I hear a lot of snark about TTRPG Actual Play performance (& to a lesser extent stuff like pro GMing) as antithetical to TTRPGs as hobby/play. I hear functionally no pushback to other ways one might argue TTRPGs are instrumentalized all the time by framing them as tools (in education, therapy, etc) - ThreadSky

friede.bsky.social • 14 hours ago

I hear a lot of snark about TTRPG Actual Play performance (& to a lesser extent stuff like pro GMing) as antithetical to TTRPGs as hobby/play.

I hear functionally no pushback to other ways one might argue TTRPGs are instrumentalized all the time by framing them as tools (in education, therapy, etc)

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alexandrapeel.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I don't think I've heard such things, but I see people talk about the Matt Mercer effect and how the CR cast are 'acting'.

Is this what you mean?

Apologies for my lack of understanding.

montola.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Role-playing is ”supposed to be” a performance for the first-person audience. I’m supposed to *play for myself*.

I imagine the CR cast criticism is that they play theatrically for the benefit of their online audience.

Which is arguably improvised theater rather than pretend-play.

friede.bsky.social•14 hours ago

My point is that we throw that kind of criticism around about how play is “supposed to be” while ignoring the ways we turn TTRPGs into edtech or other kinds of tools to justify their existence.

(It’s also wild how CR gets flack for “performing,” as among APs they’re very sealed off from audience)

montola.bsky.social•9 hours ago

I don’t think the latter is odd at all — TV and film actors are also performing, for the camera?

friede.bsky.social•9 hours ago

My point is that (putting aside that all TTRPG tables perform for one another) it’s weird to accuse specifically CR given they are one of the APs that has most consistently separated themselves from audience input, & does the least collective beat-prepping (which is to say, none in main campaign)

montola.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Right, I see what you mean!

I'd love to read comparative critiques of APs, or even see some beat-by-beat video analyses of how they do their stuff.

friede.bsky.social•14 hours ago

No, in the first part I refer to how some folks think monetization “ruins” the hobby, especially on the side of monetized play (either playing for an audience or as a pro DM)

montola.bsky.social•14 hours ago

D&D has been a capitalist endeavor since TSR, but I think a lot of people object to also adding celebrity culture into the mix.

onlyplaywizards.com•14 hours ago

Classic push between art vs productivity.

Also think it has to do with spectacle.

nicklalone.com•13 hours ago

Homo Ludens was written in a world not unlike the one we find ourselves starting to live in (just before ww2). He foresaw a lot of problems in professional play as commoditizing the play spirit.

I don't think he was wrong but we've never teased it out as I think actual play gets unfairly lumped in.

nicklalone.com•13 hours ago

It's also hard to be anti-capitalism and not see the whole world through those lenses. Makes this discussion hard.

Usually point to Lodoss plays as a good example of the benefit of actual play:

https://archive.org/details/record-of-lodoss-war-comptiq-magazine-english-translation/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/comptiq-magazine-record-of-lodoss-war-2

Think Fate guy has a talk somewhere on these.

monitorr.bsky.social•8 hours ago

it’s because actual play performance is how most people are introduced to the genre these days, and expect their home games to play the same. the incongruencs creates friction between oldheads running games and newcomers joining them.

friede.bsky.social•8 hours ago

That’s not universally true.

monitorr.bsky.social•6 hours ago

it’s a common enough experience that this is where the discourse comes from. the disconnect between liveplay and actual play is much greater than the other forms you mentioned, and is a much more popular medium. critrole and such are likely bigger than the rest of ttrpg combined.

friede.bsky.social•6 hours ago

I’m not sure you’re familiar with my research, but functionally I disagree with you based on my data and observations.

gamesinabunker.bsky.social•5 hours ago

As a game retailer of 20+ years and a GM for 40+ I also strongly disagree based on decades of experience in the field.

flintlock.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Out of interest, does your research find any difference in behaviour depending on which AP bring people into the hobby? (Purely anecdotal, but I've personally found quite a significant difference between "CR people" and "Yogscast People" in terms of what club campaigns they choose etc.)

brianemophiliac.bsky.social•8 hours ago

It’s easy to be snarky when it’s in reference to entertainment but when actual psychological professionals get behind it everyone shuts up. It all boils down to ego. Ttrpgs being good for mental health makes you feel good, entertainers on the other hand can make your own RP seem embarrassing.

houreleven.bsky.social•13 hours ago

I think one part of it is the labeling. Actual Plays, even in their name, pretend to be “just the same” as the home game, but recorded. And that’s very far from the truth in media content. Play as therapy and it’s related fields don’t pretend to be the thing, they upfront use the thing for a task.

friede.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Ehhhh I would quibble on both as generalizations, though my expertise means I’m more sure-footed in terms of AP and its various forms of production than therapeutic play and its framing.

houreleven.bsky.social•13 hours ago

There’s a process where people have been slowly recognizing APs as entertainment first, but the RPG subreddit has been a showcase of misunderstanding for the past 6 years as people expected APs from their home GMs, or learned from APs first and found a different experience at the flgs tables.

friede.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Despite a lot of solicitation, I have no meaningful data of a significant number of concrete, verifiable examples that would suggest that AP viewers who were not already TTRPG players ever assumed that games they played would resemble games they watched or listened to.

shevek1312.bsky.social•14 hours ago

TBF ending up working for myself as a pro GM has been a blessing in disguise after realizing it works much better than the various careers I've had. A lot of the folks I'm friends with through discussing GMing and handling various aspects of treating it as a profession are also neurodivergent or

shevek1312.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Adjacent in some way, so conventional jobs have jobs been rough for us.

The weird part overall here, is I don't think the same people that snark on proGMing have much to say about events like "DnD In A Castle" which is KINDA WEIRD

cmookbridgman.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Do these same people complain about professional sports? Watching the WNBA is nothing at all like shooting hoops with friends, but no one says pro sports are ruining the game for hobby players.

thebenj.bsky.social•12 hours ago

They should though, because pro sports are so exploitative.

friede.bsky.social•14 hours ago

To be clear: I think it’s worth interrogating ALL the ways we make play DO things beyond be good in & of itself!

That’s not to say that performed play or pro game-running or games as therapeutic/educational tools isn’t legit, but that we lose something when play’s only line of defense is utility.

dicedeeds.bsky.social•11 hours ago

A while ago I got pushed an ad by social media about ttrpg as team building for corps/startups. I left a comment. I don't normally leave comments.

Personally speaking, I do not see any issue with 98.99% of APs other than the reliance on the one game.

I want more stuff like mystery quest.

editorjen.bsky.social•14 hours ago

There are many definitions of play obviously, but I think one of the parts that gets lost is that it is *voluntary*. A game that your teacher/therapist says you have to play may have many advantages of play, but it's not the same as something you choose to do. Mandatory fun is a contradiction.

clearlygolden.qcg.social•14 hours ago

I think about this more than I feel like is healthy 😂 To me it mimics the way people talk to me about when I do design/artwork for hire.

It’s not new but we deeply dislike the idea of someone making money for something other people enjoy doing for free.

clearlygolden.qcg.social•14 hours ago

It feels like those who participate in the hobby understand the therapeutic and educational potential but because using games that way comes with a layer of “this is something I *can’t* do, so it’s not someone profiting where I could be profiting.” So they’re not struck with the same comparisons?

playingresearch.bsky.social•12 hours ago

* culturally legitimate utility, even!

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