Talking About Games (Part 2)

Last time, I wrote about games discourse, whether online or in person, and things to remember while you participate in such conversations. There are a lot of things that people think make them look smart or help them prove their point, but I don’t believe that to be the case.

Be Up-Front With Your Experience With the Topic at Hand

RPGs are a very odd art form. You can’t present what seems like a valid opinion of a movie you’ve never watched, or a book you’ve never read. If you haven’t interacted with the thing you’re talking about in the way it was meant to be interacted with, everyone would likely agree that you have no right to judge it. No one would say, “I saw the poster for this movie and it was ugly, so it’s a bad movie.” Or if they did, certainly no one would lend it any credence.

And yet, people hold forth opinions about RPGs without having actually played them all the time.

I have been guilty of this myself.

Now, you might be saying, “But Monte, no one has time to play every game.” And my response is, I know. That’s my point. People churning out opinions on every game that comes along have difficulty maintaining credibility. Purporting to be an expert on everything makes you appear to be an expert on nothing.

We all, as a part of the hobby, need to recognize the gulf that exists between the opinion of someone (like a reviewer) stating their opinion based on merely reading an RPG product and that of someone who has actually played it. You can make some valid and insightful points from just reading the product, and you can certainly weigh in with some subjective feelings, but you can’t really judge the product as a whole without actually using it to do what it was designed to do. You wouldn’t judge a blender without ever turning it on, so you should be careful about judging a game without playing it.

You can still be an active and valuable part of the discourse if you’ve read a product, but you should probably start off by saying, “Well, I haven’t had a chance to play this yet, but…” This is true if your opinions are negative, positive, or mixed. This admission doesn’t weaken your position, it strengthens it. It shows you have an awareness of both yourself and the intricacies of assessing a game.

Crazy tangent time: If we can wax philosophical for a moment, it’s just possible that even someone playing a game can’t fully judge it. Take a game like D&D. Sure, you can play a one-shot in an evening, but does that give you the full breadth of the experience? Ask a serious devotee of the game and they’ll tell you that you haven’t really played until you’ve had a year-long (or longer) campaign where your character goes from low to high level, and until you’ve tried multiple different character options regarding species and class. Then, arguably, you’ve had the true D&D experience. Then you can talk about what’s fun in the game and what isn’t.

Much too demanding? Probably. Insanely impractical? Almost certainly. But honestly, D&D and games like it are meant to be played over months and years. If you really wanted to find out what such a game was like, would you ask a new player or someone who’s been playing for 15 years? (I’d argue if you really want the true picture, you’d ask both.)

But the real point is, the only fair and meaningful way to form an intelligent opinion about a game is to actually play it.

As I stated earlier, I’ve been working on RPGs for thirty-five or so years, and the number of people whose opinion about a game I would pay any attention to based only on them reading it is probably just two, or perhaps three. It takes a deep, deep understanding of games as a whole to be able to judge a game that way, and frankly, those that I think could do it would probably have an understanding deep enough that they’d know it’s better to actually play.

Realize That All Subjective Opinions are Equal

There was a time when a literary critic could publish a review of a book in a journal with detailed analysis and research, and that opinion would probably be more insightful, informed, and significant than your brother’s, who also read the same book. Critical reviews and analysis were valued and appreciated, and no one would publish one that wasn’t well-thought-out or well-presented. But those days are long over. Some dude on YouTube giving a review is absolutely no different than what you have to say at your game table about the same game. You’re both just gamers.

And that’s okay. I’m not arguing that you shouldn’t pay attention to what others have to say. The reviewer might have a fresh outlook that makes you take notice. But so might a poster on Discord or a girl you’re chatting with at the game store. Opinions matter regardless of where they are presented.

A reviewer might think poorly of a game, but your friend said they really liked how it sounded and wants to give it a try. The reviewer’s opinion doesn’t trump your friend’s. Don’t dismiss someone’s opinion just because they don’t have a platform that reaches a lot of people, because that reviewer probably didn’t give the game any more consideration than your friend did. In fact, your friend probably gave it more because they have more on the line—a fun night of gaming. The reviewer is very likely onto the next game and their next review.

Also, beware of consensus. Or rather, the illusion of consensus. If someone says, “Everyone loves this adventure,” what they likely really mean is, “Everyone in my game group loved this adventure,” or, “The people I follow on social media who are talking about it love this adventure.” Regardless, the vast majority of the time when someone in a discussion says, “Everyone thinks…” they are probably talking about less than ten people. Even if an opinion posted online gets fifty likes, and that’s more likes than any other post on the forum got that day, it’s indicative of very little. Fifty people are next to nothing compared to the number of all the people out there who play RPGs.

Plus, when it comes to opinions, it’s not really about quantity anyway. The most popular thing is very often not the best thing. If one person feels one way about something and ten people feel the opposite way, that doesn’t make the one person wrong. If anything, it makes the one person’s opinion potentially more interesting if they can articulate why they feel that way.

Roleplaying games are games of talking. So it’s natural and right that talking about games is an important part of the hobby, almost as much as playing games. Talking about (and listening to others talk about) games can enhance your own experience at the table, providing new ideas and new insights about making your personal game session better. And if you’re interested in designing games, talking about them is vital. Incorporate other people’s opinions into your own thoughts. Consider not just how people feel, but why they feel that way.