game "theory" (once more into the breach)

[tetramorph]

I have been struggling to explain to players my gaming "style," campaign "style," what to expect, how to be a "good" player in one of my games, etc. Especially since most folks come to D&D through the "new school," or whatever.

So, here we go again: what are the different approaches? Play styles? Referee styles?

I believe I've talked a bit with waysoftheearth and eotb about this kind of stuff. I also remember and appreciate talysman 's distinction between skill based and class-level-exploration type games? (Did I get that right?)

So I ran my ideas by my main authority: TV Tropes. Here is its page on player archetypes.

I think in terms of continua, and, in an Aristotelian way, in terms of a balance of opposites. So I've tried to think in those terms for my "game theory."

So it seems like the first continuum is that of any game: serious to non-serious approach to player goals.

The next comes up in wargamming contexts. increment found Thornton for us on this one: competition to simulation approaches to play styles. Are you trying to "win," regardless of historical outcomes, or are you trying to simulate the battle of Waterloo so perfectly that it is always inevitable that Wellington will win?

But then we play medieval fantasy war-games. So now we are no longer simulating real-world historic battles. Now we are mining fantasy fiction, legend, fairy tale, mythology, B-movies for the source material for our simulation.

This attracts the "weird fiction" fans who wish they could be in a novel or short story, they want to be inside a narrative with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. Many have not had previous experience with war-gaming so they don't have those assumptions.

So maybe this continuum is: agency to immersion? Or agency to play-acting? I don't know if those are the right words, but I think you guys know what I mean, yes?

I can even think of one or two more. There is player/referee seriousness to non seriousness of play, but there is also seriousness to non-seriousness of the fantasy world itself! Right?

For example, I run my games "medium" (?) seriously, and I expect players to show up trying to "win" the next level for their character as I try to simulate a fairly believable (read: consistent) fantasy world.

I also expect the game-world to be "serious" for the characters in it: their actions have consequences in their world and they care about these outcomes.

That said, my description of the fantasy world itself is full of tongue-in-check, campy, zany, troporiffic, trope-o-licous kind of things for the players to laugh at and to help them guess clues based on playing out tropes pretty straight or, usually, pretty over the top. What is that? How do I explain that? (And don't say, "you just did"!)

Maybe: the game-world serious to non-serious continuum? and player meta-play serious to non-serious? But what would be some (fun and memorable) words for that?

Hope you guys will dive in and help me out. Fight on!

[Starbeard]

May 8, 2022 16:19:52 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

That said, my description of the fantasy world itself is full of tongue-in-check, campy, zany, troporiffic, trope-o-licous kind of things for the players to laugh at and to help them guess clues based on playing out tropes pretty straight or, usually, pretty over the top. What is that? How do I explain that? (And don't say, "you just did"!)

Maybe: the game-world serious to non-serious continuum? and player meta-play serious to non-serious? But what would be some (fun and memorable) words for that?

Hope you guys will dive in and help me out. Fight on!

Reading this, genre fiction or certain historical genres of music come to mind. According to critical literary theory, a primary key to genre fiction lies in how the text conforms to expected tropes, so that even when a trope is broken or questioned, it has verisimilitude because it is otherwise grounded in a web of "unproblematized" tropes, that provide a consistent reality against which the story can take shape. Only by reading plenty of western or detective genre fiction can someone really engage with any given western or detective genre text.

Likewise, there is the musical parody; not novelty songs, but for example the Renaissance practice of rewriting an existing piece into a new one by keeping some of the voices and composing new voices against them. This was even bog standard practice in the Middle Ages, to the extent that one of the common terms for a composer (a term which hadn't been coined yet) was "troper," i.e. "someone who makes a turn of (preexisting, musical or poetic) phrase."

This is precisely what the troubadours and trouvères were: trobador and trover being the Occitan and French words borrowed from Latin tropus/tropare. Their musical expertise was in having a large memorized repertory of popular poetry and melodies, and in using the practice of "contrafactum" to mix and match these in clever and meaningful ways to an audience also versed in the repertory; and further, being able to improvise new poetry and melodies on the spot within the same forms, preferably referencing the classic repertory where applicable.

So in all these cases, the output is only as good as its ability to use deep knowledge of the repertory (either learned or instinctual) to guide further creativity.

To some degree this is how D&D intrinsically operates. Everyone is collectively drawing upon a point of reference (the rulebook) to generate infinite original game possibilities. But you can have a game that keeps this all under the hood and in the background, or you can have a game like yours, that explicitly leans into it. In this sense, parody in its non-ridiculous form is a central feature of gameplay. Definable genre elements, or perhaps even specific literal references, are consciously drawn from definitive D&D, fantasy and cultural texts and rephrased as contrafacts into the game, creating wholly new scenarios that nevertheless reward the player canny enough to recognize the contrafact.

