Optional Realities & Project Redshift

[crayon]

Read an opinion editorial by one of Optional Realities' community members and contributors, Leah!
http://optionalrealities.com/staff-ethics-the-hows-and-whys/

Keep up with news on Otherspace's experiment with the Evennia engine!
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=273.0

Read about the changes with Haven's launch of Haven 3.0!
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?board=6.0
http://100.42.19.101/forum/showthread.php?tid=23493

Or contribute to discussion on one of our previous articles!
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?board=11.0

@Thenomain said:

Belatedly, what I was saying was mostly that RPGs are also things you read in books and sit around a table with friends and play-act within a loose rule framework.

The Wizardy/Bard's Tale/Wasteland/Ultima set of games are fun and all, but are a different kind of RPGs, one I've commonly seen called 'cRPGs'. Computer RPGs. Are MMOs cRPGs? Well, that's an interesting question. Is Diablo 2 a cRPG? Is Ultima Online the only MMO to get "traditional RPG" right?

Is Yawhg a cRPG? An RPG? A multiplayer choose-your-own-adventure?

So many questions. I have no answers.

That's an interesting thought. I would think, really, though that RPG is a larger concept than you're really making it out to be. All the distinctions and categorizations can be blurry and confusing and ad hoc and sometimes pretty goddamn silly, but I think all of the above are fundamentally 'RPGs'. The sitting around a table with books and dice and a loose framework is, specifically, tabletop roleplaying, which is of course going to have some differences from roleplaying via the more strict framework of a computer game, or with hundreds or thousands of other people, or whatever.

[Thenomain]

What kind of RPG came before tabletop? What is more traditional than it?

What, @crayon, is the purpose of these articles? History, community, or attention?

"It Depends" is not, I think, a compelling response to my critique for two of three of these goals. At the least, it doesn't come across as community friendly to me, and by historical accounting it is just plain wrong. If it depends, what does it depend upon? Establishing context would go further than defending against criticism.

Besides, with that slippery slope there, we can go all the way back to "what is language", and like most slippery slope that's a ride that goes nowhere.

[crayon]

Read Jaunt's new article on branching storylines and nonlinear storytelling!
http://optionalrealities.com/how-to-write-branching-storylines/

Come join us for community game nights, including League of Legends and more!
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=210.0

Sign up for a game of MUD-themed forum Mafia!
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=214.0

Read about Icarus's documentation and development of the OpenRPI engine!
http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=277.0

@thenomain said:

What kind of RPG came before tabletop? What is more traditional than it?

I think that defining a genre by what is 'traditional' or what 'came first' is generally a bad idea. Tabletop might have been the first and strongest progenitor of the roleplaying genre, but since then it's certainly broadened into a much wider category. Roleplaying is a particular approach to the medium of games. The evolution of cRPGs, JRPGs, sandbox RPGs, etc. is just a broadening of the genre to accommodate and utilize new technology. So tabletops are not definitively the RPGs, so much as they're their own class of RPGs, tabletop RPGs, within the broader genre.

@thenomain said:

What, @crayon, is the purpose of these articles? History, community, or attention?

The articles are there for the discussion of game design and administration ideas as they relate specifically to text-based gaming and roleplaying, and the discussion (and debate) of those ideas.

Going back to the discussion of what, exactly, defines an 'RPG', I think it's a pretty blurry concept that actually encompasses a lot more than it used to. These days an overwhelming majority of games are in some sense an 'RPG' whether they'd traditionally be defined as such or not, or at the very least incorporate roleplaying elements.

[Lithium]

All I have to say is: A narrative by itself is not an RPG. If you do not get to make choices, then it is not an RPG. If you do get to make choices, and none of them can impede/alter/halt or end the story, it is not an RPG.

However, none of these things by themselves also make a game an RPG. So go figure.

[Thenomain]

@crayon said:

I think that defining a genre by what is 'traditional' or what 'came first' is generally a bad idea.

So do I, which is why I questioned Jeshin's use of it.

[Miss Demeanor]

@Lithium said:

All I have to say is: A narrative by itself is not an RPG. If you do not get to make choices, then it is not an RPG. If you do get to make choices, and none of them can impede/alter/halt or end the story, it is not an RPG.

However, none of these things by themselves also make a game an RPG. So go figure.

You also just described a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. XD

[Thenomain]

@crayon said:

The articles are there for the discussion of game design and administration ideas as they relate specifically to text-based gaming and roleplaying, and the discussion (and debate) of those ideas.

Reply the second. I don't see discussion in the articles. I don't see discussion here about replies to your articles. Nothing is wrong with that, but with the medium what I got from the articles is that they were tips and hints, that they were one-way.

