^This^ ^started^ ^as^ ^a^ ^shit^ ^post^ ^but^ ^I^ ^had^ ^to^ ^much^ ^fun^ ^writing^ ^it^
Introduction
A Role Playing Game exists as a stable unity between Players, Referees, and Game Rules. The Game Rules exist as the material base of the unity, and the settings, characters, and adventures exist as the superstructure. This superstructure is created through a dialectical process that is set into motion through the Contradiction Between Referee and Players. This contradiction is mediated by the material base (Game Rules) and, should that material base be insufficient in mediation, the Referee and Players can impact the material base through rulings, which in turn change the material base, and thus alter the superstructure.
The dialectical unity creates numerous social relations that are rooted in the contradictions between each of the component parts of the Role Playing Game, as well as impacted by the objective laws of our material reality, be it the objective limits of time or the objective laws of social reproduction.
The contradiction between players and game rules determines the various player characters that the Players will embody throughout the game, the choices they make, and the actions they can perform. It is an expression of the larger contradiction that exists between the Referee and the Players. Players must navigate the Game Rules to achieve their own goals against the world presented to them by the Referee. Engagement with the world to meet their goals will test the Referee’s ability to interpret the Game Rules, which can lead to Rulings, which can have an impact on the material base of the Role Playing Game, changing the superstructure of the game.
The contradiction between the referee and the game rules determines the setting and adventures which are presented to the Players, as well as the genre, Non-Playable Characters, Monsters, and more. The Referee must navigate the Game Rules in order to establish the fantastical reality the player characters will exist in, ensure that reality is expressed consistently throughout, that its content challenges the Players, and ultimately provides a landscape for the Players to seek out their own goals. Through building out this fantastical manifold, the Referee may find some aspects of the Game Rules inadequate and seek to impact the material base to better suit their own goals and aims. Through this process the superstructure of the game is changed.
The pace and success of the Role Playing Game is determined by the Contradiction between the Desire to Play and the Demands of Life Outside the Game. A Role Playing Game can only be sustained so long as this contradiction remains stable; otherwise, the game enters into a transitional state where the game undergoes a period of social reconfiguration, resulting in a reconfiguring of the Referee and Player roles until stability is achieved or the game collapses. It is a fundamental external contradiction that must remain stable for the Role Playing Game to exist.
Should the Contradiction between the Desire to Play and the Demands of Life Outside the Game remain stable, other social formations will emerge. Primarily, it activates the Contradiction Between the Referee and the Players and sets the Role Playing Game in motion, developing it over time. This stable unity develops the various aspects of the Role Playing Game superstructure through a dialectical process that takes the form of Sessions. The content of each Session is different and determined by the material base and influenced by the superstructure of the Role Playing Game, and represents the output of the Contradiction Between the Referee and the Players.
Each Session yields many outputs. One is stories, which are the summarizations of the content of the Session. Another output is Preparation, which is a byproduct of the Session that must be metabolized in order for the game to continue. The content of this Preparation is determined by the previous Session and also influences the form of the next Session. The Referee must take the experiences had throughout the Session and transform them into a slate of new events and plans for the next Session, altering the fantastical reality that the characters act in.
Rulings and Rules will also be created as an output of a Session. As the Players challenge the Referee, and the Referee in turn challenges the Players, they will seek the material base to mediate these challenges, and will either find it suitable or unsuitable. In the case of the material base being suitable, the rules are executed, and the challenges are negated. In the case of the material base being unsuitable, either the rule is augmented, or an on-the-fly rule is made; both are known as a Ruling. Rulings are often ephemeral, but in some cases these rulings become reused. As they are reused, they begin the process of transformation of quantity into quality, and eventually become a Rule. A Rule is ultimately a ruling that has proven to be well tested in play and deemed suitable by the Referee and the Players. The implementation of a new Rule impacts the material base, and thus shapes the superstructure of the Role Playing Game.