Unfortunately, "Parody D&D" doesn't quite give off the right connotation! "Contrafact approach" is perhaps better but lacks the benefit of being intuited without thorough explanation; you could probably qualify neutral definitions of "parody" or "troped" more easily than you could explain "contrafacta" (and etymologically they all sorta have the same literal definitions, anyway).

[Deleted]

Woe! Appendix N must be to the rescue!

[captainjapan]

We have to at least be talking about the 'G' and the 'S' of The Forge's GNS theory, right?. Let's equate seriousness to Gamism and non-seriousness to Simulationism. Although, these classifications only really apply to the players and not to the referee. Referees are prohibited from being 'Gamists' in their own campaign, because, if they allowed themselves the pleasure of competing against the players, it would be patently unfair to the players. That leaves to the referee, the modes of Simulation and Narrative. It is at this point that I would usually dismiss the Narrative mode as being tantamount to railroading, but when players are being asked to conform to the conventions of a pre-established fantasy campaign, whether that be Gygax's Greyhawk or Tolkien's Middle-Earth or tetramorph's Perilous Realms, rather than establishing the tone as they go, isn't this also a mild form of railroading? (just playing devil's advocate, here)

An extreme example of mandated non-seriousness happened to me once. I thought it would be funny to incorporate Monty Python and 3 Stooges gags into my campaign setting, so for instance players incarcerated in a dungeon cell might receive an unsolicited visit from Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe or the Spanish Inquisition might burst into an empty room. This brand of humor has a long tradition in d&d groups. But guess what: I was the only person that thought that was funny. Even players who got the references, just rolled their eyes and endured the interruptions. My point is that the subversion of the campaign world (the jokes, etc.) could, maybe should, be informed by the players, themselves. They can make it up as they go along and in so doing, it helps achieve the maximum level of player investment. This is their story, their jokes, their subversion of the setting.

But, where does this leave the referee to find his own enjoyment? I always assumed that game masters only continued being game masters because they could exercise total creative freedom over the campaign. What else is there to keep a referee interested?

[robertsconley]

I don't know if this will help so here it goes.

I view the point of the tabletop roleplaying as pretending to be characters having adventures in some imagined setting within the time one has for a hobby. The means by which this is accomplished is by a referee describing a setting, players, and the players describing characters that could adventure in the setting. The campaign commences when the referee describes the circumstances in which the players as their characters find themselves. The player then describes (or roleplays) what they do. The referee then describes the result. All of this is typically aided by the use of a rule system and dice.

If you notice nowhere I describe what the setting is, what it is about, or what type of characters are being played. These are creative choices of the referee and group prior to the campaign starting. Nor I describe any particular way in which the players deal with things. Only that there is a process where the referee describes the circumstances and the players describe what they do as their characters.

This can be done in a silly spirit, this can be done seriously, or anything in-between. In the end, it is a matter of taste and whatever seems fun for the group and the referee.

Also note, that I don't focus on the rules much. The rules are important but an aide to make this happen. The exact type of rules doesn't really matter to making this work. But the rules are crucial in making this enjoyable. And just as important, doable, and fun within the time one has for a hobby. This group favors using rules based on the 3 LBBs and their supplements. And clearly enjoys using those rules as an aide to running fantasy campaigns.

Nor do I focus much on why the players themselves want to pretend to adventure as characters within the setting. The only criteria I think is needed is whether they are having fun or not. For some groups, this means adventuring in a setting with highly detailed rules like GURPS with all the supplements, for others even something like OD&D is too detailed, and go with something like Microlite20 or a stripped-down Fudge/Fate. Players who like to "win" will enjoy campaigns where their characters keep finding themselves in situations that have a clear outcome, like defeating combatants or solving mysteries. While others like the nuances and uncertainty of campaigns involving dozens of NPCs each with their own schemes and personalities. If the setting can be imagined, it works as a basis for an RPG campaign with the right group of players.


Those rules help a lot in creating and running dungeon and wilderness adventures. But don't say much on how the campaign or adventures are to be run in terms of tone and tenor. Whether it is silly, serious, or something in between, whether it is a lot of roleplaying a lot of combat, a lot of exploring, or the more usually a mix.

The flaw in GNS and the rest is that they are overly simplistic when applied to actual people doing something for fun. Moreover, these theories focus way too much on the rules solving problems with the campaign. The primary mechanic that makes RPGs work the way they work, the one that Arneson and Gygax honed and proved out is the referee describing the circumstances and the players describing what they do in response.

What makes it fun is that the circumstances are taking place in a setting that the group finds fun to adventure in. So the players want to keep this process going with the referee to see more of what there and see what more they can do within the setting. And starting with the first proto-RPGs like the Braunsteins or Korns World War II games, this process can be quite addictive and fun as everybody wants to do "one more thing" and likes the fact they can by using this system.

