What Is Role-Playing?

Part 2: Purpose

What is Roleplaying?
A Column by Jonathan Walton

Part 2: Purpose

Once upon a time, back in the deepest darkest ages, there was a prophecy of the future. The people living in darkness had seen a great light...

...there must be some purpose to it all. There must be some backdrop against which adventures are carried out, and no matter how tenuous the strands, some web which connects the evil and good, the opposing powers, the rival states and various peoples. This need not be evident at first, but as play continues, hints should be given to the players, and their characters should become involved in the interaction and struggle between these vaster entities. Thus, characters begin as less than pawns, but as they progress in expertise, each eventually realizes that he or she is a meaningful, if lowly, piece in the cosmic game being conducted. When this occurs, players then have a dual purpose to their play, for not only will their player characters and henchmen gain levels of experience, but their actions have meaning above and beyond that of personal aggrandizement.


-- D&D Dungeon Master's Guide (Gygax, 1979)

This description occurs as roleplaying is attempting to break away from wargaming, just as Christianity one attempted to stop being merely an apocalyptic Jewish sect and become something distinctly different. Gary Gygax's words here are important in several respects. First they label what seems to have been the original point of roleplaying, "personal aggrandizement," and, secondly, they suggest that there is something additional that seems to have emerged, something he vaguely describes as "some purpose" or "meaning." While it's not entirely clear what the latter is about, perhaps the former can shed some light onto things.

Our buddy Webster tells us that "aggrandize" can mean "1) to make great or greater, increase, enlarge, 2) to make appear great or greater," or "3) to enhance the power, wealth, position, or reputation of." Penis enlargement, in other words. Roleplaying allowed people to feel powerful, wealthy, privileged, and feared/respected. In a nutshell, potent. Viagra for your self-esteem. Now, we could explore the eroticism of violence in detail, considering just what most psychologists would think killing orcs and chainmail bikinis were all about, but the point is made and more elaboration seems unnecessary. But let's be clear that we're not dismissing personal ego-stroking as a legitimate purpose for roleplaying. Hell, no. It can be a damn good reason to roleplay. After all, it's at the basis of most sports and games, a purpose borrowed from roleplaying's wargame roots, and one that still is at the foundation of a much of what humans do, from fashion to building battleships.

People are biological beings and our bodies are often only interested in survival, despite what our minds may say, and that means: eating, sleeping, reproduction, violence, and running away. To think that this is irrelevant to roleplaying is taking a bit too much for granted. However, it would also be a mistake to think that we are slaves to our natural impulses. We'd like to think that, as human beings, we have the choice of whether to indulge in the pleasures of flesh & ego or seek entertainment in other ways. This includes the concept of "meaning" and accomplishment that Gygax describes above, but also a few rather different things.

The major difference between roleplaying and other types of entertainment is this: Most entertainment is passive. The audience just sits and watches, without taking part in the creative process. But in roleplaying, the "audience" joins in the creation. ...And if they want something to happen in the story, they make it happen, because they're in the story. So, while other types of media are mass-produced to please the widest possible audience, each roleplaying adventure is an individual gem, crafted by the people who take part in it.


-- GURPS Basic Set, 3rd Ed (Jackson, 1992)

Whoa. That came out of left field. All of a sudden we're invited to "take part in the creative process" and produce "individual gems" through roleplaying. Now we're talking about aesthetic enjoyment, which is something besides natural urges and ego, while still strongly connected to them. However, stepping into the world of "art" can be dangerous, as it's notoriously subjective. What one person thinks is "fun" or "beautiful" could bore, annoy, or disgust someone else. Additionally, what exactly is fun about "taking part in the creative process"? What is a creative process anyway and how would we take part in it?

This perspective on roleplaying's purpose seems to start out assuming one thing: imagining things is enjoyable. Most likely, you agree, since you are already a part of this community, but notice that it's not necessarily a universal truth. Why is imagination fun? Well, it seems that human beings like to experience things, even things that may be impossible, or unlikely, or far in the past, or off in the future. Consequently, if we can't experience things firsthand, for real, the second best option is self-deception, having your mind fool itself into recreating what an experience might be like, within the confines your own mind. Art, from this perspective, is something that points you towards that kind of mental experience, prompting you to imagine certain things, be they the events of Oliver Twist or the feelings evoked by a piece of music or abstract splash of colors.

