Can we affirm that RPG.SE embraces a plurality of playstyles?

Question

I've recently had the dubious pleasure to have been told both that the high visibility of RAW-centric optimising online is an illusion and nobody actually plays that way in a real game, and that old-school playstyles are obsolete and nobody actually plays that way except from irrational attachement. The different users were equally convinced they were speaking truth, despite the impossibility of both being true.

Although I'm personally sick of trying to talk people out of One True Wayism about how people do play, let alone how people should play, my personal annoyance is nobody's problem but mine. However, both these recent discussions were had in the context of what should be allowed on this site, and that's not personal anymore. Trying to bend this Stack to favour any single subculture in RPGs is not cool.

I would like to be able to, in the future, hand a link to someone trying to limit who this site is for with One True Wayism. This is not so much about answers advocating for a playstyle — playstyle-based perspective is valid and expected in answers (when backed up, and/or with a good frame-challenge), and when they aggressively swerve into One True Wayism they typically get voted into the ground. So answers are generally fine. It's slagging playstyles or One True Wayism in comments — where accusations of "badwrongfun" usually happen — or when an answer starts badmouthing a different playstyle, that I want to be able to point people to this page to politely ask them to knock it off.

I ask the community to affirm that we embrace the plurality of how RPGs are played and value the input of diverse views, but none exclusively.

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Answer 1

Some resources: Challenging the frame of a question.

First, we require that people Be Nice. Insulting other play styles isn't being nice.

Second, if you are going to dissent in an answer, make sure to restate your assumptions. People may not share (or agree with) your model of gaming. Being clear in why you are answering in that particular way.

Third, consider weak-man and steelmanning arguments. Consider SSD's comment on homebrew or optional rules:

If someone comes to us confused about how something is supposed to work, answering with homebrew is fundamentally not answering the question. To answer non-BtB you need some connective tissue in the answer between what they're asking and the off-book advice, usually by answering BtB to solve their basic confusion, and only then offering the homebrew/etc. as a superior alternative, explicitly.

If you can demonstrate an awareness, sympathy, and understanding for the other perspective, answer it formally, and then go "But, I've also had even better experiences this way" your persuasive message isn't "you're dumb. Right thinking people do it my way." but rather "Hey, here's your specific answer demonstrating expertise and empathy with your problem and playstyle, and here's an even better thing that you might not have considered."

Fourth, There are many games and many game philosophies and many traditions. We simply require rigour and expertise. It's likely that your expertise is valuable, especially if you've interacted with different schools of thought. We acknowledge that there are many games and many ways to play the game. The ultimate arbiter of the requirements of the question is the querent, and it's our job to make the best possible answers to solve the particular situation the querent is in. If you have a great answer to a different question (i.e. one that subscribes to your weltanschauung (worldview, see relativism)), pose that question instead. Encouraging the querent to elucidate their worldview by asking them to edit their game style into their question, on the other hand, is quite encouraged. (Remember, good information goes into questions and answers. Comments evaporate. Comment arguments are burned by the gods with prejudice.)

Answer 2

This is much like the questions we get on religious sites about whether one sect should be excluded or given preference to another. The SE policy on this for religious sites is that all sects are created equal for the purpose of the site and if you really can't get on board with that, then you can find the door.

That said, one of the things that the religious sites do, that we've only semi-adopted for this site is to make questions tightly define what sects/doctrines they are about (in our case playstyle) and then delete answers that don't conform to that (in addition to shutting down discussion and arguments about who is right and who is wrong).

Here's the thing though, specifying a playstyle is pretty much completely optional here. That's in large part because it's not always relevant, a lot of the time your style of play is pretty evident from the game you're playing, or the kinds of question you ask.

This means that answers (And often comment discussion) ends up being a mishmash of playstyles and often only some or even none of the answers/comments match with the playstyle of the author. This is a problem.

However, this isn't a site about religion. It's a site about a hobby. Telling people they are wrong is OK here. And sometimes, the answer to someone's question where they are detailing a problem, is, in fact, "hey, you might try a different style of play, because it sure looks like the way you're playing is making you all miserable, try this instead."

So here's the guideline I'm going to propose:

• All play styles are welcome.
• Answers and comments should not disparage another play style, even if they are discouraging of it.
• Warnings that a playstyle may not be appropriate for a game or setting are OK, but should be well supported, and restricted to answers (this is a frame challenge, essentially).
• Differing playstyles is not an excuse to ignore this site's guidelines on questions or answers.

Answer 3

We are all roleplayers, and there is a lot of room in this tent for the many ways we play. We have no need for comments that suggest there is one universal "true" way to play RPGs, disparage other playstyles as "wrong", or erase our or others' preferred ways of playing by asserting or implying that they don't exist; regardless of whether the motive is combative malice or just innocent ignorance of the wider world or RPGs.

(Group hug!)

