Developing a Gaming Vocabulary
We lack terms to discuss a lot of what goes on during games. We have lots of terms for things that are within the rules, Hit Points or THAC0 or Skill Ranks, but relatively few terms to describe concepts that are not covered by the rules.
We have terms for genre (high fantasy, western, space opera), but we lack terms for types of games beyond a basic of axis of combat vs roleplaying (aka is it hack-n-slash or not). A game can be episodic or regional, center around traveling and encounters or it can keep delving in the same locale. It could be all about plot and NPCs or just treat other characters as background.
These aren't monumental differences, but having terms for them would help GMs (and players) recognize what the differences are, letting them consciously make choices and sculpt their game. I tend to use comparisons to other games instead (“it was an Escape from Ulshadore scenario” or “it's a a West Marches style game”) but that only works if you played in that other game — not exactly a portable term.
As far as the participants go, we know there's a GM (or DM), and we know the other people at the table are all Players. If we were old school, we'd even say one player was the party Caller.
But we lack terms for the interaction between the people at the table, for particular behaviors that come up in games again and again. The player who can't figure out why their character would want to go along on the adventure and holds up the whole game struggling for motivation (“I'm a druid, I just can't see myself going into the city”). The player who tries to guess the entire plot in advance when there's still hardly any evidence and sends the whole game into left field (“No, there weren't any fingerprints on the gun because he must have been an alien shapechanger sent here by an intergalactic overlord from the future!”). Players that congratulate themselves on predicting obvious tropes of the genre (“I'll bet these villagers are endangered by some monster and want us to kill it, ho hum”).
Most of those are negative examples, but there's the positive too. The player who intentionally throws a bone to involve other players (“Gee I don't understand it, but I'll bet Doc Carter could figure it out!”). The player who metagames ignorance of hazards and gets their character into fun trouble (“Zombies? That's crazy talk! I'm going to the cemetery right now with just this flashlight.”).
Defining terms helps us recognize what we are already doing, and maybe do the good things more and the bad things less. It's easy for a GM to recognize that including a Power 15 monster in a Power 2 game is trouble, because the concept of a creature's danger has been codified as Power. Wouldn't it be nice if the GM had the same terms for other things to watch out for that could spoil the game? (q.v. Question Your Assumptions)
The odd thing is that without a vocabulary it's hard to even recognize what things we don't have terms for. I suspect that as we keep building this language more and more things that need names will be revealed.
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Treasuretables.org have a pretty decent list of terms;
http://www.treasuretables.org/glossary-of-gming-terms
It would be interesting to bring together a list of design centric terms and concepts around which a common design language could be created. A gaming terms list is good for new players, a common design language could be more interesting – albeit to a smaller audience.
Situations (not plots) and Revelations are good candidates for common language.
http://www.philm.demon.co.uk/Miscellaneous/Vocabulary.html
Phil Masters & Aaron Allston? That’s solid gold.
Scholz wrote: “Perhaps Taxonomy is a better term for what we’d be doing. Classifying and describing differences of things we note in gameplay.”
That’s not what I was thinking about. A taxonomy is just that, a list of terms with maybe some sort of heirarchical relationship like a list of animal species. A more challenging idea is to try to model a game with its entities, relationships, concepts and behaviors both physical and non-physical. The real question is (and I’m a CS person, not a philosopher) what would be the use of such a model? Suppose we had the perfect model of a game or even an individual game. What types of answers or inferences would we want to ask this model? I don’t know how computer games work. I suspect they are rule-based systems, but maybe they have more sophisticated logical structures underneath them to provide real-time answers.
Actually defining a “gameworld” with an ontology is more mentally and possibly computationally accessible just as people have tried to model the real world, but at least with a gameworld, you can limit it how you choose and you wouldn’t have to try to model gamer behavior.
OK, now I’m really starting to think about it, and as a strawman, I throw out there that a model of a game is that a game has 3 entities, players, dm, characters. Players have characters, the dm has characters. Other concepts that exist are gameworld and challenge and action and scene. A game consists of scene(s), scenes consist of challenge(s) presented by the dm to the players. The players then provide actions with their characters and this loops with a cardinality of 0 to infinity. I can think many other attributes, concepts and sub-concepts and relationships to make this a more sophisticated model but you get the gist.
I don’t think this is useful beyond an intellectual exercise, and what those guys in the UK have is more than a good start for what’s probably more practical.
Here is a start of a taxonomy:
“The Slave to Concept” This is the player who once he or she has ‘discovered’ or ‘created’ the character feels obliged to be “True” to the concept. If the concept requires unbalancing powers, the chracter must have unbalancing powers, if the concept requires play breaking fanaticism to (an interpretation of)a cause, then the player will break the game.
When confronted, They may become passive aggressive, volunteer to retire the charcter unblemished by sacrifice, or simple refuse to tow the line.
Sadly, these players are often the most interested in the game, most willing to role-play, and the best roleplayers in certain circumstances. You don’t want to discourage them, but you can’t let them hold hostage the game either.
Also.. the idea of a gaming ‘ontology’ is more than just a vocabulary. The idea of ontology, supposed some kind of existence, what sort of things really exist. There could be an internal ‘game’ ontology (do HitPoints and Levels ‘really’ exist, or are they just game mechanics. But from a metagaming perspective, I am not sure that is what we are getting at.
I’ve pondered the ontology of a g’ameworld’ or ‘game experience’ before. Do roleplayed experiences count as ‘real’ experiences, since they share many, though not all traits, of our real experiences, including being shared, which distinguishes them from say, dreams.
Perhaps Taxonomy is a better term for what we’d be doing. Classifying and describing differences of things we note in gameplay. Kinds of gamers, “tropes” used by players (“my character wouldn’t do that”, or “this must be important, otherwise the GM wouldn’t have mentioned it.”), etc.
I am at a loss how to create the terms where they don’t exist. Terms like “Power Gamer”, and “Rules Rapist” came into being at some point, but I don’t know when or how.
I am not sure a consistent vocabulary is possible. But people have tried it over the years… here is a site with one such attempt.
http://www.philm.demon.co.uk/Miscellaneous/Vocabulary.html
Ooo, I smell an ontology. I’m sure Scholz would be up for that and I think it’s a great concept though at first I thought maybe just a non-relational set of terms is all that this needs, but then I started structuring it in my head and I’m back to an ontology.
Or maybe I just like typing the word ontology. Lots of ‘o’s.