My Life As A Gamer: You Are Making History, Not Literature

Reviewing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition has revealed to me that the game, medium, and hobby of tabletop RPGs is not what it is claimed to be.

It is claimed to be this:

It is this:

Note the summary of the gameplay loop. The students--military officers--separate into teams each representing a party in the simulated battle. They observe the battlefield, write down orders, and communitate them to the referees. The referees move the tokens representing the units, adjudicate interactions, and report back the results to the players. Repeat the loop until one side gets their Win Condition, time is called (where that is relevant), or Loss Conditions manifest.

That gameplay loop is the RPG gameplay loop. Players sit around a table and communicate their moves to the Referee who ajudicates the interactions and reports the results back; this loop repeats until one side wins, one side loses, or time is called. The Referee DOES NOT CARE what happens; he is disinterested.

This is what Kriegspiel, the 19th century wargame that started it all, was about: training young men how to think and act to succeed as senior officers in the field. All successors are derived from this original, often to serve the same purpose; one of the above videoes focuses on naval wargaming, a derivative of army wargaming, and that was the case before the 20th century.

There is no narrative logic in wargaming. Narrative conceit does not apply. All of the best experiences in RPG play are from this ludological basis, and therefore there is an inherent competitive quality to the medium. It cannot be removed without inflicting critical damage such that what ruined form remains is a hollow shell fit only to be used as target practice- like what modern militaries do to obsolete wargear.

A wargame deals with limited intelligence (Fog of War), limited resources (logistics), and clear objectives. All that Dave and Gary did was let the players choose the objectives. Then they left the map open-ended to permit the players to have their characters go where needed to do what is needed to pursue those objectives to success or ruin. All of the best RPGs do EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Players win or lose not because it tells a satisfying story, but because their skill and acumen make it so by their own merits. Therefore victory and defeat is entirely THEIR FAULT.

THEY ARE MAKING HISTORY!

The rules of AD&D1e make it clear that it is a wargame and must be approached as such. The fantasy trappings, and references to literature, are not negations of this fact; they are the facilitator for the creation of fantastic historical events that never were. It is no different than what Robert E. Howard did in creating The Hyborean Age; take the best bits of history and use them as raw material for a Neverland that nonetheless possesses verisimilitude because of that real history underlining it- and the real ways that people act because of it.

The game, as designed and written, does not permit narrative conceit. The player is solely responsible for his man's success or failure; the Dungeon Master is not an active party in his own right, but rather that disinterested Referee who--like Conan's Crom--only breathes life into a campaign and then sits back and lets you succeed or fail by your own merits.

Success in the game requires that a player learn to think in terms that a military officer must possess to become a competent command-level officer, one who can be counted upon to lead armies or fleets into action and win. Narrative logic negates all of this, negating the superior player in the worship of a false idol of "fairness" under the guise of Muh Story, and therefore it is always cheating--theft--in practice. You will find that Diplomacy has similiar qualities and benefits.

Success means learning how to identify objectives and outline the steps to achieving them. Success means developing the logistics necessary to carry out the activity required to achieve that objective. This means having the presence of mind to cultivate good relations with other parties, avoid unnecessary conflicts, develop a body of men that you can count upon to carry out orders when you cannot handle it yourself, and to collaborate with others to achieve what cannot be done alone.

That this is completely alien to far too many people is a testament unto itself as to how bad things have become.

Many commentators in the RPG space are completely wrong about RPGs. Even otherwise sensible ones, due to their mistaken premises on who is the active party (Wrong: The DM; Right: The Players) and who is the passive party (the reverse) and from that mistaken second and third-order premises that follow from the initial one: DM is responsible for all playable content; only one PC at a time, always working together, by themselves, and ultimately with no threat of failure or setback because Muh Narrative demands it.

All of the problems in the RPG hobby come from these errant premises and the errant perspectives that those mistaken premises--those wrong premises--cannot avoid creating and sustaining. The remedy is as simple as to Return To Correct Play, abandoning old errors as well as those who profit from sustaining those errors across the board- to come out of a cult of piss-poor play and the mindsets that are sustained by the victim mentality it rewards.

It does not matter how long the error has been in place- it is still an error and therefore it is WRONG. It does not matter how much has been erected in the wake of that error- it is still wrong, thus it has no right to exist because ERROR HAS NO RIGHTS!

Those in search of a satisfying narrative experience need to learn how to write fiction competently, not waste speace at the gaming table, and no further should such error be tolerated by anyone for any reason at any time. Git Gud, Scrub, or Get The Fuck Out. History shall not remember you as I tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under my sandalled feet.