From: markg@vulcan.anu.edu.au (Mark Grundy)
Subject: Re: Thematic Gaming
Keywords: thematic, new age, roleplay, characterisation, atmosphere
Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University
Date: 12 Aug 92 12:52:32 GMT

tal691@huxley.anu.edu.au (Tonio Loewald) writes:

    > In reference to the latter part of Mark's posting...

    > Do you really think that our  options have opened up by two orders  of
      magnitude?  Certainly  commercial role-playing  seems more  monolithic
      now  than  ever.    Role-playing  may  have  a  very  imaginative  and
      polymorphic avante garde, but they are very small in number.  I really
      don't see  very  many new  ideas  emerging,  although I  do  see  some
      excellent older  ideas  being  forcefully  implemented  (Skyrealms  of
      Jorune, Vampyre).

        I dunno.  I don't exactly see myself as an avant-garde roleplayer; I
    like challenges, but  not for their  own sake.   I appreciate  stylistic
    innovation, but prefer it  to be justified  by the subject.   I do  like
    good stories, with plenty of player input, presented with a rich texture
    of original imagery, and in  this regard, roleplaying has really  opened
    up.  My  original comments were  intended to be  confined to  Australian
    tournament play, but I think that they also apply to a lesser extent  in
    the gaming  industry.   Genre games  have  made a  major impact  on  the
    commercial and Australian tournament scenes, and with diversity of genre
    has come an expansion of the options for play.

        If you're just  talking mechanics,  I'm in agreement  -- things  are
    still pretty clunky  out there  in the commercial  world, although  with
    recent games like Lace & Steel, Vampire and Amber, there does seem to be
    some development happening.   But I  don't think that  mechanics are  as
    important to your roleplaying options as many other facets are:  genres,
    world conceptions, themes, variety of character roles for instance.

    > The dichotomy between  "theme" and "style"  is well-taken, although  I
      think the words are perhaps ill-chosen.  Theme seems an elaboration of
      genre, style an elaboration of system.  I don't see many new genres or
      systems appearing (at least,  not that attract  my interest), and  the
      role-playing hobby  seems  averse  to  even  agreeing  that  character
      classes are really not a good idea.  One step forwards, one step back.

        Not wanting  to wank  on too  hard here,  but the  line I  drew  was
    between ``subject'' and ``style''.   Subject includes the basic  intent,
    tone, cosmology, roles etc...  Style is how you present these things.

        In my view of this, ``genre'' means  the world in which the game  is
    set -- what things exist, how they interact -- while ``theme'' means the
    subject of an  individual story in that genre.   For example, the  genre
    could be 1930's private eye; the  theme could be ``Romance and  Crime.''
    Beneath this level, we've got plot  and characters: a premise, a set  of
    events intended to provide  the exposition for the  theme, and a set  of
    characters to respond to the events.

        Style is getting in to the nuts and bolts of the presentation.   I'm
    using the term  in the  literary sense of  ``elements of  style''.   Two
    directors are  given the  same play  to  direct: how  do they  go  about
    presenting it?  The differences you find in two different productions of
    the same  play  are  called  ``elements  of  style.''  The  value  of  a
    roleplaying game doesn't just depend on the plot and characters, but  in
    how things develop on a moment-by-moment  basis.  How much narrative  to
    use?  How much player/player interaction?   How to set the scenes?   How
    to move the story onward?  What sort of interactions are possible?   How
    are conflicts resolved?

        Style is integrally connected with the subject-matter, because style
    is  about   creating  associations   that  reinforce   the   exposition.
    Shakespeare doesn't say how Hamlet dresses -- that's up to the director.
    If Hamlet wears a trenchcoat and smokes, then one set of associations is
    made.  If instead he  wears a only figleaf  and plays with a  hula-hoop,
    then another set of associations is made.  The theme is still the  same,
    but the message that comes across  will be quite different.  The  medium
    may not _be_ the message, but it has a large impact on what message  the
    audience gets!

        So, to (finally) address  Tony's last point:  Well, yes.   CyberPunk
    looks a lot like  Thieve's World or  Mordor on one level.   Many of  the
    plots haven't changed much  from the AD&D days.   Yeah, we've still  got
    character classes, and hunts  for the missing MacGuffin.   On the  other
    hand, we've also got a whole new genre, whole new themes to play with --
    themes quite different from those of AD&D.

        We can toy with  the relationships between man  and machine, we  can
    treat the  role of  drugs in  a high-pressure  society, we  can map  the
    breakdown  of  human  relationships   in  a  world  grown   increasingly
    competitive and oriented  toward the  self.   To play  with these  ideas
    properly, we need new elements of style: new ways to set background, new
    ways for characters to interact.

        Unfortunately, while the number of genres grows rapidly, the  corpus
    of  knowledge   about   style  remains   fragmentary   and   incoherent.
    Increasingly   though,   roleplaying   games   come   with   ``direction
    suggestions'' for presenting the  game in a way  that makes the most  of
    it.   Two  examples  spring  to mind  --  both  from  Chaosium's  recent
    publications: ``Perilous Forest'' (Pendragon),  and ``Blood Bros.   II''
    (Cthulhu, non-mythos).   Both  of these  books go  out of  their way  to
    explain intent and presentation to the GM in a way that few books  would
    have wasted print on five years ago.

        I feel that this trend of growing sophistication about the nuts  'n'
    bolts of roleplaying  games is a  most positive sign.   Yeah,  character
    classes are still with us, and most of the genres are still fantasy, but
    I think that the ripples are too big for the pond to be fished out :-)

        [Actually --- one'a dese days I want to write a defense of character
    classes from a dramatic point of view.  Seriously, I think that  there's
    some untapped merit here...]
-- 

 -----                                                             ---- ------
 markg@arp.anu.edu.au                                              Mark Grundy
From: Tobomory.Womble@p2.f158.n633.z3.fidonet.org (Tobomory Womble)
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