So my answer to your question is to make a fun and compelling non-serious setting that players will find fun to adventure in. I personally run campaigns that are more grounded and serious so I don't have any particular insight on how to do that. But I have known and played in campaigns that did this and they were fun. The common element is that the referee came up with a setting with funny elements that worked as humor and we as a group were willing to play characters in this setting.

Hope this helps.

[talysman]

May 8, 2022 16:19:52 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I have been struggling to explain to players my gaming "style," campaign "style," what to expect, how to be a "good" player in one of my games, etc. Especially since most folks come to D&D through the "new school," or whatever.

So, here we go again: what are the different approaches? Play styles? Referee styles?

I believe I've talked a bit with waysoftheearth and eotb about this kind of stuff. I also remember and appreciate talysman 's distinction between skill based and class-level-exploration type games? (Did I get that right?)

Since I've been invoked from the starry void, I can add some thoughts, although I haven't digested everything that's been said in the thread so far. First off, a disclaimer: although I've participated in theory discussions in places like The Forge, I started caring more about classification than theory. I figure it's more helpful to think in terms of "I like games that have these features" rather than figuring out what RPGs are "supposed to do" or "what's actually possible".

So, I kind of settled on two kinds of descriptors: Function vs. Mood/Filter.

• Function is what you were alluding to when you mentioned "class-level-exploration". It's based on the broadest features of how the PCs are defined (structure,) what they do/how they advance (focus,) and where they do those things (setting.)
• Moods and Filters modify Function and include features like genre and tone.

So, for example, "serious Class and Level Exploration Fantasy (CLEF) adventure games" is played with a serious tone, defines PCs broadly based on their class and level, and has PCs exploring a fantasy world in the fantasy adventure genre.

Quick summary of the functions and some of the filters:

• Structure: Point Resource, Class and Level, Skill and Talent
• Focus: Arena, Exploration, Investigation, Other (where the first three are in-fiction and "Other" is meta.)
• Setting: Mundane, Fantasy
• Genre: Adventure (PCs match Challenges,) Horror (PCs outclassed by Challenges,) Comedy (PCs at mercy of Challenges.) Can be combined, or tropes like Spaceships or Spells can be added for more detail.
• Tone: Serious vs. Unserious

Functions aren't really defined along an axis or range, but in theory you could use them for moods or filters, for example serious vs. unserious tone. However, moods and filters are potentially infinite and I think best treated in an ad hoc manner, since some people might prefer tone (for example) to be consistence throughout, others might let it shift slowly or quickly, and still others might want to set different limits for players and GMs, or demand a serious tone for some topics and a light tone for others.

[derv]

Form and Function. Keep it direct and uncomplicated.

[robertsconley]

The problem with classification is that it is so nuanced as a result of the only limits being what the players want to do as their characters and what the referee is willing to adjudicate. It opens even further once you add metagaming where you can do things as a player your character can't do.

One is better off learning as many systems they have time for. Then combine the elements that they like best as a starting point. Playtest over and over again until they got whatever it is they are looking for. It is the only thing I found that works every time and it is not hit or miss. The problem of course is that it takes time to execute.

[Finarvyn]

May 8, 2022 21:56:28 GMT -6 @doublejig2 said:

Woe! Appendix N must be to the rescue!

This only helps if the players will bother to read the literature. My group is mostly made up of folks younger than I, and they haven't read the same fantasy books nor do they have a lot of enthusiasm for doing this. They have read Harry Potter and seen the LotR movies and that kind of thing, but haven't been interested in Leiber or Howard or Burroughs (who make up the main inspiration for my campaigns). That's a tough bridge to cross.

[geoffrey]

May 10, 2022 9:22:17 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

My group is mostly made up of folks younger than I, and they haven't read the same fantasy books nor do they have a lot of enthusiasm for doing this. They have read Harry Potter and seen the LotR movies and that kind of thing, but haven't been interested in Leiber or Howard or Burroughs (who make up the main inspiration for my campaigns). That's a tough bridge to cross.

That sort of thing (which is undoubtedly accurate) always baffles me. The same person who is too lazy/uninterested/whatever to read a 30-page Conan or Elric story (full of blood, thunder, action, and sorcery--thick enough to cut with a knife) will read literally thousands of pages of Harry Potter or some other contemporary series. What? Harry and his friends will spend more pages just talking about things such as cats, school reports, what's for dinner, etc. than the length of an entire Conan story by REH. How in the world is Hermione talking about her homework more interesting than Conan in a life-or-death fight with the demon conjured up by the Pictish druid? Seriously?

I think it comes down to nothing more than, "Oh, it's old [as though stories written a few decades ago are "old" in any meaningful sense], so it can't possibly interest me. I'm way too smart to think that anything written before about 1997 can be any good at all." Unbelievable.

And I say all of this as someone who has read all seven Harry Potter books--twice--and greatly enjoyed them.

[Finarvyn]

I agree with you 100%. The older stories are so awesome but my group just doesn't want to bother to try them. I'll bet they are okay with Shakespeare or Poe, but not Howard? Huh.

