I see all those hypotheses but are those verifiable? Did they result in some solid explanations that allowed useful predictions to be made? Or do they play "my idea is better" game?
(edit: yeah, silently downvote people asking questions... people shouldn't ask things. Or is it some sore I stepped on unknowingly?)
So Ron Edwards, who came up with the GNS system, realized that the there were lots of games about winning, and lots of games about simulations, but very few games about drama/stories. He published his ideas wide and far on the internet, made some games, and ran a very influential forum, "the forge". Along with a later spin off forum, story-games.com, a new breed of game designers showed up that focused much more on narratives and the dramatic moment.
Some examples of these cult story games are The Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, FIASCO, Apocalypse World, Mouse Guard, and Dungeon World. These started out fairly hardcore, with but had narrative elements built into the mechanics the game instead of an afterthought. As time went on, and with lots of experimentation, people found out just how the light you could go on the rules and keep the focus on the mechanics that drive the story.
The much praised D&D 5th edition, that renewed the hobby and got kids back into it, brings in many of the elements honed out in the cult fringe of story games.
So yeah, I think at least the GNS theory has had a major effect on the RPG gaming world.
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If you want to get a taste of these games, take a look at the Apocalypse World.
Here's an example of a "move", that a player can do to bring the dice into a story:
"DO SOMETHING UNDER FIRE
When you do something under fire, or dig in to endure fire, roll+cool. On a 10+,
you do it. On a 7–9, you finch, hesitate, or stall: the MC can offer you a worse
outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice. On a miss, be prepared for the worst."
Essentially the rules prioritize putting interesting people in bad situations and seeing them make hard choices. It's the distilled essence of drama.
Also, incidentally, there's a small group of mainstream RPG fans who get absolutely furious about anything resembling GNS or story games, for no reason I've ever been able to determine.
(But then Ron Edwards infamously said that traditional/D&D-style RPGs literally cause brain damage, so I suppose there's a lot of defensiveness to go around...)
These systems are a bit alien sometimes and really easy to abuse. So if you have munchkin players around the table who like min/maxing, they are to be avoided (or avoid the min/maxing player).
In Burning Wheel for exemple, there is no game balance. The knight will absolutely destroy the village-grown militia man, even if they have the same amount of "xp". Also, the complete swordplay game system takes hours to learn just to emulate a few seconds of fencing. They chose realism over smooth gameplay.
I don't know what their reasons are, but I do have a certain aversion to games that try to force social play in a certain way. E.g. when a board game forces you to be the traitor. I can totally see why people might want the rules of the game be limited to enabling and balancing the players' interactions with the world and letting player improv the actual narrative.
> (edit: yeah, silently downvote people asking questions...
Would you please not break the site guidelines like this? Unfair downvotes suck, but for a comment like this it's almost always the case that users will give corrective upvotes, which leaves the complaint not only against the rules but factually wrong.
But can't you verify a good theory of RPG by creating a novel game that will be much appreciated or fixing some existing games making them more interesting? Like how music theory improved musicians' work and resulted in a better music, musician communication and even got used for creative AIs while music is very subjective too?
"Literary theory," as it is called, is actually not theory. It's the production of commentaries that are designed to make you say, "ah, yes." In other words it's a derivative art form like collage or remixing. You can tell the difference because there is no way to tell if a paper is right or not other than by deciding if it sounds right to you, which is no less subjective than anything else in art. In contrast, music theory is put to the test every day when musicians become successful with its help, and scientific theories are, well, you already know.
> You can tell the difference because there is no way to tell if a paper is right or not other than by deciding if it sounds right to you, which is no less subjective than anything else in art.
It's true that there is no way to logically prove the value of a work of art (and who says art has or needs "value"?), but lack of proof doesn't mean something doesn't exit; it means it's harder to think about. There is no proof what will happen tomorrow, but we make judgments without it, as we do about most things: Should I take this job? Should I marry this person? Do they love me? Do I love them? Should I ask out the new neighbor? Ubuntu or Fedora?
There's no algorithm to understanding art; there are tools, but there is no certainty. Without a logic map, it can be very challenging - in the best way, IMHO, because it brings forth and develops my deepest thinking and compels me to challenge myself and my perspective. I can't prove a Miro is better than your neighbor's kid's drawing ... and I guess I don't really care to; I'm going to study the Miro.
The closest thing I got to "make useful predictions" by using rpg theories is to maximize enjoyment of the game by different types of player.
By reading the definition of theory, this is a slightly inappropriate use as the goal is not so much to explain why people are having a blast as to make them having a blast.
Maybe we start speaking about game engineering instead?
(edit: yeah, silently downvote people asking questions... people shouldn't ask things. Or is it some sore I stepped on unknowingly?)