These are not the only outputs that this development can lead to. There are all sorts of changes taking place through the Contradiction Between the Referee and the Players, from the development of interpersonal relationships, collective story making, the creation of rulings, the codification of new rules, to the construction of entirely new rule systems, and even impacting the development of Role Playing Games externally through the collective experience of play and iteration of the rules.
Now let us explore each component part which makes up this trinity. First, we'll start with the material base of the RPG:
The Game Rules
The Game Rules exist inside this relation as a stable unity representing a collection of various rules which individually do not constitute a complete system, but collectively create the form we know as Game Rules. This is an expression of The Law of the Transformation of Quantity Into Quality. Once enough rules have been collected together, one can declare that they have created a new set of Game Rules, also known as a Game System. Inside these rules exist various dialectical relations which create the themes and play style of the game itself.
Players are offered choices which describe what kind of characters they can embody, as well as the kind of loot and equipment they can obtain. Referees are offered a slate of Non-Player Characters, Monsters, Settings, Combat Rules, Role Playing Rules, Exploration Rules, and any other rules the system deems necessary to express its given themes and play style. A space horror game like Mother Ship, for example, is unlikely to have Player options for things like Wizard or Knight. It might not have weapon and armor options like Mythril Armor or Broad Swords, and the Referee likely won't have access to things like Goblins and Hobgoblins as monsters. This would constitute a more Fantasy theme.
Even within a given genre of game, you might have various rules which heavily alter the play style of the game. For example, a game like Draw Steel, with its heavy focus on heroic fantasy, has rules which create a form where player characters' actions and abilities give the appearance of high-powered fantasy superheroes. Whereas, a game like Dungeon Crawl Classics has rules where the player characters are easily killed. In Draw Steel you'll be fighting hordes of monsters, with high mobility. In Dungeon Crawl Classics you'll be taking careful and measured steps, and only engaging in combat as a last resort.
All of these various combinations of rules define the conditions under which both the Referee and Players engage with the game. They constitute the material base on which the game rests. However, this material base is not static, and can be subject to modification by the Players and the Referee. This process, however, is constrained by the base, and can only exist as a reflection of the material base. For, if these changes break genre or gameplay, then they risk disrupting the stable unity that makes up the Game Rules. This can cause the system to enter into an unstable state where the Role Playing Game itself is no longer fun or engaging. Given a significant quantity of these changes to a given stable RPG system, the material base will undergo a quality shift where it becomes an entirely new Role Playing Game with its own Genre and Gameplay. Many RPG systems exist today as a result of this process. Studying these quality shifts over time would constitute a Historical Materialist view of Role Playing Game development. More about this process will be covered when discussing the role of The Referee.
The Game Rules make up the material base of the Role Playing Game, and as such define the Role Playing Game Superstructure which includes the many characters, settings, adventures, and other various social relations of the Role Playing Game. Again, if our Game Rules' genre and gameplay express a world full of high-fantasy superheroes, then it is very unlikely a player will create a sci-fi space marine character for our RPG, given the constraints of the rules. However, this leads us to our next subject within the Role Playing Game, one who has a strong ability to impact the material base of our Role Playing Game, and allow for such a genre-breaking inclusion into the Role Playing Game: The Referee.
The Referee
Throughout Role Playing Game history, this role has had many names, and depending on the material base (Game Rules) of your Role Playing Game, the name of this role can change. I have gone with the historical title for this role, dating back to the Wargaming era: The Referee. Whether you call this role the Referee, the Dungeon Master, the Game Master, the Director, or any of the various other titles it has held over time, its role functionally remains the same. The Referee represents the world in our Role Playing Game, as well as the arbiter and interpreter of the Game Rules. Without this role, the Game Rules would simply exist as a form of intellectual theory. The Referee takes this theory and puts it into practice.