[stevemitchell]

"And I say all of this as someone who has read all seven Harry Potter books--twice--and greatly enjoyed them."

And I say all of this as someone who has read none of them. I did go see the first two movies, but fell asleep during the second and decided that was enough.

But Conan, Kull, Kane, Bran, Elak, Elric, the other Kane--I just keep reading and re-reading. (And Cthulhu, of course.)

[tetramorph]

Thanks all for weighing in on my final question about what to call the seriousness of play/metaplay/world distinctions. But also, I am open to reflections on my other continua that I offer.

Starbeard  thanks for bringing in literary criticism - that really helps, especially as we are moving away from the nonfiction of wargaming to the fiction gaming of fantastic medieval war-games campaigns. Love the origin of the word "troubadour"! I had no idea. Of course it is about tropes - love this. Improv on themes is definitely what we are doing.

captainjapan , I realize I am not really talking “theory” per se, but just description, in an almost more anthropological sense.

Dewey, Cheatum and Howe IS funny, BTW! I would have laughed. You must have had humorless players.

For me, I think it is about lamp shading that a given detail is not very important for the players to explore too deeply in the game world so that they will stop pixel-b-tching it and just move on to the more rewarding details.

For example, I named the head of the guard at Fort Avant (the Avant Guard) Major Braggart. My point is to tell them, not to try to interact with him too much, at least not yet, "Move along, this is not the role-play you are after." At least not until after the plot thickens. Or, for example, they came upon a bunch of lizard men in the jungle. They charmed one. They asked what his name was. I said his name was “Hiss Hiss.” This (unlike Dewey, Cheatum and Howe, not sure why?) drew laughter, and, again, showed that his name was not that important and so it was not worth pursuing his background too much.

How does the ref stay interested? I stay interested by imaging the structures of my fantasy world that maintain the illusion of verisimilitude. I enjoy the work necessary to strike that balance between abstract enough to keep play moving along and detailed enough to make the world feel “real.”

robertsconley : “Within the time one has for a hobby.” Man, this is a good distinction. I think it is time for me to swing back to the more “abstract” pole!

I remember eotb 's distinction between differences of tones. Although I may use humor, outcomes still matter. There is consistency.

talysman : I like your distinguishing between categorization rather than theory. Absotutley. Maybe I will rename the thread.

Again, just to understand what I am doing IMC, my relative seriousness of tone runs on a scale from how far from the safety of human civilization we are. Cities are boring. Villages a bit more exciting. Wilderness starts to go a bit gonzo. Seventh level of a dungeon? You might find Colonel Sanders on a giant chicken. To the characters in the world, they have no idea what is going on and it just seems like part of the frightening fever dreaming chaos of the underworld. But the players get the cultural reference and can use it to their advantage as a clue. Perhaps they fire ball some burning oil and threaten to fry up the Colonel’s chicken. I would definitely grant brownie points for that one.

It makes sense that what you call function is not a continuum or range in this model. Genre is potentially infinite. I can see that. But tone I think exists along a continua, or perhaps several. There is light-hearted to super serious. There is dark and edgy to light and sweet.

derv , talk to me about form and function. Please apply it to some examples so I follow.

Thanks for the conversation everyone.

[Deleted]

May 10, 2022 9:22:17 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

May 8, 2022 21:56:28 GMT -6 @doublejig2 said:

Woe! Appendix N must be to the rescue!

This only helps if the players will bother to read the literature. My group is mostly made up of folks younger than I, and they haven't read the same fantasy books nor do they have a lot of enthusiasm for doing this. They have read Harry Potter and seen the LotR movies and that kind of thing, but haven't been interested in Leiber or Howard or Burroughs (who make up the main inspiration for my campaigns). That's a tough bridge to cross.

Then let the swords & sorcery tropes slay them. There are limits to DM courtesy!  Sorry, I know that was not particularly germane to this rather formidable discussion; it just stuck in my craw. DM enjoyment, eh. 

[derv]

May 10, 2022 15:48:51 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

derv , talk to me about form and function. Please apply it to some examples so I follow.

Largely you could say the form of your game is Ad hoc. That is why it's hard for you and others to explain it. It may be easier to understand as a collection of concepts that are part of the games interface between the player and referee. Each of these has a function. Expressing these functions is ultimately the easiest way for you to communicate the structure that your game takes.

Function is the intent or purpose of these unique elements in the game. You should pick a few that you consider key and they will clarify for others the form of your game.

Examples:

Slight silliness: is allowed because it adds levity when the game can become too serious.

Experience for gold: because it assures consistent advancement for active exploration.

Cursory understanding of pulp literature: is beneficial because it informs the setting that the characters are interacting with.

Referee has the final say: because it keeps the game moving.


Otherwise, let them experience it through play

[Starbeard]

I agree that form and function are far more important than theory (though facetiously, what is theory other than a description of common practice forms and functions?).

