Mad Brew Labs

Roleplaying Philosophy Series:

• RPP-000: RPG Theory Bibliography
• RPP-099: Mad Brew’s Gaming Philosophy
• RPP-100: Defining Game
• RPP-101: Defining Roleplaying Games
• RPP-310: Roleplaying Promotes Wellbeing
• RPP-399: 10 Reasons to Play Games at the Table
• RPP-401: RPG Community
• RPP-450: Roleplaying is a Pastime
• RPP-499: Gamer Elitism

Recent discussions among the online RPG community I follow and associate with has been focused on social theory. No doubt many readers will already be familiar with the post(s)^[1][2] that spawned the intense debate, so I won’t revisit the topic here. However, an interesting corollary of this recent trending topic is the question of what constitutes a community?

The Issue

Specifically, is there an online RPG community that consists of you, me, the RPG blogs, RPG fora, etc.? Some do not consider the relationship between bloggers, or bloggers and readers, or general fandom to be a community. Some also seen to believe the word community carries connotations of interaction of towards a common purpose. I disagree with these points and consider roleplaying blogs a community.

Academics of Community

It is certainly not the first (or last) time the definition of community was pondered and argued:

“In sociology, the concept of community has led to significant debate, and sociologists are yet to reach agreement on a definition of the term. There were ninety-four discrete definitions of the term by the mid-1950s.”^[3]

That’s quite a feat considering that there wasn’t much social science literature focusing on on community until 1915 when C.J. Galpin^[4] completed his Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community. A work on rural studies where the term community was used in terms of delineating rural socio-geographic areas (i.e. rural communities).^[5]

Definition of Community

The theory of community, while rooted in geographical context, has expanded to identify groups of living organisms that share a common characteristic. I’ve compiled a list of attributes that a community possesses:

• Consists of more than one living organism
• Share at least one identifying characteristic between members
• May be nested within each other and may overlap
• The Universe is the top level community

Mad Brew’s definition of community:

A community consists of two or more organism that share at least one identifying characteristic. Communities can be nested and may overlap. They are always part of a larger community unless that community is the Universe.

The only membership requirement is to possess the identifying characteristic that all members of a community share. This is where things become complicated and where most previously mentioned disagreements about community happen. There are different assumptions about what the key identifier actually is, because no one has taken the time to clarify it.

For instance, interaction between members, while is frequently present, is not necessarily a membership requirement unless such interaction is an identifying characteristic. Many people assume interaction to be a default characteristic while others do not share that assumption. How can these assumptions be reasonably dispelled?

Naming Conventions

Should a community not have an official name, such as the RPG Blog Alliance,^[6] then choosing a concise, yet descriptive name can be problematic. However, some choices are better than others. For example, what is the difference between the RPG blogger community and the Roleplaying blog community?

The former identifies a person while the latter identifies a type of website. Many would have the assumption that since the former identifies a specific individual, a person who writes web-logs about roleplaying games, then that community is limited to those people (i.e. not including readership). While the latter includes anyone who is engaged with roleplaying blogs, passive or active.

RPG Communities Defined

The above academic exercise is nice, but did it solve the issue of determining if there is an online RPG community that consists of you, me, the RPG blogs, RPG fora, etc.? Yes, by the definition provided. I would call it the Online RPG Community, the members sharing the characteristic of engaging in roleplaying culture on the internet. It includes both passive consumers of online RPG content and active developers of content published on the web.

Of course, there is no expectation that anyone will accept the provided definition. This is mostly for my benefit, allowing me to organize my thoughts and record them. However, I surely wouldn’t be opposed to other members referring to this article in their discussion about RPG communities (especially if they agree).

I have identified several roleplaying communities, which I present below:

The Roleplaying Community

• The parent community of all other roleplaying communities
• Includes anyone who has an interest in roleplaying games
• It’s parent community would be The Gaming Community
• Sister communities include The Wargaming Community and The Board Game Community

The Online Roleplaying Community

• Includes anyone engaged in roleplaying culture on the Internet
• Child communities include Roleplaying Game Forums, Venture Captain^[7] users, and Twitter users following or involved in RPG discussions.

The Roleplaying Blog Community

• Includes anyone engaging roleplaying blogs, including readership
• Child communities include the above mentioned RPGBA, the RPG Bloggers Network,^[7] and the Savage Bloggers Network^[8]

Listening to: Silent Civilian – Rebirth of the Temple – Divided

References

[1] Player Alignment Shift: Being Chaotic Good at the Gaming Table on This is My Game.
[2] You Don’t Have a God-given Right to my Friendship on The Angry DM.
[3] Hillery, George A., Jr. (1955). Definitions of Community: Areas of Agreement. Rural Sociology, 20 (4) (via Wikipedia).
[4] Galpin’s short bio via the Wisconsin Historical Society.
[5] Harper, E. H. and Dunham, A. (1959). Community Organization in Action: Basic Literature and Critical Comments. New York: Association Press (via Infed).
[6] The RPBA is a new community for RPG bloggers I recommend you check out.
[7] Venture Captain is the online Pathfinder RPG character creator I’m developing.
[8] I’m a long time member of the RPG Bloggers Network.
[9] The Savage Bloggers Network is an aggregator for Savage Worlds blogs.