The Referee and the Game Rules are always in contradiction with one another, for it is the Game Rules that manifest the Referee and their role. However, it is the Referee who is tasked with interpreting and executing the Game Rules. A Role Playing Game cannot exist without either. A lack of Game Rules risks the Role Playing Game slipping into simply Role Playing, or a form of Theatrical Improv. While a lack of a Referee risks the Role Playing Game slipping into simply Gaming, falling into a mechanical execution of the game, reducing it to a rote machine of chance and procedure. Some may find either of these forms fun in their own right, but neither constitutes a fully fledged Role Playing Game.
Through the Referee the Game Rules are interpreted, and this interpretation has a dialectical relationship with the consciousness of the Referee. Each Referee will bring to the table their own consciousness form, which is developed through their own experiences engaging with the material world outside the Role Playing Game. One could imagine a Referee deeply interested in revolutionary history, and then finding those themes inside their Role Playing Games. By contrast, you might have a Referee whose favorite genre of media is spaghetti westerns, or classic Hong Kong action cinema, and find those themes within their Role Playing Game. As their own consciousness develops through their actions in their material world, it will in turn inform the choices they make when establishing settings, making NPCs, setting challenges, making rulings, and interpreting rules. This can take the form of shifting themes and genres within the Role Playing Game, or the implementation of new procedures or rules when interpreting the Game Rules.
The Referee will inevitably strike a balance between executing rules as written, and making rulings based on the conditions of the Role Playing Game in its given state. This is where the Referee begins to impact the material base of the game. Rules and Rulings are not one and the same. Rules represent codified procedures which are to be followed to execute a task or negate conflict within the Role Playing Game. Rulings represent the absence of codified procedures, or a shortcoming in existing codified procedures. The Referee will make a Ruling when they feel the Rules are either absent, or lacking, in order to maintain continuity of play.
Rulings, given a significant frequency or consistency of their application, can in turn undergo a transformation through quantity into quality that codifies the rulings into rules. These rulings and, eventually, rules, are a unique expression of the dialectical process that exists between the Game Rules, the Players, and the Referee. For, the only reason which a Referee seeks the rules or makes a ruling is to engage in the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players. This process can mean that, while many groups may all be playing the same "Role Playing Game" at any given time, it also means that no two "Role Playing Games" are the same.
This can lead to conflicting discussions external to the Role Playing Game, as the Referees and Players share their experiences with each other (stories, one of the outputs of the Contradiction between Referee and Players). We can witness this phenomenon historically through works like The Elusive Shift, which shows that, in the earliest days of the Dungeons and Dragons scene in the 1970s, many Role Playing Games existed consisting of many Referees and Players, and yet, some of these groups created many various interpretations of the rules. These interpretations often led to confusion when discussing their play through the zines of the time. One of the takeaways of The Elusive Shift was that, early on, what constituted "Dungeons and Dragons" and, rather, "Role Playing Games" broadly was highly regionalized and often existed with large divergent interpretations of the rules. This is a direct result of the contradiction between the Referee and the Game Rules, as the various Referees struggled to interpret the sparse and cobbled rules into a functional system when faced with the challenges presented by their players. A manifestation of the larger Contradiction between the Referee and the Players.
Externally, there exists a dialectical relationship between the Role Playing Game Player Base and the Role Playing Game Intellectual Property Holders (the ones who hold the rights to a given collection of rules which are expressed as Intellectual Property, like Dungeons and Dragons). The power of the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players is exemplified in the response by the Dungeons and Dragons IP Holder TSR at the time. When a significant quantity of rulings and rules created by the Contradiction Between the Referee and the Players were expressed externally (through zines and other literature), they created a quality shift in the relation between the RPG IP Holders (TSR) and the RPG Player base.
