In a small corner of my soul I believe one day #TTRPG discourse can go beyond retreading Usenet/The Forge discourse & "theory" to actually touch the grass of ludology & philosophy of play. Not just the occasional rare misappropriation without understanding of video game ludology.
@thoughtpunks You know, some of us have been having discussions based on classical ludology as long as we've been engaging in discussions, and even within that context we can't avoid re-treading 90% of what's gone before. Because that really is the vast bulk of ludology. 90% of games over any particular time span, if not notably more, are exactly what had gone before.
That was true on Usenet and true on the Forge (in that brief span of time before it became as much a political collective as a game theoretic one), and continues to be true all over the place today.
Get back to me when videogame ludology gets beyond ludonarrative disjoint as an active subversion of storytelling logos. I'll be waiting. I've always been waiting.
@lextenebris the dominance and characterization of LD in videogame pop "ludology" is disconnected from actual formal ludology [and the related philosophy and psychology studies]. the pop narrative and the actual field of study are quite distinct, though the loudness of working professionals gives a false veneer of authority. what you're referencing bares a similar relationship to actual ludology as pop psychology to actual psychiatry.
@thoughtpunks The problem with ludology is a field of study, and I say this as one of the initiated officiants, is that it's largely crap. Which is a problem if you want to say anything meaningful, much less comprehensible.
The proof, unfortunately, is in the pudding. In general, people who study ludology academically make absolutely garbage games, entirely too head-up-their-own-rectum to actually be playable or enjoyable. It's the difference between theoretical science and engineering; you can study the abstraction all day but it won't help you build an internal combustion engine. Most of what you can hope for is to refine one that already exists.
The advantage of working professionals is that they work, which gives their statements more than a veneer of authority – it provides actual authority.
When ludology can provide more than post hoc rationalizations for what already exists and instead can actually start making reasonable predictions about what could, we'll start thinking of it as an authoritative science.
Until then – the rest of us will keep having discussions that things actually happen from.
@lextenebris the absolutely worst ideas and popular trends arise from those "actual" authorities. Like the very prominence of ludonarrative dissonance as a talking point, including and especially the take you raised. Being good at making games doesn't readily correlate with actually understanding why they're good games. Just like most artists could not express the formal art theory & aesthetics of their work, most writers don't know how to do formal analysis and lit crit, etc.
@lextenebris rounding back to the OP to highlight my point, the field of ludology [+ related studies of philosophy & psychology] benefits from more pasttime/play inputs to test conjectures and add applications/contexts. The main TTRPG discourse is caught in game store/night arguments. We hardly even acknowledge the design/play divide, for example, our models typically providing categories that make no distinction or conflate them. The best versions "advance" that with mid-century behaviorism.
@thoughtpunks I don't know who you were spending your time talking to, but when I talk about TTRPGs, I often talking about making hypotheses, testing hypotheses, and then turning those tests back into functioning systems which I can speak about in a clear and concise manner.
We've been talking about the difference between designing a game and playing a game forever. That's nothing new. You don't need ludology to do that. You just need one round of play testing. It happens naturally.
As for models – models are hard. We don't have a unified field theory in physics, sociology is an absolute mess when it comes to trying to build models (and one could argue the entire field is just building one model after another and discarding them as quickly as possible), so it's not surprising that game models are muddled. It's an engineering field; approximations and rules of thumb are often good enough.
If you thought you could do better with theoretical application, you would be doing that. You would be writing about that. You would be discussing that. And you would be succeeding as a result of doing that.
@lextenebris real talk, I'm not a good example to use, given that my productivity and functionality is limited by severe trauma and neurological dysfunction.
Even that aside, I really shouldn't have to spell out 1) a claim we can collectively do better is not predicated on a personal assertion of capability and 2) popular and commercial success are well-known to not directly correlative with skill, talent, or understanding thereof.
