Style vs Approach

Style vs Approach in Playing RPGs

How Your "Play Style" Is Holding You Back

For some reason, the term “play style” has always struck me as somewhat suspect. What does it actually mean? In terms of how it’s used, and I don’t think many will say otherwise, play styles vary according to preference. There are many of them. No one way is right. They allegedly must match up well at the game table for everyone to have the best possible experience. If play styles do not mesh well, it leads to unsatisfying play and can sometimes even result in bad feelings. We like to acknowledge the “play style” of others as a reminder that there are many different ways people can have fun playing RPGs, that the way others play may not be our cup of tea, but as long as they’re having fun, that’s all that matters.

So what could possibly be suspect about this? Well, for starters, if there are so many different ways to play the game, and if play styles have to sync up when several different people get together to play an RPG, it seems improbable that everyone’s style at the table should just happen to line up. It seems unlikely that anyone should ever have fun playing RPGs. And I have no doubt for a lot of groups that may be true. But I know for certain that a lot of groups do also manage to have a lot of fun as well.
Not only that, but my personal experience is not only do I and those I game with have a lot of fun playing RPGs, but we actually don’t seem to have matching styles. In fact, my experience has been that diversity of styles where different players bring different strengths to the table has actually enhanced the play experience, not hampered it. So what’s really going on here? And what gives with this play style business anyway?

The following video may have some insight:

In the video, the defense instructor claims to be highly trained. He has a finely honed defense style. The students have no prior background or training. As such, they have different styles. When he tries to do an in-class demonstration of his defense technique, he fails to defend against the student, and then proceeds to explain to the student why her attack was wrong. We see that she must attack in his style for his defense technique to work. Of course the whole joke is, the defense style is useless because out in the world you have no control over what someone else’s attack style is like.

And I think there’s a lesson here on how to approach RPGs. If everyone out there is going to have their own play style, and play styles have to match, then styles are absolutely useless to successful RPG play and only confound what is going on. A play style might consist of holding certain expectations for what will happen in the game. It is entirely dependent upon others meeting those expectations despite the fact that they have their own goals and desires. It’s just like Bob Jackson’s style of self defense. And it’s almost inevitable that it will fail.

A better way is to think in terms of a play approach. There are some key differences between a “style” and an “approach.” A style is completely subjective. It’s simply what you or someone else likes. An approach is similar to a style in that it can be highly personalized, varying from individual to individual, and incorporating preferences. But where it differs is in that it is a sort of game plan or a method for getting the most fun out of the game rather than just strictly a preferred way to play. An approach is not just what you want. It’s how to get it.

And because an approach will either succeed or fail to varying degrees in getting you what you want, it provides objectivity. An approach that works more often, in more cases, with a wider variety of groups to provide you with a play experience you find more enjoyable is quite simply a better approach than one that doesn’t. It’s something you can work to improve upon over time. A “style” can’t be improved because there’s no such thing as one style being better than another.

The nice thing about a focus on approaches is not everyone at the table needs to have the same approach for everyone to have fun. Imagine if Bob Jackson had actually known any defense techniques of real value. He would have been able to defend against an oncoming attack regardless of the style of the attacker.

Not only that, since RPGs tend to be cooperative rather than adversarial, if someone else has a better approach than you have, they can actually enhance your experience as well as theirs. The amount of fun you will have in an RPG will tend towards the best approach brought to the table. This all of a sudden explains why RPGs are a lot more fun than freakish cosmic coincidence of playstyles would allow for. It explains why when I play with a diverse group of gamers, I end up having more fun, not less. Each person proves to have the strongest approach in different areas, so we all get more fun out of the game than any one of us can bring individually.

So how do you tap into it? Most people do it naturally with no conscious effort at all. For some, however, it may require conscious effort. And in many cases I have no doubt that by focusing on play style, gamers have put more effort resulting in less fun due to pursuing an idea that holds no real value. For the former group, keep on doing what you’re doing, and avoid theories about play style like the plague. For the latter two groups, I offer the following advice.

Erase play style from your vocabulary. You have your preferences, but you have no right to expect others to cater to what you want. You and you alone have ultimate responsibility in making sure the play experience is fun for you. No one else is going to do it for you by just giving you what you prefer. You have to get it yourself.

That means do not go into games with expectations. Do not rely on “talking it out” with the other players to “get on the same page.” Pages turn all the time. You need to develop a skill set that allows you to adapt to a dynamic, ever-changing game. If you’re a player, drop the notion of needing to know the rules in order to know what expect to get the most fun out of the game. Know the rules only for the sake of helping the game flow more smoothly. But when it comes to playing well, go with your gut.

And hedge against disappointment. If something is ultra important to you, never leave it to chance and then later complain “but by the rules, this should have worked out in my favor,” or “stupid dice, there was a 98% chance this should have worked.” If you’ve ever found yourself loathing randomness in a game--wishing character generation were on a strict point-buy basis, or wishing the core mechanic used a “bell curve”--this is probably an indication that you need work in this area. It doesn’t mean those are bad or wrong preferences to have. It’s just a really good indicator of where your approach could use improvement.

Left-brained gamers are especially vulnerable in this area. Your idea of optimization is based on calculating expected outcomes (there’s that word “expect” again) according to probabilistic models (rules knowledge). And so you come to generally expect the mean or expected result and as a consequence may frequently wind up disappointed and find fault in nearly everything.

The better approach here is to think in terms of worst-case scenarios. Optimize your actions to that instead. In reality, you’ll almost always do better than you expected. No disappointment. And even when the chips are down, it will suddenly seem as though you are armed with a response to everything. Because you’ve already considered the worst case, the second-to-worst case is a cakewalk.

For those of a more creative mindset, perhaps you get frustrated because your ideas are never fully realized in actual play. This is the nature of having to play with others. My advice here is to understand your artistic medium. In the role-playing game, your sphere of control is through your character. You have complete carte blanche when it comes to your character’s inner space--his or her thoughts and feelings and reasonings.

The character’s sphere of outside influence is dependent upon the character’s skills, your choices, and how they interact with the surrounding world. To get the most of what you want out of this, to master this medium to empower your maximum expression. Get to know the world. Get to know the other characters in it. Accept the results the game world gives you as if it were feedback. Instead of becoming frustrated that the result wasn’t what you wanted, accept it as having learned a new nuance of how things work. The more you familiarize yourself with the nuance, the richer the world is, and the richer the portrait you will be able to paint against that backdrop.

And no matter what, always examine yourself. Look at what you can do to improve things. If you find yourself wishing, “Oh, if only I were playing with a group with preferences that better matched my own” you need to improve your approach. Anyone can have fun when all the stars are aligned and everything is just perfect. But that happens all too seldom to count on it. A great approach gets along well with others, even others who have very different tastes.  A great approach makes the game fun for yourself as well as others. And a great approach allows you to leverage diversity to an advantage rather than being stifled by it.