I do think methods should also be addressed, but where that sits in relation to form and/or function is a matter of theory that we probably don't need to dwell on. It's sufficient to say that the gamesmaster desires the game to function a certain way, and leverages a certain number of methods to achieve that (and maybe those methods produce a formal structure, if you like those definitions).

For example, to draw from academic game theory, we might include some of these methods:

-Challenges are _stochastic_: randomized tables and procedures are utilized copiously and with consistency, so that long term but not short term outcomes can be planned for.

-Challenges require _metagame analysis_: players always receive some but not all information, and skillful advancement requires observing results and changing future strategies to account for them.

-Tone is used mechanically, as a _signaling game_: Levity and "in jokes" will often be used not just for entertainment, but to suggest clues, deem objects or activities as desirable or undesirable, and foreshadow game events.

And so on. A simple description of overall form, with the actual methods discovered happily in play, is always ideal — but unless you already know your players and their profile of interests, you run the risk of inviting a dessert lover to dinner only to discover they're quite particular about whether ice cream should be served on or next to pie.

[tedopon]

I usually just have a game where stuff happens and people enjoy themselves. Not much deeper than that, honestly. "Do you like to have fun?" is about the only way I can describe it.

[tetramorph]

Good conversation so far, all.

Sometimes I use the following to explain what I have experienced as three major types of players and play-style enjoyed:

Character acting as amateur dramatics
Character building as min-max achieving
Character record as ticket to fantasy land

Of these three, I enjoy a little bit of all, but the first the least and the last the most.

There is the refereeing side of the above, too, I suppose. Maybe,

Plot points as amateur novel-writing [frustrated novelist]
Rules and rulings for maximum character challenge [killer DM]
Setting development for fantasy simulation [practically perfect in every way ;)]

Something like that?
Anyway, what do y'all think of those three? How do they map to other taxonomies? (It is not the same as the Forge, I know that.)

They are also independent of relative seriousness of player play and referee ruling. They are also independent of seriousness of setting, etc.

So, to describe my game to new players and folks at a con I might say:

Your character provides you with a ticket into a fantasy world that we together simulate.
Play to "win" but don't game the system. ["Win" = character levels by accrual of XP. XP = gp.]
You will have chances to act "in character" but that is not the goal.
The simulation is serious but the world has all sorts of tropes played full tilt and pop-cultural references for humor and clues.

Good, yes?

[Flintlock]

The player taxonomies map on one for one with the Actor/Gamer/Roleplayer model that's been informally doing the rounds in LARP for years. From what I can tell that originates with Walter Freitag and Rick Dutton. It's outlined in the book Nexus from Chaosium.  Because it's not found anywhere else, I suspect it's a taxonomy from a local LARP scene only really known by people who've read that particular game.

In particular, I think you're right to distinguish between actor (roleplay as performance with an audience of the other other players and GM) and roleplayer (more specifically those players who roleplay primarily as a means of immersing themselves in the game's setting).  Most terminologies miss that distinction and it's crucial; the two are very different things.

How useful is it?  At the very least, I use those categories when casting parlour LARPs to try and get a decent player to character match.

[makofan]

This sounds all too complicated and "overthinky" to me - I think Robert Conley has the most pertinent take on it for me

But let me ask you some questions for reflection, tetramorph :
What were the three things/experiences you enjoyed the most/liked best in our Verbosh campaign? What one thing did you like the least? Why? (in both cases)
Seek to extract that and inject it into your game in a way your group might also find fun. Then, modify it to react to their preferences

[Starbeard]

I could easily be way off mark here, but I think there might be some confusion in the responses over exactly what Tetramorph is after. My understanding is that he already runs his game how he likes, and his long term group is familiar and has no complaints. The issue is that he also runs con games, which means running games for strangers, and his game style is highly idiosyncratic and not exactly common in most circles; in fact, you might even call it "not everyone's cup of tea."

So naturally, the thing to do is to have a sales pitch for the game that potential takers can read, something to guarantee that those signed up for the game are 0% likely to be confused or surprised and 100% likely to enjoy the experience. The problem, of course, is in making the statement as succinct as possible, and using only plain language, while still minimizing the ambiguity. An ideal 0% chance of error in communication.

tetramorph and others, please correct me if I'm off.

[tetramorph]

Flintlock, this distinction between Actor/Gamer/Roleplayer is so helpful. I still think the average non-gamer would hear "role-play" as acting - not being able to distinguish the difference. I feel something like actor/gamer/simulator might get it. But I like it.

makofan, I'm bummed it seems over-think-y to you. I'm really trying to come up with my own accurate way of describing my game, much like you do when you invite folks to a PbP. I remember you did a series of posts on another forum where you explained how you describe your game in order to set up player expectation. That's all I'm really trying to do here.

I remember not enjoying the style of play when I first joined. One of the coolest things was that you responded to my concerns and helped me form a group of compatible and dedicated players so that I could achieve more of what I was hoping for. I really appreciated that.