This quality shift can be observed historically in the implementation of Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition, which made the attempt to provide an exhaustive rules compendium to shore up the gaps in previous editions. The gaps in the Game Rules resulted in Rulings over Rules by the Referees, which over time became codified into Rules once they were deemed suitable by the Referees and the Players, and after a significant number of new rules were created, a quality shift in the Game Rules occurred, which resulted in a whole new stable system of rules. This, again, can be observed in the years prior to the release of Dungeon and Dragons 2nd Edition, which saw numerous Referees-turned-Designers sharing their house rules as either free bundles or entirely new game systems, challenging the position of TSR as the arbiter of the rules for Dungeons and Dragons at the time. For a more exhaustive look at this history, you should read The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity by Jon Peterson.
This contradiction is what eventually led to the creation of various formations of Open Games Licenses which give people select access to some portion of various RPG IP for the explicit creation of 3rd party content created through the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players. There are other external forces that also lead to the creation of 3rd party content, but at its core is the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players, since without it there would be no basis on which the 3rd party content would exist.
While it might seem that a large portion of the dialectical process rests on the shoulders of the Referee and the Game Rules, we should endeavor to avoid underselling the role of the Players in this relationship. For where there is a game there are always Players.
The Players
Players exist as an interesting subject within this dialectical process, since a Referee could also be considered a Player as well. However, much like the Referee, the Players exist as a result of the Game Rules. The Game Rules, as the material base of the Role Playing Game, effectively create a division among all the Players in the Role Playing Game, separating them into these two roles: the Referee, which we have noted above, and the Players, which we are discussing here. The Game Rules establish the core contradiction of the Role Playing Game, which is the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players. This contradiction, in its stable form, drives the development of the Role Playing Game forward. The Referee wants to run a Role Playing Game, and the Players wish to become participants in that Role Playing Game.
In order for the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players to reach a stable state, there needs to be many various alignments between the two roles, as well as alignment within the Players themselves. Players, as a role, does not represent a single person, but instead a collection of people each representing a Player in the game. The Game Rules, as the material base of the Role Playing Game, establish a range of Players required to reach stability within this contradiction. Through effort on the Referee's part in interpreting the Game Rules, relying on supplementary rules or their own rulings, this number can be augmented beyond or below what the Game Rules recommend. This can be required at times to reach stability. External pressures, which exist outside the Role Playing Game, can impact this process of developing stability. Since the Game Rules often establish that these games take place over many sessions (a subdivision of a Role Playing Game), it requires alignment of the Referee's schedule with the Players' schedules. This is known as the Contradiction between the Desire to Play and the Demands of Life Outside the Game.
The entire process of instantiating a Role Playing Game can be represented as a shift in Quantity to Quality. One must have a sufficient number of people with sufficient amounts of interest in filling the roles within the Role Playing Game. Then the process of establishing stability within the Contradiction between the Desire to Play and the Demands of Life Outside the Game begins, and if stability is not reached it can result in the collapse of the group. Should stability be found, then the group undergoes a quality shift, transforming it into a Role Playing Game. The entire process is heavily contingent on the Players and their personal aspects as well as interpersonal relations, since, as the quantity of Players increases, the complexity of those personal and interpersonal aspects also increases. This is an ongoing process, one that can erode over time as the pressures of life external to the Role Playing Game, as well as interpersonal developments inside the Role Playing Game, shape the existing consciousness of the Players. Again, as more Players are onboarded, the stability of the contradiction can be challenged.
The desire to play in a Role Playing Game can often overpower otherwise existing social dynamics within a given group of Players, but interpersonal relations still have an impact on the stability of the game as a whole. Like any social activity, the compatibility between each member of the group develops the general stability of the group, and demands means of remediation and navigation. This can be understood as the Principle of Participant Suitability. There are many objective and subjective factors that can impact and define one's ability to participate in a social activity like a Role Playing Game, and through the act of praxis (applying Role Playing Game Rules theory in the real world) many tools, processes, and theories have been created to aid in meeting the Principle of Participant Suitability. These include, but are not limited to, X-Cards, Session Zeros, Digital Tabletops, and more. All of these methods are aimed at helping bring Players to the table.
