There was a recent question on the r/theatre subreddit from u/Bekkeerrr. I’ve answered it here since Reddit’s size requirements won’t allow me to post this as a single comment. I’ve copied the original question here for reference
The Question
What theatre-based ‘parts” do you ‘play’ during computerized roll-playing-games?
In 1965 Eric Bentley wrote “A impersonates B while C looks on”. I’m currently writing my bachelor project, and I’m looking into exactly that. Because using theatre-based audience theory, how can you look into computer-based role playing games? In gaming the player can be both A, B and C – also at the same time. But I was wondering if there are any other ‘parts’ that you can ‘play’ when gaming. Like watcher or gamemaster or any kind of way to personalize your gaming experience. What kind of character do you play while playing RPG games? And most importantly: how do they relate to the theatre?
I hope this makes sense and that somebody will help me with a little inspiration.
Thank you!
My Response
“A impersonates B while C looks on”
Bentley is making a distinction here between A the performer, B the character (or role), and C the audience. I understand the point Bentley is trying to make by focusing on the essential qualities of the theatrical event, but I think his description is reductive, and exploring the other positions in the creation of a theatre work may help illuminate OP’s question. (I am going to use the word “position” when discussing the creation of theatre and games so to differentiate these with the “roles” of the players in the narrative.)
We have the playwright, the author of the narrative being told. We have the designers, who create the sets, costumes, sounds, lighting, props — everything that the audience experiences that is not the performers. We have the director who leads the team of artists in a shared vision. We have the stage manager, board operators, and stage hands who make sure the technical elements operate as designed. Then there are the producers, marketers, and other theatre staff who keep the organization running and make sure there is an audience to see the event — because, as Bentley points out: no audience, no theatre. Or, as David Mamet puts it, “The audience is the final collaborator.”
Are all of these positions present in the creation of every theatrical work? No. Many of these positions are dependant on the scale and budget of the production, and I think that might be part of the point Bentley is trying to make. Are sets, costumes, etc. necessary for a theatrical event? No. According to Bentley, all that is needed is an actor impersonating a character in front of an audience, or, as I would put it, playing a role.
So, if we are drawing parallels between a theatrical event and a computer role-playing game, how do these positions map across the two contexts? The position of A, the performer, would be the player. (It is interesting to note that the word “player” can be used to describe both a performer in a theatrical event and one who plays a game, which goes to show how linked these concepts are, at least in English). B, the character, would be the role the player takes on in the game.
Who is C, the audience? The OP suggests this would also have to be the same person as A, the performer/player. That is true, if we think about who “consumer” of the work. But we must acknowledge the rise of streaming culture in our discussion of “the audience” in games. Even though video games might be thought of as solitary activities, when we consider the long history of theatre and sports, the emergence of “watching someone else play a video game” should come as no surprise. Why would someone choose to watch someone else play a game rather than play a game themselves? Look at sports: the players are playing the game at a level that may not be available to the average person in the audience, and the thrill is seeing the game played at its peak. So to with video games, especially competitive games. Even in single-player games, there may be enjoyment in watching the player perform at a high level of skill or playing the game in an unusual way. Or, it may be simply a question of access: the game is not available to the observer, who would still like to experience the game. But also remember the proverbial “younger sibling” who sits next to the older game-playing sibling and watches the action. The position of observer in games is not a new phenomenon.
We’ll come back to this idea of player-as-audience, but I want to continue mapping the other positions I proposed, and what it means when each of these positions overlaps with the position of the player. Who is the playwright in a computer role-playing game? Put another way, who is responsible for the narrative? If the game is a linear, controlled experience, then the game designers are the playwright. But, the more freedom and flexibility the player is given, the more the player controls the narrative and could be considered a “co-writer”. In an open world game, there is often a main story line that the player progresses through, but also a number of side-quests. The player, depending on how much they follow or ignore the main and side quests, will end up shaping the story. If the game is played through to completion, the main arc will always be present, but the order of events may change from player to player, and there may be sequences of events that occur in one player’s game that do not occur in another. In a sandbox or simulation game, where there is no defined goal or objective, the player is free to explore and create narratives on their own, within the confines and using the tools created by the game designers. Each player’s narrative may be vastly different depending on how they play the game. So the player may enter into and share the role of playwright depending on the flexibility granted by the game.
What would it mean to be a costume or set designer, or a director in a game? Many games provide customization options for the appearance of the characters and the environment, and for some games, like The Sims, this customization is a main part of the game. Beyond this, the player may create a mod for a game, in which case they are stepping into the position of game designer. Many games thrive on an active and diverse mod community.
A sidebar here on the merging of player and game designer: there is a game called Nomic, which was proposed by political scientist Peter Suber in the 1980’s to make a point about constitutional democracy. The rules of the game provide a structure for changing the rules of the game by voting, and indeed the sole focus of the game is to change the rules of the game. There were and are a number of Nomic communities on the internet that played and continue to play Nomic, over message boards, email lists, and blogs. As you might imagine, each instance of the game evolved and changed over time into totally different games. There is a way to play Nomic in and of itself, because the starting ruleset provides a method of victory where if a player can prove that there is a paradox in the rules or gamestate, that player wins the game (assuming the players have not repealed the rule that describes this victory condition). Therefore players may be attempting to introduce new rules that seem innocuous, but actually create paradoxical situations, and the game becomes a battle of wits as players attempt to outsmart one another. But there is another way to play Nomic where the players use the structure provided to create, piece by piece, a new game, but a game that is growing and transforming while it is being played. In my experience, most Nomic communities contained a blend of playstyles, with players creating pieces of a complex game while simultaneously trying to take advantage of loopholes in the current gamestate to progress toward victory (whatever that may currently be). But something I learned while playing Nomic is that the amount and kind of fun experienced is somewhat dependent on the skill of the players as game designers. It is one thing to play a polished, tested game from an experienced designer, and another thing to play a half-complete game designed by a group of amateurs who are simultaneously trying to win at said game. There are other kinds of fun to be had at Nomic, for sure. But the takeaway is, as a game designer, to be mindful of what we are asking the players to do, what positions we are asking them to take, and how to support them in those positions to achieve the kind of experience we would like them to have.
