TAS Article: The Importance of Understanding Playstyles


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Playstyles is a far more complex subject than "Intrigue vs Combat," which is basically just the tip of the visible portion of the iceberg that is playstyles.

So why is this important? Because of communication among players, and so GMs can more readily tailor their games to the players they have.

To paraphrase something Shamus Young said "There is a reason we don't use the word 'mechanic' to mean anybody who works on automobiles, HVAC, aerospace, civil engineering, and the myriad of other 'similar' jobs. If you ask for a mechanic, do you need your car fixed, or your air conditioner?"

If everyone understood the differences of playstyles and had good terminology for it, we could more easily find groups of a particular style we enjoy, and even when we couldn't we could still agree on a particular style for a game and thus enjoy it more with less friction among players.

Part of the problem though, is that players in general do not simply use one phrase "Role-Playing Game" to mean a wide swath of game types, but that most players think of that wide swath of game types as being a small and narrow selection of games.

Many of the differences between types are subtle and not superficial, making them hard to understand without the right experience, much like how people think of combat sports as being anything related to actual combat, when the truth is, a warrior that has fought real battles will see a grand canyon of difference in something an inexperienced person would say looks the same.

GMs, the serious ones anyway, should understand these differences so they can see what the different players in their group are and can adjust the game to best suit the mix of styles their players are, or even select players to get a group of similar styles, both of which would vastly improve the play experience of all involved.

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Now I see there being three axi of aspects that affect playstyle, basically giving us a cube of a playstyle spectrum that everyone is in somewhere.

The three axi are meta vs world, narrative vs events, serious vs social.

The meta vs world axis about what viewpoint you have in thinking about the game. Meta is thinking about the game from "outside" the game. For example, someone who considers a course of action because it might build up character growth (in a literary sense) is thinking from a viewpoint outside their character. They are basically thinking as an entity outside the narrative looking in. The opposite end of this is someone who thinks from the viewpoint of being in the world, what is the character seeing and thinking, and acting on that regardless of any external factors.

Narrative vs events is about focusing on narrative aspects, like character growth and the narrative milieu, or on events like swinging on a chandelier and saying cheesy one-liners.

Serious vs Social is a simple one. Some people get into their games, and while fun, they want to take it seriously. Pro gamers, who go to world tournaments and such, enjoy what they are doing but are still being serious about it in a way that more casual players never will be. Going even further away from serious are the players who are not even invested in the game at all, but are there just for the social experience of doing something with their friends regardless of what that something is. For these players, the game could be tiddlywinks and that would be fine.

This gives us roughly six extremes, the "pure roleplayer," the Gamer, the Author, the Seeker, and the Socialite.

The Author (meta * narrative) is a player who wants to take part in crafting the story. They want to do things in such a way they would be enjoyable to read after the fact. They want to not only control a character but to fill in details about the world, craft wondrously written conversation with NPCs and other players, and take part in crafting the outcomes and events so their character can be seen going through character growth and things that make a good story.

The Seeker (world * events) is a player all about getting the emotional highs from doing cool, cheesy, or cliched jokes. They would rather swing on a chandelier because it is cool, than to do the tactically smart but less cool option. They are about the Thrills and Spills (an awesome video of this title exists btw, though equestrian in nature) of the game.

The Gamer (Meta * Events) is a player that plays the game like a board game. That is not to say they discount the story, but when there is an obstacle to be overcome, they like handling it in a mechanical way. They like having and using system mastery. Such players are the ones who always want game balance, because a lack of game balance makes system mastery less interesting and feel more like cheating rather than feeling like a master tactician. These players enjoy the part of play where they can show how mechanically awesome their characters are. It is how they get to feel good about playing. These players are also the ones most likely to become angry, depressed, or sad about "failing" on rolls, and GMs of this style are the least likely to utilize "Always fail forward" techniques to keep the story momentum regardless of rolls, because to them, failing a roll is supposed to be a failure, not a success with complication.

The "Pure Roleplayer" (world * narrative) is the player who wants to feel like they actually are their characters. Such players don't want any more control over the story or world than their characters possess. They don't want to know things their characters don't. These players want to explore the world and story as if they themselves were the protagonists rather than simply players playing a game. This style is both the hardest and yet easiest style because it is the most basic form of play every kid knows first, but is also so completely at odds with every other structured game in existence.

I have noticed that many folks who start out "roleplaying" with either a group of Gamers or of "Pure Roleplayers" tend to become stuck the most in their way of playing and have the most difficulties with each other. Gamer style and "pure roleplayer" style are complete opposites even when using the exact same rules, mostly because they are looking at very different things in their games.

The Gamers tend to develop their strategies by looking at the rules and mechanics, while "pure roleplayers" look at the narrative world instead, and each of those will result in different possibilities and limitations. A Gamer tends to see the rules as absolute and that the world should reflect the rules, while the "pure roleplayer" sees the narrative as absolute and that the rules should bend or even break to reflect the narrative milieu.

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The troubles here come from everybody having a "box." You know the one, the box everybody is told to think outside of. This box is made of a person's experiences and what they focus on. So a player who is used to, and experienced in, board games (or video games which are the same thing in terms of this discussion) will encounter an RPG for the first time and build their understanding of it in terms they are familiar with, which means seeing the game like a board game.

However, kids who are still playing pretend when introduced to RPGs will think in terms of playing pretend and that means they will develop strategies built in a completely different way than a board gamer precisely because they lack any experience with board games.

For each side, this builds their box. It sets the establishment of how they think, understand, and strategize in the game.

When one player flips the table to make cover, the others boggle at having not thought of it themselves, but the entire reason they didn't think of it was because they have their box built around seeing the game as a board game. They can do the things one can do in a board game, which is move around and activate abilities listed on their sheet. The player who flipped the table, thinks of flipping the table precisely because their character sheet and rules are purely ancillary to how they develop strategies. They think like they are playing pretend, which means they thinks in terms of real world objects and rooms and physics, and the rules are just a language to help discuss such things.

I've found that in teaching new players, showing them both sides of this, Gamer and "pure roleplayer" opens them up to enjoying many different ways to play and keeps them from getting locked into a small box built on one style of thinking about the game.
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So I advocate teaching different styles as early as possible, just like you don't show people only anime movies you show them anime, animated, and live action, the same should apply to RPGs, we should show the different styles and build terminology allowing us to discuss and communicate about the different styles. It would allow us to broaden our experiences in playing and allow us to avoid a lot of negativity stemming from being mind-boggled at the inexplicable seemingly stupid weirdness of others.

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