Roleplaying Philosophy Series:

• RPP-000: RPG Theory Bibliography
• RPP-099: Mad Brew’s Gaming Philosophy
• RPP-100: Defining Game
• RPP-101: Defining Roleplaying Games
• RPP-310: Roleplaying Promotes Wellbeing
• RPP-399: 10 Reasons to Play Games at the Table
• RPP-401: RPG Community
• RPP-450: Roleplaying is a Pastime
• RPP-499: Gamer Elitism

Deadorc's Question

I’m officially dedicating this week at Labs to Deadorcs. In the same  Twitter discussion that inspired my last article, Randall Walker of Initiative or What asked a question:

deadorcs: So the question becomes: How do you make #dnd a “pastime” instead of a niche game? What social machinery has to be activated to make it so?

During the course of the discussion, Randall states D&D should (or asks how it could) transcend the status of hobby to be more ingrained in the culture, like grilling or going to the beach (two activities he cites as pastimes).

I believe that D&D, and roleplaying games in general, already are pastimes. Hobbies are inherently pastimes, if that’s what you usually do. To fully understand what I am about to say, we need to define pastime:

What is a pas·time?

noun /ˈpasˌtīm/

1. An activity that someone does regularly for enjoyment rather than work; a hobby^[1]
2. Something that serves to make time pass agreeably; a pleasant means of amusement, recreation, or sport.^[2]
3. Something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably.^[3]

From the above definitions, I think we can reasonably say that all pastimes are hobbies, but not all hobbies are pastimes. The trait that separates the two is frequency. Looking at the first definition, a pastime is something someone does regularly.

A National Pastime

What’s missing from Randall’s tweet, and what I think he’s getting at, is a social spectrum qualifier. What would make D&D a <insert community level here> pastime? Much like baseball is referred to as the “national pastime.”

So what would it take for D&D to become a national pastime? It’s hard to put hard requirements down because there are lots of variables. Recognition, intimate knowledge, and acceptance all play major roles (and maybe seasonal shelf space at Wal-Mart). I suppose A-list celebrities might help. But the complexities, requirements, and buy-in of D&D are too great for this too ever happen.

Pastime is Subjective

In the end, I came to the conclusion that, for the most part, pastimes are determined by the individual. I certainly do not consider beach-going or baseball pastimes (or probably many things other people do). My pastimes are playing RPGs, drawing, and shooting firearms (all usually while drinking beer and listening to metal).

D&D is a pastime; whether or not it’s recognized at a specified cultural level is irrelevant to me.

Mad Brew's Response

Listening to: Metalocalypse – Dethalbum II – Symmetry

References

[1] The definition of pastime via Google.
[2] The definition of pastime via Dicionary.com.
[3] The definition of pastime via Merriam-Webster.

Deadorcs Question

Towards the end of last week, Deadorcs (Randall Walker of Initiative or What?) asked a question:

deadorcs: If #dnd were as popular as say (I don’t know) Scrabble or Monopoly (but not be a board game). What would that look like & how to get there?

Mad Brew's Response (1)

My reply was that such a feat was improbable. Mostly because the amount of involvement, buy-in, and general work required by players is a hurdle too great for most people to overcome. Indeed, the imagination required must have been unfathomable to a vocal part of the population in the 1980s during the prime of the D&D-is-satanic scare.^[1][2]

Mad Brew's Response (2)

Maybe I spoke too soon. I think I know what D&Dopoly would look like and how it got there.

Legacy

The anti-D&D fervor of the Eighties, while mostly gone, has still left a legacy. So in order for D&D to become a popular kid, it would have to put that legacy to rest (hopefully in a hole deep enough that when its remains become reanimated, the zombie cannot crawl out). While education, celebrity fawning, and wearing your D&D badge where everyone can see it does a lot to kill that legacy, time is D&D’s greatest ally in this battle.

Even harder to conquer than its satanic roots, is D&D’s hardcore geek legacy. Only geeks, nerds, and dorks play D&D, man, or worse. Right? Well, no one wants to be a dork, so the D&D player needs to be an everyperson: women, men, doctors, lawyers, factory workers, secretaries, plumbers, landscapers, actors, & lingerie models. Again, education, celebrity fawning, and time are the biggest champions here.

Simplicity

Even if D&D was the golden child of games, having been blessed by the Pope or promised virgins in the hereafter, it would still have to overcome the complexity of rules that are present. Also, let’s not forget the one element that truly separates roleplaying games, and thus D&D, from board games, and that’s scope.