Once present at the table, Players act as the engine for the Role Playing Game. Their engagement with the material base of the Role Playing Game, as well as the world created by the Referee (which exists as part of the superstructure of the Role Playing Game), drives all the other contradictions within this structure. Their choices during sessions instantiate the execution of the Game Rules or become the defining point for Rulings. Choices during character creation impact the content of the adventures prepared by the Referee. Engagement in direct conversation with the Referee about the nature of the game impacts the way the Referee interprets the Game Rules. Actions throughout a given session transform from quantity into quality to become the story of that evening's play. That story impacts the preparation required by the Referee for the next session, and as a result defines the content for that next session.
They reach out into the game, and through their actions they animate it, transforming it from lifeless ideas on a page into a living and breathing fantasy. Through the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players, together they mutually impact the consciousness of each other. In many ways, this process exists as a reflection of social activity throughout history. Stories shared by a campfire. The recounting of great hunts or glorious battles to those not there to bear witness. When the Principle of Participant Suitability is stable, each individual within the dialectical process is shaped by the other through play. Their actions are not codified into a rote sequence of task executions, but into a story as unique as the relations formed at the table through these dialectical contradictions. Every story, a unique expression of social activity.
The Dialectic In Action
We can see that this process can exist absent of any one specific set of Game Rules, and is also the reason why any one specific set of Game Rules exist at all. Dungeons and Dragons is simply the outgrowth of its original designers' interest in incorporating their thoughts and ideas regarding pulp fantasy and sword and sorcery literature into their interest in Wargaming. From the Wargaming tradition, through this dialectical process we know as the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players, the original ruleset that became Dungeons and Dragons was born.
Rooted in the medieval wargame Siege of Bodenburg lay the foundations that eventually were developed into The Domesday Book. From there, a partnership was formed which created the company Guidon Games, which produced a collection of rules called Wargaming with Miniatures. This collection of rules eventually developed into a book of rules known as Chainmail. These rules, however, still existed in the form of a Wargame and had not reached the quantitative development necessary to make the leap into a new form. It wasn’t until Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign that we can see this qualitative leap.
Through the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players Arneson’s Role Playing Game implemented one new critical change to the Chainmail system: Instead of each player commanding an army, as was tradition in Wargaming, instead they would control a hero. This required the implementation of several new rules for these heroes, including characteristics (like Strength and Intelligence), experience points, and level advancement. These features were implemented over time, through the session-to-session development of the Role Playing Game.
This is the Contradiction between the Referees and the Players in action. Eventually, the accumulation of rulings and rules resulted in a stable system that constituted a qualitative leap forward, transforming one game system to another.
The viability of this new game system outside the Role Playing Game is far too contingent on the material conditions external to this dialectical process to attribute this process alone to its success. Transforming these rules from new and exciting house rules into the household name of Dungeon and Dragons required the establishment of corporate entities, expenditure of capital, acquisition of the IP Chainmail, and all the other contradictions that arise from monetizing a Game System.
However, what can't be disputed is the powerful and transformative role played by the Contradiction between the Referee and the Players in developing unique and varied experiences.
Reflection
Creativity, as it turns out, is something that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is a collaborative process that happens when we come together to engage over a common task. Even if that task is escaping the demands of life, so that we can pretend to be heroes with our friends at the kitchen table a few times a month. Our lives are rarely heroic, this is the tragedy of history. Looking back, we might think that people like Gygax and Arneson were merely great men whose ideas stood heads and shoulders above all others. But we can see that they were engaging in the same mundane escapism that we are engaging in right now. The dialectical process that forms through play is what sets in motion our creative output. It just so happens that process created for them the ruleset that became Dungeons and Dragons. It by no means implies that they are the keepers of this tradition. The landscape that we bear witness to today, through the vast variety of Indy publications and games to me is evidence that this dialectical relationship is one that is eternal and will exist long beyond even the idea of Role Playing Games itself. It is the act of coming together, sharing experiences, telling stories, parting ways, and gathering next week to do it all over again.
