Role-Playing Games: Theory and Practice
October 30, 1993, 10:00pm onwards; The Hub, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
As only three people showed, it was felt that the workshop could not be carried out as planned. However, those present did discuss the concept of cathartic role-playing at some length, and the results of this discussion may be useful to an actual workshop in the future.
The group considered the question, "What is role-playing?" Responses included: acting out ideas; imitating a characters' persona; taking on a persona oneself; extending ones' own persona into an imaginary situation. Contrasts were drawn between role-playing and possibly the most closely related form of expression, drama. They broke down as follows:
| Role-Playing | Drama |
|---|---|
| Players have variable moves | Characters are working toward set goals
All players know all their own and others' moves |
| Players have (in theory) no restrictions | The entire form is set in advance |
| There are multiple personalities involved, all influencing the direction of the action | It is easier for one person (writer, director) to set a theme for the others to follow |
| Players explore the inner world of their characters | Players project their characters outward, to an audience |
| The emphasis is on teamwork - tactics -intellectual cooperation -problem-solving |
Players individually interpret characters |
| Having played a scene once, players may re-analyse it by playing it again, interpreting it at a different level | Players must condense all levels into one act
Scenes are played only once |
| Players identify strongly with their characters | Players are less likely to bond with their characters |
| Characters are self-determined | Characters are pre-generated |
The origins of role-playing were discussed. The group felt that the earliest role-playing probably originated with people wishing to re-enact fight scenes, with particular emphasis on miniatures wargaming; this might be referred to as the problem of Ancestral Heritage, reflected even now in wargames that masquerade as role-playing games.
The first true role-playing emerged with the idea that plot takes precedence over rules.
In discarding the ancestral heritage of role-playing, one might logically discard violence in role-playing, however it is not necessary to do so. Violence serves functions outside of its ancestral role. Functions listed by the group include the following. It allows some players to "let of steam" (cathartic in the sense of Aristotles' catharsis; venting violent urges through vicarious or imaginary, rather than actual, violence). It allows a direct way for players to compete through their characters. It lets players know when they're "winning" (this applies equally to both killing enemies, and non-violent problem-solving). Especially vivid depictions can cause players of the characters perpetrating or witnessing it to feel remorse, or produce other strong emotional responses. It was also noted by the group that some games (eg. Toon) defeat the purpose of violence by making it fun, ie. reducing it to slapstick. In addition, some games (eg. Bearenquest) succeed without employing violence at all.
The suggestion that the main function of rules in most role-playing games is to mediate violence, was challenged with the idea that rules help define a character; rules are there to "hang things off". A character is more readily grasped if aspects of their personality may be quantified, especially where those aspects are defined relative to others.
The workshop concluded with the playing of two key scenes from Kathy Hos' Five Sort Out Cthulhu. After studying the character sheets, workshop participants played through the opening sequence (serving mostly to define the characters in terms of how they perceive each other), then played the pre-climactic scene wherein the characters confronted their own subconscious fears, through the plot device of their dreams being animated in the real world. The module was discussed. The group felt that the module could be termed "pre-cathartic". It was still a classic problem-solving module, in that even the surreal confrontation of the characters' fears was a means to an end, ie. an obstacle to achieving the mission objective. However, the potential was there for the characterisation to overwhelm the plot, which was thought to be a desirable end in a cathartic module. The key issue distinguishing the module from traditional or ancestral modules was the emphasis on what the characters would do (character-based), rather than on what they could do (tactical, or rules-based). The group discussed whether it was necessary to entirely discard the notion of character objectives to force the players to focus on characterisation, although no consensus was reached on this point. The workshop concluded at about 2pm.
Experimental Role-Playing Workshop One | Role-Playing Games: Theory and Practice