D&D allows players to freely improvise character actions in order to achieve a possibly infinite number of goals.^[3] The scope of D&D is an impressive thing, so impressive it puts off prospective gamers because they like finite possibilities because they’re easier to manage.

But how can you simplify the game without sacrificing its identify? You could do watered down starter sets, but I think technology is the key [see below].

Market Penetration

The giant phallus of marketing would need to bury itself into the tight, little love channel that is the people’s game shelf. To be as popular as Monopoly would mean that just as many homes have D&D. What can marketing do?

First off, put the kibosh on shitty fucking movies and other media. Get them while they’re young (make an awesome cartoon series complete with posable dolls/figures, pajamas, and goddamned coloring books). Execute an effective transmedia attack on people. Yes, it would mean a serious investment, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

D&Dopoly

D&Dopoly is not what it sounds like… or maybe it is! Hasbro owns both D&D AND Monopoly, so why not cross pollinate and make D&D themed Monopoly boards? Put that in your merchandising strategy right beside your transmedia attack.

Anyways, what would the popular D&D, brother to Monopoly in every home, look like?

Well, it would be a couple of decades from now, when the biggest religious opponents from the eighties are now confined to filling their Depends while mumbling nonsense about the “good ol’ days.” Touchscreen tabletops, like the Microsoft Surface^[4], have pervaded people’s home (no doubt riding the coattails of the iPadXX). High society parties dress up like wizards and demons and play exclusive adventures written for them on giant versions of the tabletops found in normal consumer homes.

It’s all there, the rules (classes, spells, powers, etc.), the maps, miniatures (virtual or physical… which has its own memory to save your stats & loot), and even dice (again, virtual or physical), only the touch-app running on the table does all the calculations for you: movement (hopefully we’ve dropped grids & hexes by then), damage, and even what actions you may take.^[5]

The Awesome Part

You want to know the best part? The rest of us who already dig D&D don’t even have to wait. I say fuck popularity and to hell with whether or not roleplaying (D&D included) is as popular as Monopoly. Once it gets to that point, there is a decent chance you won’t like it.

Listening to:  Triptykon – Eparistera Daimones – Descendant

References

[1] Robertson Games has a recent article about Chick Tracts from the 80s.
[2] Anyone remember Patricia Pulling & her Bother About D&D group? Check out The Escapist’s write up on one of their brochures.
[3] I developed a pretty damn good definition of a roleplaying game a couple of years ago. Which is where I’m pulling this comment about scope.
[4] The new Microsoft Surface.
[5] Oh wait, there is shit like that already in development!

Savage Worlds Fan Site

At any one time, I probably have three to five personal projects (usually of the geek variety) happening at once. Some of these projects I find I’m not interested in anymore and they are scuttled to the bottom of the Sea of Dead Projects. Most of them are completed, but I keep to myself. The rest I deem worthy for public consumption and I release into the wild.

While it may seem counter-intuitive, I keep so many projects around to avoid burnout. I usually only have one primary project at any single moment in time, but it shares mind-space with several smaller distractions. These distractions allow me to stoke the creative fires when intense sessions with the primary project threaten to blowout the hearth.

Well, today, I present one of the distractions that avoided the Sea of Dead Projects and has been released into the wild:

SavagedTools

SavagedTools is a small, bare-bones application (semi-optimized for mobile devices) that combines card-based initiative, dice rolling (supporting aces & wild die, and hopefully any number of edges/hindrances), and a logger into one tool.

SavagedTools Login Page

It uses a simple sign-on that only requires display and campaign names. There is no registration. This means anyone can access your campaign’s log or impersonate you, but the damage is minimal (just create a unique campaign name and don’t share it).

SavagedTools Initiative

The sign-on allows your group to share initiative draws and dice rolls with each other in near real-time on the logger. Whenever the deck is shuffled or a player draws a card, the results are recorded in the log and the page is updated. Same thing with dice, and players can even assign a description to their roll.

SavagedTools Dice

What may be especially interesting is that all the important stuff happens server-side, so players cannot manipulate the results through JavaScript trickery. I’m also especially proud of the fact that random number generation is accomplished by using the API available from Random.org. Random.org uses atmospheric noise to produce true random numbers.

SavagedTools Logger

To keep my database size manageable, I’ve incorporated a routine that will destroy any data older than hour, so the logs are not permanent. Other than that, the tool is free to use and comes with no strings attached (for as long as I can cover the hosting).

I plan on re-using the dice library I wrote for my other online RPG tool, Venture Captain (a character generator for the Pathfinder RPG). So this distraction will also prove useful for my primary project.

Please check out SavagedTools and let me know if you encounter any issues.

Listening to: Testament – The Gathering – Eyes of Wrath