The last few posts have been something of a series, all inspired by a single argument: “Storytelling Games are Not Roleplaying Games.” If you haven’t read any of these, the third is the most useful. The second can be skipped entirely as preamble.  I had intended for Posting Signs to be the last installment in all this. I’d said what I wanted to say and I’ve got other stuff I’d like to write about. Then when I’d completed the third post, I went ahead and shared some links around for feedback. I’m pleased to say that this was largely supportive and…

The Easiest Thing in the World is to Criticize Without Contributing… What isn’t a role-playing game? The last couple posts have been prompted by this question. In the first post, I briefly discussed some history around the topic and made an argument as to why redefining the term “role-playing game” is both basically impossible and would ultimately fail to achieve the desired goal. In the last post, I gave my thoughts on where the actual problem lies and why the conversation keeps recurring in the way it has. The easiest thing in the world is to criticize without contributing, so in this post, I’d like…

Don’t Write Theory While Hungry In my last post, I commented on attempts to redefine the term “role-playing game,” both recently and in the not-so-distant past. While I stand firm in my believe that this is an unreachable goal regardless of one’s motivation, there is still an interesting conversation to be had. The reality is that “role-playing game” is a hopelessly broad tent. It encompasses a functionally infinite variety of games each with their own styles of play and accompanying creative agendas. Making this even more complicated, not only does every game have its own play priorities, each player brings their own priorities in turn.…

It was just over nine years ago that I started blogging about role-playing games. My initial entry into this new domain? A six-post, seven-thousand word series in response to John Wick’s Chess is Not an RPG. His was ostensibly a post on GMing, but wrapped in a discussion about game design. Along the way it made a claim that was typical of a certain set of people in the gaming space at the time: D&D is not a role-playing game. This stirred a hornets nest, naturally. Trying to claim that D&D is not a role-playing game is about the same…