Fictional Baggage

A fiction is a belief or statement that cannot be demonstrated as truth, but that is often held to be true because it is expedient to do so.  A typical example of a fiction in D&D would be that "role-playing" is better than "roll-playing," or that alignments or back stories helps players build better characters.

When I began playing D&D, I readily adopted most of the rules that were presented in the books.  I accepted them on faith.  Having faith is the act of giving credence to a fiction, most often on the premise that this is what others believe or because this is the way that something has always been done.  In my youth, before D&D, I was taught to play games through being told what the rules were, and then bending myself, as others did, in order to follow the rules.

D&D was not my first experience with playing a game not by the rules.  My parents believed that if the rules of a board game could be adjusted in a way that made a better game, that was a good thing.  Thus I grew up playing adjusted rules for Monopoly, Stock Ticker, Life, Careers, Payday, Mille Bornes and Masterpiece, among other classic board games that weren't classic at all in 1975.

The decision to start adjusting D&D, when my faith could no longer sustain the rules, came naturally.  In the beginning, however, my efforts to "improve the game" were undeniably new fictions that I invented to replace old fictions.

I learned the difference through the same methodology that enables science and investigation: I watched the players, I took note of their responses, I adjusted my hypotheses to reflect those responses and, steadily, moved towards game systems that did not serve my fictions, but served evidence.

I do not see other DMs doing this.  And I don't know why.  By and large, dungeon masters seem to be forever burdened with their baggage ~ the luggage, travel totes, trunks and bags collected over the years from campaigns they've run, and played in, and other games they've played, in addition to cherished modules, stories, scenes and I suppose over-the-game-arguments that have collected in their thoughts like the eponymous baggage car in their train-of-thought.  It may be that they are seeking a sense of permanence, as though the fiction of permanence itself will provide future game experiences.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard players and DMs, both on and off the internet, swear that they will still be playing D&D in their 80s ... only to see them fall away from the game in less than a decade.  But suppose that we are still playing 30, 50 or 70 years from now.  Why would we create a fiction that it is going to be the same game then that it is now, or was when we started?  The world, and the game with it, has changed profoundly since the late 1970s; the world is going to go on changing, and the people who live in it are going to find amazing things to do in the future, that will dwarf the nostalgic baggage cars of DMs who cannot even now let go of things past.  Permanence is a fiction ... and one that brings pain, because the evidence that nothing is permanent is a loud banging on the door that defies ignoring.  Every minute that DMs cling to the ways of the past, to the ways they used to play, to the patterns of D&D that "should be" a certain way, is a way of disappointment and unhappiness that will not support another 30 years of game play.

I continue to love D&D because I emptied the baggage car long ago and turned it into a lounge.  The fictions that are discussed there take the form of propositions for future designs, rather than dogma.  My game design is fluid, ready to be discarded if it doesn't work, but equally ready to be put implemented and kept if it proves it's worth.  No design that does not carry its own weight is allowed to stay.  Neither I, nor my players, are willing to carry old design ideas as baggage.

It's a shame that others do not see the wisdom in this.