In any case, what Steve Jackson seems to be arguing for here is roleplaying as a way of sustaining an imaginative experience, similar to what a novel, movie, or symphony does. If it holds your attention, the work can prolong what would be a short, fun period of imagined experiences into something that lasts for hours. But that's not the most important part. Unlike novels, movies, and symphonies, roleplaying doesn't expect its audience to simply relax and allow the artistic work to evoke feelings and imaginary experiences. No, roleplaying invites its audience to actively manipulate the experience being created, steering it based on the whim and desires of the audience.

This is partly due, of course, to roleplaying's nature as a performance-based art form. Similar to theater, opera, musical performances, or performance art, there are two layers of the artwork in place: the directions and the actual performance. In theater or music, the directions are written in a script or musical score, which is then interpreted by the performers to create something which is both unique and founded on the author's instructions, both similar to and different from every other performance based on those directions. Likewise, in roleplaying, the game designer hands the players (metaphorically now) a book of instructions, knowing full well that the performers are going to interpret it as they please and create something that is a mixture of the author's vision and their own. This is what Steve Jackson means by "taking part in the creative process." The roleplaying that results is not in the book but in the performance of the players, and, therefore, no longer belongs to the game designer but is co-created by the designer and players together. So we get yet a third purpose: collaborative creative expression.

In roleplaying, of course, the performance is not done in front of a larger, non-participating audience, as it is in theater or music (though actors and musicians will certainly tell you that the audience's reaction to the work can collaboratively aid or harm the performance itself). Who's the audience then? The players themselves. To offer a comparison, roleplaying is like performing Hamlet in an empty room, for the pure enjoyment of the actors themselves. Other performance-based arts may be masturbatory in the way they indulge the performer's desire to be seen, known, and adored, but roleplaying falls back on our initial purpose, penis enlargement, in its cultivation of a secret, private experience shared by a few individuals. You can walk around all day with the smile that comes from being an epic hero the night before.

Purpose Maps

The Threefold Model is one way grouping the innumerable aspects of RPG group contracts into logical categories. This includes every facet of how the game is played: not just the mechanical rules, but also how scenarios are constructed, what sort of behavior is expected of PCs, how actions not covered by the rules are resolved, allowance of outside distractions, and so forth. The categories are referred to as Dramatist, Gamist, and Simulationist.


-- More General Threefold FAQ (Kim, 1997)

Ask them, "Why do you roleplay?" The most common answer is, "To have fun." ...Now ask, "What makes fun?" ...In my experience, the answer turns out to be a version of one of the following terms. These terms, or modes, describe three distinct types of people's decisions and goals during play... Gamism is expressed by competition among participants (the real people)... Simulationism heightens and focuses Exploration as the priority of play... Narrativism is expressed by the creation, via roleplaying, of a story with a recognizable theme.


-- GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory (Edwards, 2001)

There are many more purposes you could ascribe to roleplaying, including innumerable variations of the ones already mentioned and a host of others that don't seem to fit neatly within anything we've already discussed. For this reason, many roleplaying theorists have created "purpose maps" (though they don't specifically call them this), sets of categories that allow you to associate certain perceived behaviors with the purpose that supposedly drives them to make specific actions. Two of the more popular models currently are John Kim's Threefold Model and Ron Edwards's GNS Theory, each of which divides purposes into three broad categories. The main difference is that Kim's model attempts to categorize individual mechanics developed by the game designer or player group (which we'll talk about next time) while Edward's theory attempts to categorize the motivations of individual players at specific moments of choice. Both attempt to use their categories to talk about the ultimate purpose behind certain mechanics or choices and how that relates to play as a whole.

How useful are these? Well, the verdict varies wildly. Some people love them and find they have a huge effect on how they view play, while others consider them flawed or, even worse, unhelpful and confusing. However, each of them does offer a unique perspective on how purpose affects roleplaying (and this includes other maps besides the two I've mentioned here). Whether you find yourself assisted by them or not, purpose maps are important tools that need to be considered.

What's Next?

So what does all this tell us? Well, if we at least have some idea of why people want to roleplay in the first place, that's one piece of the definition. So what if we don't have a simple, 6-word answer? Each of part of the ultimate definition is constantly evolving on its own. It will never be the case that we can say "Well, now that we fully understand the purpose of roleplaying, let's move on to form..." It just doesn't work that way. Over and over again, we'll return and ask "Why are we doing this, again?" and find new insights in an old question. But, for now, this column's going to move on from purpose, though, of course, you're free to delve further into it in the bulletin board below or on your own.

Next time, we're going to begin tackling... The Form of Roleplaying.

See ya then.
Jonathan