RPGs have somehow "evolved", in the Darwinian sense. Has that claim been made by proponents of BMT? Unfortunately, absolutely, adding to (or generating the illusion of) a Fog of War...
I seen it in a handful of places notably
www.story-games.com. However I just went over there and tag "Roleplaying 2.0" is gone. They don't allow the internet archive to archive their site. The only place I can see the old header is here.
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PwsUubzLMTQJ:www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/17549/rpg-design-panelcast/p1+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us============================================================================
I am highly critical of the utility of TBM and it related theories. I haven't written Rob Conley's Model of Tabletop Roleplaying although much of what would be in such a work can be found on my blog.
I think there is too much focus on rules. I am not against detailed and complex rule system like GURPS with all the option. In fact GURPS with all the option is one of my primary system that I use. What I am against that the rules being anything more than a tool to be used to adjudicate actions of the players. That the rules reflect the reality of a setting (or genre) and nothing more. That complexity and details are preferences that differ among individuals.
What needs more focus is helping people be better referee and better players period. That the best way to do this is writing lists of technique that explain what worked, why, when, and what where their downsides. Teach referee that good campaigns are created by the referee who understand the tools they are using and work at good communication among the players of their group. That there is nothing special about tabletop roleplaying over any other group of human being that need to work together to do something. If a group has trouble getting along rules are not going to fix anything. This group needs to work at their communication skills and there are better resources than the TBM to use for this.
And the last thing I will add here is that because tabletop roleplaying is more about doing than creating what matters is experience and communicating one's experiences. This goes back to the list of techniques. What did I experience, when did I experience, why do I think things happened the way they did, what were the consequence of people acting the way they did. That list is far more useful then generalizations that make up the TBM.