Here we go again...

[robkuntz]

Fantasy Role Playing Game; or Fantasy Role Playing Game  ??

Pre 1975/1976:  Referred to as FRP:  Fantasy Role Playing

C9: People in our hobby seem to have forgotten that this is not only Fantasy but that the game itself is an imaginative immersion. All the discussion is on rules, game attitude and the like. There is zero discussion on the application or theory of imagination as an active and activating component for it, the very thing that makes an RPG what an RPG is. This has been long abandoned for the logical, analytical game side wherein Fantasy and active imagination will never flourish.

C10: The imagination can only be overcome by the mechanical if the mind is tooled like a machine; that is, of course, unless one outright prefers oil to blood.



From A New Ethos in Game Design, Copyright 2014-2018, Robert J. Kuntz. All Rights and Permissions Reserved.

[robkuntz]

From Dave Arneson's True Genius, Essay 2:

What we note when we throttle the conceptual interface is that it leaps unimpaired into the future. By choosing a point in that time span we throttle it back and stop. There, we must re-describe the mechanical apparatus as it catches up in time with the conceptual leap so that these once again form a utility of the cross-functioning design components.

Where do we have this embedded in Arneson’s FFC and OD&D structure? Every time we house rule something, for one example. We leap into the future of what if? by the system’s inquiry-to-interaction and then the mechanic “catches up” with the conceptual leap where they reassemble to evolve the system. This in fact throttles the conceptual model, but only minutely so when compared to what could be demonstrated by way of such evolved assemblages.

Now let us throttle the separated mechanical apparatus and note if the same holds true in reverse, that of staging its counterpart conceptual interface component. But can the mechanical component even leap Into the future...? No. And for an obvious reason: Its future is contingent upon what it is describing via the conceptual interface which is still in the present and in this example is in a constant, stable state.

The mechanical apparatus in this instance, and at best, can only move laterally and along a narrowly defined axis to promote itself in how it must function in tandem with the otherwise stable conceptual system; and it may by persistently iterating itself in this fashion cause the conceptual system component to become less and less relevant to the whole cross-communicating system structure as it predominates the system’s actions (i.e., causing disequilibrium; or what I refer to in RPG design terms as “mechanical drag”). It is itself expanding or contracting along a linear axis but in turn can have no positive impact upon the conceptual system through either generating a future leap or by causing its behavior to evolve.

It can, however, and through persistent revolutions of itself which cause the overall system to orient more and more upon its cycles, manifest consistent sub-optimizations within the previously balanced system state.

This drag would effectively, and over time, negate the possible evolutionary properties of the holistic system’s architecture by foregrounding the mechanical apparatus and backgrounding the conceptual system interface (i.e., they would be separated and no longer interdependent). Evolution would be switched out through demotion; and the systems architecture would reach a stable and permanent non-evolutionary state. In summary non-linear leaps in conceptual dimension would be replaced by linear shifts in mechanics.

Thus are revealed Arneson’s key points regarding the ongoing evolution of his active, and recurring, systems architecture, and as embodied in his quotes: 1) “Rules lawyers... I regard them as the enemy”; and 2) “I like loose so you can change things that are not working.”

These are not errant side points, but are indeed validations of the type of system he was promoting and a posit of what he had left behind while doing so. Mechanics were now fluid by way of what was being promoted within the ongoing conceptual interface--the exact opposite of what had occurred in game design history where what is conceptualized is unfailingly closed down to an invariant rules structure. Contingently fluid conceptual positions could now evolve the mechanics in concert with them. Arneson had repositioned their historically linear attitudes by simply noting that neither need ever reach an end point resolution. This is Arneson’s emergent (or base) initial condition for his systems architecture.

[robkuntz]

C104: It is my view that we cannot know Fantasy and experience its evolution if we cannot ourselves evolve beyond its, now, self-referenced boundaries of what it was in the past and, thus, what it must remain to be Fantasy in the future. We are stuck in a self-engineered, looped present looking backwards through a narrow viewport at what have become static reference points reduced to "what was" instead of using Fantasy's history as guideposts for continuing with its unlimited measures. Most of these static points are due to the market reinforcing pre-images which have satiated mankind long before markets were on the scene to define why, when and how Fantasy's measures should be important to us. Generations have passed since then; and the current coin of the realm of imagination seems to adhere to the market of these oft-repeated images rather than to the furtherance of them by ourselves. Thus the heart of Fantasy has been, in the modern day, transferred to the misers of imagination at the expense of the originators of same, and for purposes unrelated to the latter. Once we understand that Fantasy is a human province, and that it is not determined by the market where the only consequence of Fantasy as truth is defined by a limited bottom-line, then its conceptual range will continue expanding rather than circling, the latter being its current, omnipresent state. This is the positive force of the imagination which offers a push-back against the static market and that realigns the market with human history spanning past, present and future. The imagination moves history; but the market always attempts to calcify history in the present. And calcified thought can only sense itself in the present as a reflection of what is and what must be, and not of what was or what could be, the latter grouping being the truest path to seeking the unknown: Fantasy.

C105: If the world's expanse was the base by which one could calculate FRPG's extant condition within it, then the latter's measure, given its forty or more years of endeavor within Fantasy's infinite scope, would be equatable to the width of tooth-pick.


From A New Ethos in Game Design, Copyright 2014-2018, Robert J. Kuntz. All Rights and Permissions Reserved.

[robkuntz]

From the chapter Images of Fantasy & Fact

One of the denotations for Fantasy is in fact creation. This is in part derived from children at play in fantastic environments that they create and often sustain.

It is also related to the creative act of imagining things and thus bringing them into being, such as those fantastic situations possible in FRPG environments. These imaginative and creative processes are inextricably linked to the idea of Fantasy; and if they were to be separated in relation to summoning and sustaining the fantastic, this very act would produce a perceptional regression in relation to it. Now sustain that regression for 35 years due to the adventure format’s predominance (game as consumer rather than game as creator) and one might indeed begin to sense the resulting disconnect with Fantasy which I have noted.

Let us once again consider children. During their daily activities of imaginative expression kids rarely fail to exceed what we today consider adventuresome Fantasy: While they are about building spaceships for journeying into the unknown of the universe, we are pacing through dungeons; while they are exploring the caves, mountains and wildernesses of uncharted lands, we are groping through dungeons; while they imitate and investigate hundreds of personas and situations far and wide and even alien, we are for the most part, still trudging through dungeons. And to make the comparison more poignant, as a group they are running across a field and in mid-stride changing from frontiersmen to pirates, while we are scouring books of rules, inquiring of our fellows, and writing dissertation length blog-posts in order to ascertain if this very thing is indeed possible.

I am not suggesting a structure that is so loose that its application would produce chaos; but neither am I suggesting one that is too rigid that in turn produces strictures of the type as noted in the comparisons above. But it does appear, however one might for themselves define the structure that currently exists and is used in creating, realizing and expanding on Fantasy, that kids have already won to such dimensions without struggling with structure. They have always been the masters of Fantasy; and we could perhaps learn from them again.


From A New Ethos in Game Design, Copyright 2014-2018, Robert J. Kuntz. All Rights and Permissions Reserved.

[mormonyoyoman]

I think I am in love with this thread.

Not that I'm saying I agree; I don't yet know. One cannot believe the first premise without one's mind wandering off to different side-roads of speculation, of wandering into different What Ifs that it is a struggle to stay on topic or to wonder at the final results of all this.

Or at least that's my struggle. But I'm chaotic lawful with a neurogical excuse.