Answer 4

To be very clear here, the role of a comment is not to challenge the frame of an answer. If you disagree with an answer, provide a better answer. If you have improvements to suggest to an answer, by all means, leave a temporary comment (and it'd be totally awesome if you could clean up after the answer was improved.)

Challenging an answer because you have a different style of play will get your comment deleted. It starts arguments and reply chains, and really all the bad feelings that can go into comments do go into comments due to these sorts of disagreements.

Again, argue by answering an answer better, argue by downvoting (silently, if you cannot or will not suggest improvements), but don't argue in comments.

Answer 5

Since you're trying to keep this question focused on comments and site discourse, I'll stick to that. Brian has already adequately covered our expectations of answers. (It was probably pretty helpful he brought that up, even if you don't intend this question to be about answers.)

Yes, we embrace a variety of playstyles. Active use of the site, and diverse reading, pretty much guarantees we'll be confronted by it.

Our variety of games has shown us this.

The variety of games here shows us there's many play styles, and each game may have its own ideal varieties. The dichotomy of "RAW-centric vs old-school" is only really relevant to the D&D-likes, which is a vanishingly small portion of RPGs available.

There are games in which RAW is not opposed to improvisation and judgement calls, but must necessarily coexist with it: Fate and Roll for Shoes are such games, which offer a toolbox of mechanics the group must discuss how to apply.

So have social issues.

Some of us pay attention to the social, problem-gm and problem-players tags. These show us where play styles, or social dynamics arising from them, can lead to breakdowns or problems.

For example, there's the "DM trumps book!" question: a player who preferred to use the rules joined a group that preferred house ruling stuff. Neither style was unhealthy for the individuals before the joining, and nobody was playing wrong but the clash of these two styles lead to an unhealthy situation.

We've also noticed that it's easy for people to assume their local experience is representative of gaming worldwide. This is particularly endemic to the D&D crowd — but as one of our own members wrote, there are so many unique D&D playstyles that it is easy to say there is, in reality, no such thing as D&D.

The 'correct' playstyle is a person's own preference.

Everyone has preferences for certain ways to play their games. There is no superior/correct style. Nobody naturally progresses to one universal style: people just progress toward their own preferred playstyle, provided there's others they can play that way with, and provided they're aware that playstyle is an option.

There is no healthiest playstyle, except for the one that works best to make the player happy and fulfilled.

The D&D community here includes people who for years have played by RAW and surrounded themselves with people who play that way. It also includes people who for years have played by heavy application of house rules, and surrounded themselves by people who play that way. That's fine. This is their preference. None of them are playing wrong.

So, all that said:

• The site has made us plainly aware of many playstyles. We acknowledge and embrace them.
• If you try to argue that your way is the One True Way, do not expect much agreement.
• Playstyles are still subject to criticism when appropriate, and can be advocated.
• None of this is an excuse for breaking our rules on arguing or discussion in comments. As usual, if you have a disagreement with an answer, channel that energy into writing a better answer. Take part of it to advocate why your approach will work well, and if you wish, take a part of it to dissuade people from using this other approach that will not work well.

Answer 6

There is no such thing as "wrongfun."

That's it. We're done, thanks.

What, you want more? Sorry, there's not much discussion needed. SE is about answers to questions. If you ask a question about a particular playstyle, that's one thing... but categorically, SE isn't about supporting or refuting any given playstyle.

Feel free to petition for an "old-schoolRPG.stackexchange.com" or a "RAW-optimizers.stackexchange.com" or "slapstickRPGstyle.stackexchange.com" and hey... if you get it, then you can have your answers optimized to that playstyle. Otherwise, ask about what you want to know. If an answer doesn't fit due to the playstyle at your table being relevant, update the question.

Answer 7

The problem with your question is that it looks at answers in isolation. If I, to pick a completely random example, say that focusing on roleplaying your character and what you as that character wants to do is and answer to "How do I play in a system with rules that aren't written down?" then that can be seen as "one true wayism" but I'm consciously trying to balance out the overall site bias towards rule-based solutions.

The important question is the mix of answers, not that one particular person is consistently answering in their own style; otherwise you end up with the sort of bland mess of nothing that Wikipedia is. I don't want to read two-page answers where the person has felt they had to weigh every option and justify every statement in the light of 100 other options they didn't choose. I'm an adult and I know people are posting personal opinions and that's fine.

There are many approaches to roleplaying and the lack of discussion here makes some of those approaches more amenable to being posted. The sort of loose, subjective approach that many people mean by "old school" is never going to fit in as well in a format where each answer has the appearance of objectivity (by dint of discussion not being allowed).

So, my answer is: the site accepts a plurality exists but it is strongly biased away from more free-form styles simply because of SE's limitations as a format.

I'm content that the voting should reflect this; that's life. What I find really annoying is the sort of stuff that appears in comments, and the way in which comments are purged outside of meta-. Indeed, I think the site would be SUBSTANTIALLY improved by turning the answer comments off completely, as they serve no useful purpose that I can see.