For all my MST3k-ing, here, this is none of that. This is feedback; I never got the impression that you guys were doing these articles for anyone but yourselves. Even here, my criticism of the ideas seems to be met with flat explanation. I haven't really seen any of your articles be met with conversation, on your own site, either.

This is not negative, but is against your stated goal. From day one, I have not gotten the idea that you guys wanted input.

Mind you, criticizing is a lot easier than doing. I will eventually get you guys some kind of article.

[Alzie]

I am amused that this thread is still alive.

[Lithium]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

@Lithium said:

All I have to say is: A narrative by itself is not an RPG. If you do not get to make choices, then it is not an RPG. If you do get to make choices, and none of them can impede/alter/halt or end the story, it is not an RPG.

However, none of these things by themselves also make a game an RPG. So go figure.

You also just described a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. XD

True story!

I just happen to think of an RPG to not have specific and dedicated endings to stories. To me an RPG doesn't have established goals other than 'Have fun' and 'make your own story matter'. The players /always/ guide the games I run and I (won't say never, but) rarely have predefined events or fallout to their actions. How the players achieve something determines how the world reacts around them. It may not always be in large ways, but there is always consequences.

[Autumn]

@Alzie Well, we haven't seen the light yet, so someone's going to keep coming by with a new Watchtower every month.

[Jeshin]

Hey,

The thread will probably remain alive until someone kicks us out for being to persistent =( but otherwise for discussion of the articles some of them get discussion and some don't. The text-based RPG genre one I wrote had a pretty good discussion with clarifications and changes of opinion crop up around it. The Player-killing one from Orpheus on Burning Post II has the most discussion (I believe) around it.

It does seem that most people just read the article and either agree or disagree though. As to the quality of the articles, we're looking at changing up how we present them to allow for more editorial pieces and less design oriented ones so we can try and increase the quality and usefulness of the design articles by not having to release them every week.

Also people like to read opinion pieces (it would seem) so listen to your audience and all.

[Alzie]

@Jeshin said:

so listen to your audience and all.

The irony, it's suffocating.

[Jeshin]

Hey,

You can listen to your audience without agreeing with everything they want. This is something we can change and are willing too. So perhaps listen to your audience, when you feel comfortable doing so?

[Thenomain]

@Jeshin

It's the design pieces that seem to invite the least feedback. Not for lack of trying, but neither you nor Crayon seem to want the conversation.

This makes "we want to make a discussion" hard to believe. What are you doing to encourage discussion?

[Jeshin]

Hey,

http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=221.0

This is a good example. I was discussing the article with another developer and he expressed a differing opinion and I encouraged him to post it. We then had a discussion on the forum and points were clarified. We are exploring other ways to encourage more discussion such as asking followup questions and more actively soliciting feedback from users that read the forums or click the JOIN DISCUSSION button at the bottom of the articles.

[Thenomain]

Cool, because attempts at discussion with you guys here have been cold at best. I really do think you guys don't want to talk about things you think are right.

[Autumn]

@Thenomain said:

Cool, because attempts at discussion with you guys here have been cold at best. I really do think you guys don't want to talk about things you think are right.

For what little it's worth, this has also been my impression. Oh, there are certainly areas in which you're prepared to have a discussion, but they all exist within a larger framework that doesn't seem particularly open to debate.

Now, I mean, there is nothing wrong with thinking you're right. If you've found a way to run games that works for you and that you're happy with and you just want to fill in around the corners, good on you! Congratulations, and I mean that in a genuinely sincere way. I hope it continues to work out for you.

But my Jehovah's Witnesses analogy, snarky though it was, was chosen deliberately. Y'all are evangelists. That's cool, but after a certain point people of other faiths are just not going to see the point in talking with you because it's a one way street.

[Jeshin]

Hey,

There is some truth to feeling you're on the right side of a debate and trying to lay out your points in a less open manner and more A to B to C so you are less open to nitpicking. Truthfully I think the primary gap to bridge is that we're much more likely to discuss topics freely and with less "this is how it is" style writing on Optional Realities itself. Discussions are content and that content we take time to create we try to keep on the website.

I'm not saying we don't debate off the website (since there's more pages of debate and me admitting I'm wrong in this thread than promotional material) just that the best place to debate us would be on Optional Realities.

EDIT - To clarify because we have had an influx of users on the forum and are in the middle of finishing up some game system documentation and thus our time is spread thin. Thus why I assigned a new community lead and why I've not been posting as much anywhere in general.

[FiranSurvivor]

Having seen people before who either avoid debate or taint a debate because they believe they have the one and only answer, Jeshin does not seem the type after a brief glance over this thread...

[Tempest]

Yeah, tbh, not sure what's with the hostility in this thread. Seems to be coming from our side.