What I liked was that the setting was consistent, I could achieve goals, I could "act the part" when necessary but that was minor to more abstract activity. The emphasis was on exploring the wilderness with many small adventures and lairs scattered about rather than a megadungeon setting. You and the other players posted consistently and let each other know when we needed breaks. I suppose the thing I liked the least was how darn hard it was to advance at such a slow pace! Thanks for running that great game.

Starbeard, you are pretty close. I would just add, that it is about inviting new players to my table, and for being able to engage in helpful and creative dialogue when long time players feel frustrated with play. It is also about how to set the tone and expectations when starting a new game: such as if our experiment over on Discord were to turn into an actual on-going game.

Thanks, again, all.

[Starbeard]

tetramorph, Ah, okay. Thanks for the correction. In that case, my one further thought is never to underestimate the power of explanation by example. Just as rule books often explain a procedure over multiple awkward paragraphs that nobody reads because the short play example makes it much clearer, so too with game descriptions.

For instance, you mention 'pop culture references' being used for fun and profit, but that alone could still be ambiguous to many readers. Many potential players, especially younger ones, might take 'referencing pop culture' to mean that your game is centered on Joss Whedon, anime, and Know Your Meme trivia, and the monsters they face will be rainbow vomiting space kittens, anthropomorphic pun-spewing Mexican food, and The Shredder who has teamed up with both GI Joe's COBRA and Cobra Kai to conquer the world with an army of evil golems of Nintendo characters made in cloning vats. Maybe your game goes there, but I'm guessing it's a little more oblique than that.

Your example of Col. Sanders was a very good demonstration. Maybe stick with that? "Occasionally, a brief reference to modern popular culture might be used for a small laugh and to give players clues about the encounter: for instance, players once encountered a fictionalized Colonel Sanders riding a giant chicken, and 'solved' the encounter with flaming oil to fry his mount."

[robertsconley]

May 23, 2022 7:02:28 GMT -6 Flintlock said:

The player taxonomies map on one for one with the Actor/Gamer/Roleplayer model that's been informally doing the rounds in LARP for years. From what I can tell that originates with Walter Freitag and Rick Dutton. It's outlined in the book Nexus from Chaosium.  Because it's not found anywhere else, I suspect it's a taxonomy from a local LARP scene only really known by people who've read that particular game.

Back in the day of LARPING (1990s) Bartle is the first theory of classification I heard in the world of boffer LARPS (NERO, etc.) It hit around the mid 90s and organized gamers into Killers/Achievers/Socializers/Explorers. At the time most of us thought it was spot on but within the year, it became obvious that is was only a superficial description especially for the long term players. Why? The nuance problem I described in my previous post.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types

May 23, 2022 7:02:28 GMT -6 Flintlock said:

How useful is it?  At the very least, I use those categories when casting parlour LARPs to try and get a decent player to character match.

Using Bartles didn't save any time for me or the people who ran NERO LARP (boffer) events with me. The only benefit is that it highlighted the fact that there was no substitute for knowing your audiences as best as you can before the event and paying attention to folks while the event unfolds.

I know I am being very negative about classification systems. Just realize my negativity is born of running events for dozens of players over a span of a decade. At best Bartles applied to a quarter of the players who attend nearly all of them what I call causal players. They are there to hang out with friends. While they have fun only a few things engaged them. And it was possible to catagorize that interest on the basis of Bartle and also I could have done with it as well with the Actor/Gamer/Roleplayer system. Although that doesn't really capture the difference between those who were there for the sport of fighting with boffer weapons (Killers) and those who were there because of the Live-Action and physicality of actually exploring things (Explorers).

The long term players continually shifted their interest. And it is worse with RPGs because while you don't have the immersion of live-action, the small group, the human referee, and the use of pen, paper, and dice means things can and do shift on a dime throughout the campaign.

[dicebro]

May 8, 2022 16:19:52 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I have been struggling to explain to players my gaming "style," campaign "style," what to expect, how to be a "good" player in one of my games, etc. Especially since most folks come to D&D through the "new school," or whatever.

So, here we go again: what are the different approaches? Play styles? Referee styles?


…

Hope you guys will dive in and help me out. Fight on!

My so called “style” of refereeing has almost nothing to do with performance or theatrics, other than just attempting to narrate clearly and quickly what the characters see, hear, smell, taste and touch. This is likely because my favorite rpg encounters have always taken place inside my own head.

[dicebro]

May 8, 2022 16:19:52 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I have been struggling to explain to players my gaming "style," campaign "style," what to expect, how to be a "good" player in one of my games, etc. Especially since most folks come to D&D through the "new school," or whatever.

…

That said, my description of the fantasy world itself is full of tongue-in-check, campy, zany, troporiffic, trope-o-licous kind of things for the players to laugh at and to help them guess clues based on playing out tropes pretty straight or, usually, pretty over the top. What is that? How do I explain that? (And don't say, "you just did"!)