What other positions can a player take in a game? The OP mentions the game-master. In most tabletop role-playing games, each player takes on the role of a single character while one player, the game-master or dungeon master, takes on the role of everything else in the world: all of the other characters the players encounter, the environment, and God, creating situations for the players to encounter (therefore overlapping with the position of playwright). The game master is also the judge: if there are any disagreements about the rules, the game-master decides. In a computer role-playing game, the program itself is the game-master: all of the situations, choices, and consequences the player has are loaded written into the program. While there is potential for the creation of novel situations through procedural generation, there will always be limitations to what the players can do. One advantage of tabletop role-playing games over their computer counterparts is that the “computer” that the “game program” runs on is a human brain, the brain of the game-master. Therefore the players have much greater freedom of choice in action in a tabletop game because any player choice can be interpreted by the game-master in a flexible, nimble way that computers cannot (yet) achieve.
What would it mean for a player to take on the role of game-master in a computer role-playing game? Wouldn’t that be designing the game, rather than playing it?
Returning to the idea of player-as-audience, I’m going to turn the question backwards and examine the position of the audience in theatre. To what extent is the audience a participant in the theatrical event? There are many levels of possibility.
Often, I think, the audience of a theatrical event is considered to be a group of passive observers. In my experience, I can tell you that is not the case, as can anyone who has witnessed the difference between a rehearsal (where no audience is present) and a performance. There is something that happens when the performer is observed that brings a sharpness and clarity to the performance. And the performers are receiving feedback from the audience that causes them to, consciously or unconsciously, make changes to their performance. For example, from my experience of performing comedy, when the audience finds something particularly hilarious, I get a feeling like, “Oh, you liked that? Wait ‘til you see this!” that pushes me into the next joke, and I’m able to ride the waves from laugh to laugh. Even when the feedback is not as explicit as laughter, I can tell you that performers pick up on shifts of energy in the room and are constantly adjusting their choices based on what is happening. It is part of the magic of live theatre.
Beyond this, there are types of performance in which the audience is explicitly involved. If the performance uses direct address, where the characters speak directly to the audience, the audience may become “cast” in particular roles: a forum to be persuaded, an angry mob to be quelled, an army of soldiers to be encouraged. In melodrama, the audience may be given specific cues and controlled ways to respond. In improvisation, the audience is providing suggestions to inspire the performers and some members of the audience may even join the performers on stage. In immersive theatre, the audience may be free to explore or interact with the work as they see fit. And in interactive theatre, the audience is a direct participant and may have a significant impact on the theatrical event — and this starts to blur the line between theatre and game. So there is a spectrum of audience involvement depending on the type of event. As we have discussed, there is a similar spectrum of involvement in games depending on the type of game and the intentions of the game designers, from a highly narrative game that plays more like a film with a few player choices thrown in, to a sandbox game where the player has a great degree of freedom of action.
So, what do we mean by a “role-playing” game? In all games, the player is in the position of “player” but that may or may not involve playing a role. In abstract games like chess or cards, there is no narrative fiction around the game. The player is simply playing a game. In a thematic game like Pandemic, the player has a role, that of a member of the CDC working together with the other players to stop the outbreak of a global pandemic. But this fiction serves as an engagement device with the game, because without this narrative, the players would be simply moving pawns around to remove cubes from a board. The narrative gives context to the player’s actions, gives weight to the players goals, and helps explain why players can’t take certain actions. While I might feel like the scientist portrayed on my character card, there is no reason in the game for me to act like that character — although, there is nothing stopping me from doing that either, if I choose.
In a tabletop role-playing game, taking on the role of the character is one of the main activities, and, I think, one of the main draws of this type of game. Through the character, the player becomes a participant in a larger narrative, whether the audience for that narrative is only the players themselves or a community of streamers. Characters are not necessary for the creation of a narrative. In storytelling games like Once Upon A Time or Microscope, the players are collaborating to create a narrative, but they can (within the confines of the rules) change the narrative in any way they see fit.
In a computer role-playing game, the player’s flexibility of choice might be more limited, depending on the design of the game. So the question becomes, which parts of the narrative are the game designers giving the players control over? Or, to relate to a previous point, to what extent are the players co-writers or co-playwrights? Do players have control over a single character or multiple characters? Over the environment itself? And how free are they to act within the confines given?
I feel I’ve covered a lot of ground here. Hopefully something here is useful and inspiring. I would also recommend Homo Ludens: The Play Element of Culture by Johan Huizinga as a useful examination of the similarities of theatre, games, sports, and other elements of culture (or, as Huizinga would argue, ALL other elements of culture). u/Bekkeerrr: I’m also available for additional questions, feel free to respond on Reddit as I am more likely to see it there.