I've written already about the intersections of role-playing games (RPGs) and action/adventure genres, and I think I've finally cracked the Big Question that inspired those entries.
RPGs are a rule-bound, highly mathematical, and in one sense completely intentional, reification of specific genre expectations. Which is to say, the Dungeons and Dragons rule system is a form of genre theory; it models the action/fantasy story. Shadowrun models the science-fiction subgenre called 'cyberpunk.'
There are important differences between those two systems that match up perfectly with some of the differences between their respective genres. As an example, D&D uses Hit Points. As you gain levels, you get more hit points, which means that high-level characters are a lot harder to kill. Shadowrun, however, uses a damage bar that never changes. You can increase certain physical attributes that keep you from getting hurt as badly, but your basic capacity to take damage is about the same as any other human being. Hit points create mythic heroes who endure ridiculous hardships, like Beowulf's swimming contest, while the damage bar creates a more 'realistic' action setting, one in which people can die at any time from a stray bullet.
In trying to recreate the experience of reading or watching these kinds of adventure genres, RPG systems just are trying to replicate the rules of the genres, the 'logic of the text,' as it were. Though I'm sure Gary Gygax and Steve Jackson never thought about it in terms of genre theory, it should come as no surprise that the attempt at replication worked. D&D is thirty years old. They've had time to refine the system.
And there's the exception that proves the rule, by the way; D&D has gone through four major iterations, the original 'Basic' set, and three editions that involved major rule changes. The Basic set was essentially a 'zoomed in' version of Chainmail, a medieval fantasy combat game. Instead of commanding armies, suddenly you were playing just one 'soldier.' First and Second editions, also called the 'Advanced' sets, expanded this basic model, adding far more subtleties to the classes and races of the game, and expanding options for playing the characters as people, with things like non-weapon proficiencies and a more complex alignment system. They also made the combat rules, and the mathematics for them, far more complex.
The Third edition did not, however, continue the move towards more and more complex rules. It simplified the physical attributes from literally dozens of stats down to six. It reduced the combat system from a rather complex formula down to a single number. It turned complicated math, born of years of 'tweaking' the First edition, into predictable, reliable, consistent math, born of the desire for 'user friendliness.' Instead of abstract combat in which you could at least try to do anything, "I slide across the floor between the monster's legs," Third edition gave us a rule-bound grid to move on, and a very limited number of optional things to do.
From one point of view, these changes could be seen to reduce the genre complexity of the game. The first three iterations consistently increased the sheer number of options, officially telling players to try to do anything they could think of. The Third edition seems to reduce those options down to a 'closed room' system. But therein lies both the exception and the rule. Third edition wasn't an attempt to emulate the myriad possibilities of fantasy literature, as First and Second were, but it was an attempt to emulate a genre, just a different genre than the literary. D&D 3.5, the most recent version of the game, replicates the predictability of a video game. Even the name emulates the numbering of a piece of software, and the Open Gaming License that governs its use is a direct application of the concepts of the Open Source software movement onto RPGs.
If we want to study how action/adventure genres work, we would do well to look at how RPG designers have attempted to emulate them.
Posted by orion at July 18, 2006 3:40 PM