Hope you guys will dive in and help me out. Fight on!

It seems to me that what you are trying to describe is an essential little part of every game known as “having fun”?

[tetramorph]

robertsconley, I have nothing but respect for you and I learn from you constantly so I am trying to lean into what you are saying and learn from you.

I still find it hard to believe that you have not noticed that there are trends and types of play that are fun to refs and players. There are personality types. So it seems sane to think there might also be play styles.

I think one thing I am sensing here is that you are probably just simply and without qualification a better ref than I am! You clearly have the patience and wherewithal to devote yourself to helping anyone have fun at your table. You have a kind of flexibility in your own likes, then, that I think I do not have.

I wise guide in my life once said to me, "get people to 'no,' as quickly as possible." Meaning, to save myself energy drain and dismay trying to do things I am ill-suited to and which do not bring me joy, I need to help people along the process of discerning whether they want to join with me and do my thing or not. Not everyone can like everything. I have friends that know they do not like D&D. I don't play D&D with them or bug them about it. We do other stuff together.

I simply do not believe that there are not different identifiable styles of playing D&D and RPGs. I want to help folks get to "no" faster for their sake and mine so that they have fun with their time and I have fun with mine.

Does that help to make sense of what I am trying for here? It is possible, that you are just so darn good and accommodating that you cannot understand me on this one! If that is the case, then just axios to you and I hope I get to sit at your table and watch you figure out what I like and accommodate my play style so I can see how a pro does it!

[skars]

Isn't LARPing in and of itself a classification or style? I could see how a classification beyond that might just yield meager results like with your experience with Bartles. For me the styles of play are:

1. LARP as noted
1.a. LARP at a table
1.b. LARP in public

2. Tabletop RPG
2.a Serious campaign
2.a.1 Rules as written
2.a.2 Rules as Intended
2.a.3 House rules established by consensus

2.b. Semi-serious
2.b.1 Rule of Cool over Rule as written/intended
2.b.2 House rules by DM choice

2.c A Meeting of friends
2.c.1 More jokes than combat
2.c.2 A great excuse to drink beer together
2.c.3 rules are largely an afterthought

3. Party Games
3.a GM-Less / No Prep
3.b Murder Mystery Party
3.c App driven or aided (you maggots! --"nightmare" moderator
3.d Escape Room
3.e One - Shot more likely than campaign

4. Miniatures/3d-roleplay
4.a More roll than role
4.b Rigid turn sequence
4.c Combat oriented

Note that I didn't include many specific themes or content as while they can influence the game for sure, I find these categories cross those boundaries.

[Flintlock]

May 25, 2022 19:45:24 GMT -6 robertsconley said:

Back in the day of LARPING (1990s) Bartle is the first theory of classification I heard in the world of boffer LARPS (NERO, etc.) It hit around the mid 90s and organized gamers into Killers/Achievers/Socializers/Explorers. At the time most of us thought it was spot on but within the year, it became obvious that is was only a superficial description especially for the long term players. Why? The nuance problem I described in my previous post.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types

I'm actually quite fond of Bartle, partly because it's one of the early classification systems I came across, but the fact it's MMORPG/MUD focused makes it quite different from RPGs so I'm not surprising you run into difficulties. Also, he's weakest on Killers (he doesn't quite quite that griefers are an offshot, not a major part of the group) which is an issue considering the PvP nature of a significant number of LARPs.

May 25, 2022 19:45:24 GMT -6 robertsconley said:

H Using Bartles didn't save any time for me or the people who ran NERO LARP (boffer) events with me. The only benefit is that it highlighted the fact that there was no substitute for knowing your audiences as best as you can before the event and paying attention to folks while the event unfolds.

Did Bartles have no use at alL? Even if looked at in very broad categories, that's where I think it's useful; "some of our players will be itching for a fight by this point" kind of thing. And I don't think a broad classification system and knowing your audience/paying attention to players are mutually exclusive at all. What classification systems do is very roughly fill in the gaps before you've had a chance to get to know people. Yeah, with players I've known for years I don't need them as I could write a thesis on how they play games. It's about newbies and other unknown factors.

May 25, 2022 19:45:24 GMT -6 robertsconley said:

I know I am being very negative about classification systems. Just realize my negativity is born of running events for dozens of players over a span of a decade. At best Bartles applied to a quarter of the players who attend nearly all of them what I call causal players. They are there to hang out with friends. While they have fun only a few things engaged them. And it was possible to catagorize that interest on the basis of Bartle and also I could have done with it as well with the Actor/Gamer/Roleplayer system. Although that doesn't really capture the difference between those who were there for the sport of fighting with boffer weapons (Killers) and those who were there because of the Live-Action and physicality of actually exploring things (Explorers).

