Is actual RP in MMORPGs another next impossible thing?
Patrice:
Soory 'bout the bold letters abuse, didn't think that would look like this, gives quite an authoritarian image I didn't wish nor felt at all, just thought bold would be cool to highlight things.
Lance D. Allen:
First: Simulation != (does not equal) Simulationism. They're actually not even that close. It's a goofy, counterintuitive term. Blame Ron, most people do.
Second: Narrative != Narrativism.
No game system can replace any creative agenda. The game portions of an MMO can satisfy the Gamist CA, but it doesn't do so by default. The simulated visual environment does not satisfy a Simulationist CA. Most, nearly all, MMO roleplay I've seen and heard of falls squarely into Sim play. It occasionally strays into Narrativist play, but it's rarely intentional.
I honestly think we'd be better off avoiding these terms. It would be better to talk about the play in terms of goals in plain language.
One final nitpick... I promise! I'm just a nitpicky person. It's not a reflection on you. Most Social Contract is informal and unwritten. That's why it can sometimes be problematic, because different expectations of what is agreed upon can clash, if a new person joins an existing group. That's why a lot of established roleplay communities will set up websites with their rules, because it's a much larger group without personal communication between all members, and people can join or leave at any time without much notice to the group.
A. I mostly agree with you that P&P play isn't parasitic. Hence the reason I made my symbiosis comment. However, I don't necessarily believe that your typical P&PRPG is any more an SIS-building kit than an MMO is. Some are, but that's a newer phenomena. Your traditional RPG gives you a framework to solve certain types of conflicts within the fiction, but they do not actually contribute to the SIS in any meaningful way moreso than an MMO.
B. I contest that it is impossible for a game-spanning SIS. I think it is possible, it simply hasn't been done. Now, buying into the fiction is optional for everyone. No one has to buy into it, no matter what. But if the SIS is bought into by the developers, and they actively promote roleplay, building systems to support it into the code of the game, then it has the potential to span the majority of users. Even those who don't buy into the imaginative portion will have to acknowledge the parts enforced by the mechanical game.
B.2. Even in a P&P game, creation isn't limitless. You have limitations imposed by the mechanical portions of the game. Sure, you can ignore those, but there's only so far you can go before you're not really playing that game anymore. I think that's a fairly important observation to make.
C. From your description and my experience, it's largely Right-to-Dream (Sim) and occasionally strays into addressing Premise (Nar). In roleplaying communities with war scenarios, politics, etc. it can even address Step-on-Up, (Gam) but usually this is handled by competition with the game itself (PvE). PvP has frequently been part of the roleplaying communities I've associated with, though.
D. SIS is a slightly modified concept within the context of MMOs, but I think it still exists. Think of it as a similar deal to a Living Campaign moderated by the RPGA. some aspects of the campaign affect all member groups, but each group has its own SIS.
Anyhow.. I appreciate your tolerance in my rambling. I work a night-shift where very little happens, so I get bored. This topic is one near and dear to my heart because I have pie-in-the-sky hopes of changing the paradigm one day.
Callan S.:
Quote from: Patrice on January 06, 2009, 10:17:16 AM
A. The parasite-host relationship is adressed by Callan stating that this is also the case in P&PRPGs. After much thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that no, it's not the case in P&PRPGs. Why? Because a P&PRPG is designed to be allowing you to build your own SIS, you could say it's a SIS-building kit. The fact that every game table would develop its own SIS within the game is the main purpose of the game! There's no actual taking over the host here because you've never been a parasite in the first place. Will you challenge that?
Kind of. Remember I suggested the game can be parasitic on the users, too. For example, are you unable to form an SIS unless an RPG allows you?
Patrice:
Sorry for this long delay in answering guys, lot of work lately and been on a long week-end. Now, free as a bird, I'm taking a look at your replies and here's mine:
Don't worry, Wolfen, I was actually using Simulationism and Narrativism in their "Forge" meaning here, we can use Right to Dream and Story Now if you prefer but I still feel we should use those expressions because, if commonly agreed, they can help to take the discussion somewhat further and avoid us getting stuck in issues that have already been solved long ago. It's just that I don't want the topic, which has a tremenderous power to do so, to wander astray into "What exactly do you call roleplaying?" "I don't play this way" and this kind of unproductive issues.
I can't agree when you say that the game doesn't by default satisfy the Gamist Creative Agenda. It does. I mean, if not, people would just stop playing because 95% people don't play MMORPGs for roleplaying. I won't question their deepest motives for playing here, but in any case it's a game they play. And they play as they would any other game. Come on, haven't you ever heard, or said "Woot I'm first on the healing ranking" or "OMFG, 12K crit, Screen, Screen!" and "21 kills to nil, we're heroes guys" or "Doooooooooooooown"? Don't be ashamed, I did too and that was hella fun.
I was also wondering today about Simulationism and I think you might have a point here. Okay there's a Virtual space, but people roleplaying in it do Simulate. What's a Troll Empire if it's not Simulation? It is indeed. So there's maybe more than just the Story Now Creative Agenda involved but if you play long enough, you'll realize that the Right to Dream, just by itself, can't span long enough. I mean, it has no replay value, no storyline as such and sooner or later, becomes boring. Okay, it's maybe just the same with P&P Simulationist RPGs... My stressing upon the actual roleplaying taking place within MMORPGs as being Narrativist is maybe just an expression of my hope because the Simulationist solution dooms it at length because of the user's inability to change the content. As I stated it before, a content isn't a SIS. This is the whole difference that forbids Right to Dream play at length.
It does in the games we play (I've been playing AO, Everquest, GW and WoW mostly, yes). You say it yourself when you express your hope for another step of development in MMORPGs, it is the same as saying that what we have now isn't satisfying the basis we are talking about. If it's possible, and I wonder how, it's imho another kind or genre of game entirely. I'm open to discuss that, but we'll have to get well beyond the scope of what we call now MMORPGs.
The other issue we have with Simulationism in roleplaying games within MMORPGs is that they eventually end in adding color to the game content, they don't change the SIS as we said earlier. I state that it it still a difference with P&PRGPs because they provide the possiblity to design things yourself and, last but not least, they lay upon the SIS stuck at the game table. Rafu said it when he gave his Forgotten Realms example: Your party has the choice to let the Thay wizards event in the game or not. Your party can discard it if it wants (though not in Living Campaigns, Right).
So, as far as I am concerned, the SIS question isn't solved, nor the Creative Agenda one and it is of huge importance to our topic. If discussing as you do is rambling, I'm very eager to have you rambling around again and again. Changing the paradigm is very, very interesting but we have to solve the preliminary issues first if we want this to happen.
Callan S.:
In terms of that I would (again) question whether RPG's 'allow' you to design things yourself. For example, if you were writing climbing rules for a brand new RPG, you'd acknowledge you were making up those rules purely by your own merit. The game your writing isn't providing you with the possiblity to design things yourself. If I wrote half an RPG then handed it to you, does it 'allow' you to write the other half? Or is it just half an RPG, and allows you nothing in particular? Most traditional RPG's 'allow' by simply being half an RPG. By which I'd say they don't allow at all. They are just an RPG half written up (or some mere fraction). So your traditional RPG 'allows' you to design stuff as much as a mmorpg does - ie, not at all.
I guess I note this question, because part of this discussion hinges on the 'fact' that traditional RPG's allow you to design things or are an SIS building kit. I think everyone would do well to question that assertion even though it seems off topic, since most of the discussion rests upon the idea as a foundation. If that foundation is flawed, anywhere you get with the discussion, crumbles. Anyway, I tried to keep this post short.
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