@thoughtpunks That first point is exactly the kind of thing that you have to spell out, because it's turned from an assertion of "I can do this thing" to "I'm sure somebody else can do this thing" and anyone who's ever had to deal with arguments of the "I'm sure somebody else can do this thing" form can only reply with "they've had thousands of years to do so; if they were going to do so, it would have been done by now."
There is clearly a reason that we are not doing collectively better which is unrelated to the amount of academic masturbation going on in the level of discourse. As for popular and commercial success not being correlated with skill, talent, or understanding thereof… Only in a one off situation.
The moment they can do it twice, it's correlated. Once can be an accident. Twice? Power.
I disagree with your underlying asserted axiom that increased levels of academic ludological discourse would have a positive effect on the discussions that go on or the games that get created in the wake thereof. Observationally, I would say the opposite.
@lextenebris a response of "it would have been done so by now" seems fallacious on its face, as evidenced by countless technological and societal advances. The requisite tech and general conditions for mass printing existed for centuries before it was a thing, for example. Differential gears, abolishing slavery, any number of examples. And there are many examples where shifts began with prompting.
That said, I grasp at least a big part of the fundamental disagreement now.
@thoughtpunks "The game fiction and the mechanics don't support one another."
That's a huge deal. That is exactly ludonarrative dissonance and why people talk about it, except that the people who are actually trying to build a functioning, playable, enjoyable game don't need the words "ludonarrative dissonance" to understand game fiction and game mechanics should work harmoniously together to create an experience which is satisfying.
Which is why ludology doesn't get discussed as such in gaming fora.
The reason that writers who do understand formal analysis and lit crit, artists who do understand formal art theory and aesthetics, and game enthusiasts who understand ludology don't talk about it is because it doesn't help do it.
It is quite good for pretentious posturing, however, it makes a really good cover for people who aren't actually competent at getting the work done to toss around words which don't really have meaning on a regular basis.
That's not why things get rehashed regularly, mind you. That's because the issues in question actually have no simple answer. In case you wondered.
@lextenebris Put simply: It's not radical or out there to suggest if people want to hypothesize and pontificate about given theories in a serious manner, it's not absurd or demanding to suggest they should be at least have an intro level knowledge of the fields they're attempting to contribute to. Sure, outsiders and practical workers sometimes hit a useful theory but it's a pretty abysmally low signal-to-noise ratio [just as general rule] even in comparison to fart-sniffing academia.
@thoughtpunks I'm afraid there we are going to have to part ways, because having dealt with part-sniffing academia, I would rather – in all situations – deal with outsiders and practical workers who have observably functional understandings of the field.
Academic understanding doesn't improve your ability to engage in discourse. Typically it obscures it. Definitionally in order to increase the perceived value of academic discourse.
If I want my car fixed, I don't care if the shade tree mechanic has a degree in mechanical engineering. I'd really prefer he doesn't; he won't get distracted by theory while we're working on my engine which is clear and reified.
Which is, to put it more succinctly, I'd rather work with people who get things done and I'd rather talk with people who get things done than people who just want to talk.
@lextenebris feels like we're having two related but parallel & distinct conversations with very different emphasis points. I'm not sure how or if we can bridge the gap. Entirely possible I'm explaining myself poorly. But could be we're looking at things from such different angles there's no effective translation between us.
@jburneko Ron Edwards at several points gets so close yet so far away from formal ludology and psychology of play. [Given the individual, I'm unsure if that's an artefact of his idiosyncratic views or not deeply familiarizing himself with the lit.] But definitely a bridge and highly recommended. It will definitely help people shake off some of the old framing.
@jburneko I was thinking more of his fascination with behaviorism and its associated branch of phenomenology, but the adherents often frame it as evolutionary psychology or a close cousin so your advice still checks out.
@jburneko I hear what you're saying but while not a Skinnerite, I'd argue he's very much in the neighborhood with classic mid-century behaviorist ideas. The branch parallel to Skinner whose most (in)famous claims were about the wicked influence of music, television, and (later) video games.
Ron's own infamous Brain Damage post is a very good illustration of that environmental/maladaptive conditioning framework.