The long term players continually shifted their interest. And it is worse with RPGs because while you don't have the immersion of live-action, the small group, the human referee, and the use of pen, paper, and dice means things can and do shift on a dime throughout the campaign.

Whereas you see the lack of nuance as a bug, I argue it's a feature. (If you start trying to work with classifications as anything other than broad generalisations that's when you get into the rigid "players always act in one way" issue that is the flaw with some other classification systems. I'm not saying that they're necessary at all or that they do anything but paint with an overly broad brush. Merely that shortcuts can sometimes be a useful tool.

And I think your example of casual players is a really important one. But what you've done there is pinpointed another broad group of players that needs taking into account. "Casual players" is as much a classification as "actors" or "diamonds". If anything I think it shows the inevitability of dividing players in this way. Much as it would be lovely to study each one as their own special case, that's not always feasible.

[robertsconley]

May 26, 2022 14:46:14 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

robertsconley, I have nothing but respect for you and I learn from you constantly so I am trying to lean into what you are saying and learn from you.

Appreciate the compliments and apologize if my post was not well written.

May 26, 2022 14:46:14 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I still find it hard to believe that you have not noticed that there are trends and types of play that are fun to refs and players. There are personality types. So it seems sane to think there might also be play styles.

Sure in hindsight there are things that seem obvious in terms of personality and play styles for every individual. The problem I find in practice is what is it going to be today? I admit if this was a random roll the most likely result is what was previously observed. But I been at this long enough to have experienced multiple times when I guessed wrong. Since then I tried to figure out ways to avoid having to make that guess.

May 26, 2022 14:46:14 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I think one thing I am sensing here is that you are probably just simply and without qualification a better ref than I am! You clearly have the patience and wherewithal to devote yourself to helping anyone have fun at your table. You have a kind of flexibility in your own likes, then, that I think I do not have.

I don't know if I am better. The only thing that seems to set me apart, other than just plain experience, is that I am willing to go with the flow of how players are rather than how I wish them to be in terms of what they want to do in-game. There are limits for example I am not particularly adept at anything gonzo or goofy. So players who like that sort of thing generally don't stick around long in my campaigns. I am not a jerk about it, just not very good at it.

May 26, 2022 14:46:14 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I wise guide in my life once said to me, "get people to 'no,' as quickly as possible." Meaning, to save myself energy drain and dismay trying to do things I am ill-suited to and which do not bring me joy, I need to help people along the process of discerning whether they want to join with me and do my thing or not. Not everyone can like everything. I have friends that know they do not like D&D. I don't play D&D with them or bug them about it. We do other stuff together.

Well for me I make a distinction betwee3ne in-game and out-of-game. Out of game, I have pretty much the same sentiment as you do above. I am pretty accommodating but in general I want to like the people I hang out with every week. In-game however, I just try to setup an interesting situation based on what the players tell me prior to the campaign. Then when play commences I pretty much don't care what pieces they try to knock over or trash. . Obviously, if they go after the King or the Dragon at 1st levels it will probably not end well but given time, luck, and good planning they could pull it off.

How this relates to your OP, is that play styles and personality obviously influence how the players approach dealing with the dragon or king over the long run. But I try to manage things so that the campaign is agnostic to how it is accomplished. One group I know would pretty much go the "amass wealth through dungeon exploration" route, another group I know is more likely to do stick to the cities and do a ton of roleplaying with NPCs to forge connections with the adventures being mostly about fulfilling favors to cement a relationship with an NPC. While another I refereed within the last 5 years is more likely to be focused on exploiting how magic works in my setting.

May 26, 2022 14:46:14 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

I simply do not believe that there are not different identifiable styles of playing D&D and RPGs. I want to help folks get to "no" faster for their sake and mine so that they have fun with their time and I have fun with mine.

My advice is best to learn to do this is to read all you can on small team interactions. What we need for a tabletop roleplaying campaign is not unlike what a small workgroup, a small committee, or a small volunteer group needs.

One thing you will notice with this is the part about motivation and enthusiasm. Regardless of what setting you find the small group in, if they are more enthusiastic they are, the more productive they are. The equivalent for tabletop roleplaying is that they are excited to be there with you and the other players which makes them more flexible about what the group actually does.

Which works out well for tabletop roleplaying because of the inherent flexibility that built into the whole referee describe, player describes, results are adjudicated cycle.

May 26, 2022 14:46:14 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

Does that help to make sense of what I am trying for here? It is possible, that you are just so darn good and accommodating that you cannot understand me on this one! If that is the case, then just axios to you and I hope I get to sit at your table and watch you figure out what I like and accommodate my playstyle so I can see how a pro does it!

Again thanks for the compliment. I will admit is hard for me to give advice on something that is more focused. But I will say that this is covered in the stuff you can learn about small group interactions (or team building is another term). Some teams or group have a pretty specific focus so the leader needs to have the tool to figure out who a good fit and who is not.

Hope this helps or at least clarifies where I am coming from.