Editorial: What Game are We Playing?

The definition of the term role-playing game has become increasingly broad and vague, especially since the turn of the millennium when guys like Ron Edwards, Paul Czege and Vincent Baker started deconstructing, analyzing, and recreating them as tightly focused machines engineered to produce dramatic fiction rather than meandering power fantasies. New terms and cyclical arguments to accompany them emerged almost immediately: indie, narrative, big model, creative agenda, stance, simulationism, immersion. Five, ten years later, people are still arguing over what a role-playing game is, what a story is, what simulationism is, and whether some role-playing games are really role-playing games at all.

Part of the problem is that the hobby is still relatively young, and the development of games that barely resemble Dungeons & Dragons is younger still. I like to read, but I can't stand most books where the author's name is bigger than the title in embossed gold, or if the cover is a pastel-toned painting of a muscular long-haired man embracing a scantily clad redhead. I don't think I'd have a lot of fun talking about literature with folks who enjoy books like that. I love music, and am a professional musician, but I'm partial to jazz and blues, and most rock and metal bores me to death. I'm not making value judgments here. I know that there are romance novels and Scandinavian death metal with just as much aesthetic merit as Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer or John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, it's just not my thing.

I can't think of anything more boring than rolling dice for three hours to kill a bunch of kobolds. I can't ever imagine using miniatures or caring about encumbrance or line-of-sight. If I wanted to do that, I'd play a tactical wargame. I like my games to play out like Coen Brothers' movies, a French film noir or an Italian Giallo. I like drama, tension, moral dilemmas. Character advancement for me isn't gaining new skill ranks or spells, but gaining the emotional fortitude to deal with the death of a loved one. As a GM, I want the plot to unfold and surprise me as much as it does for the players. I haven't prepped in years, except for reading pretty deeply on the subject of improv theater and creative writing.

I don't play role-playing games. I play story games.

There are people who will argue over what a story game is just as much as what a role-playing game is. They'll argue over definitions of story, of game, and of the emergent properties that occur when the two words are juxtaposed. I don't care about arguing. I just want to have fun and exercise my creative muscles with my friends.

Did you notice what I just said? I want to exercise my creative muscles. For me, there is nothing creative about initiative rolls and attacks of opportunity. There's nothing creative about haggling over the cost of a healing potion in some imaginary village bazaar. I've played in games where the fiction was dramatically and creatively on par with any movie I've ever read or film I've ever seen. I guess the bar is raised pretty high now, and I'm not willing to settle for less.

I guess this article is a warning to folks who find themselves involved in a game with me. If I'm running the game, your character is not going to have things easy. I'm not going to fudge rolls in your favor. If your character kills someone, your character will have to deal with the consequences, be they legal or supernatural. If I'm playing in your game, I'm going to expect you to handwave all the haggling at the goblin market, and I'm simply not going to tolerate hanging out at the tavern waiting for the mysterious hooded stranger at the corner table to offer me a job.