Do RPGs need to have a deeper "theme" or a meaningful, symbolic conflict, like literature or cinema?

Nigga, you can squeeze some themes out of almost anything.

If your game is devoid of symbolic conflict or themes than you're likely playing a meaningless murder-hobo fest.

It seems like the best themes in RPGs are something relatively broad or universal, something that can readily adapt to players' roleplaying or choices. Something that makes a definitive statement will probably end in railroading unless all the players are on board with it from the start.

Nah. Sometimes it's nice to roleplay the simple things in life, like being a coke dealer, or a mercenary. Deeper themes and meanings usually are the result of participants wanting more from their experience, and if they find wisdom in the theme, they're the better for it, the more on the nose a theme is the less power it has to spur the imagination.

I'd be a little disappointed if wasn't able to work in something to think about after a few sessions.

Capping this.

In my group there are only two GMs, me and the other guy. Everyone else tried and failed miserably and it was unanimously and silently agreed to only to have us two do the GMing anymore.
I can't help but but to run high energy, action and emotion packed pulp adventures with a big cast of what pretty much boils down to my waifus and husbandos.

The other guy can't help it but to run near art-project levels of huge multi-stage cross-campaign themes and stories, heaps of symbolism, hidden meanings, running subplots and all of this while preserving freedom and agency of us, the players. Which probably explains why he spends a ridiculous amount of time preparing those sessions, because we fuck everything up making a switch in direction necessary.

And I wouldn't have it any other way, because I fucking love trying to puzzle out what is going on and what he actually meant by this. It's a game upon itself to ponder about the topics breached and what the fuck the greater plot might be, using the knowledge I have from other games. No metagaming included, though.
No idea about the others, but I also don't care.

If you can't manage a theme and deeper meaning in your game while still maintaining all of what you mentioned, you are a pretty weak GM.

You shouldn't.

You're dismissing basic outlines of a campaign, and are actually treating RPGs as somehow inherently inferior to movies and literature in a manner that's purely unfair. While you can't expect something like a carefully constructed novel that took decades to write, an RPG can still provide a measure of depth and exploration by presenting meaningful questions that the players then have to answer. While it's certainly harder to wind up with something worth sharing to other people, there's no actual meaningful limitation for what RPGs can do or what stories they can tell.

The GM has time between each session to plan around the events of the last session, and the players each provide personality and personal interpretation to the story. With some campaigns stretching into months and even years, we're overall looking at more thought being put into a story than most of what you can find in theaters and booklists today. While every session might not be gold, not every scene makes it to the final film or book, and retelling a grand campaign would certainly employ liberal editing.

You're right in the sense that OP presented a false dichotomy, and like this guys said, , no, you don't have to have a deeper theme in anything, but your reasoning is quite unsound, especially with your final line. Improvisation happens all the time in movies, and the unexpected and natural even manages to find itself into literature, especially when we're talking about nonfiction.

Well, they should do. It's a hell of a lot harder to pull off properly, though, because improv is difficult and so is interactivity. If you fail, it's not the end of the world, because you should also be using it as a way of socialising with friends.
Holy shit just kill yourself right now if you're going to deliberately fill your time with stuff that isn't as good as possible.

And I love how you think stuff without themes can be fun and entertaining.
Strongly disagree. RPGs can be about a hell of a lot more than just "interesting stories to tell later", and fucking in-jokes. From dungeon-crawlers to weird shit.
The Window-tier retards who go on about playing over candlelit dinners are fifty thousand times worse than the people who want Veeky Forumsshit to be dumb fun.

>Do RPGs need to have a deeper "theme" or a meaningful, symbolic conflict, like literature or cinema?
No, you're playing a game of pretend with your mates, not running a theater production for Broadway.

I mean, put in effort if you want, just realize that any extra effort you put forth probably won't be noticed during play and your players will treat you like a tryhard if you get frustrated by them treating it like a recreational activity that they do in their spare time.

>not running a theater production for Broadway.
>implying
Also why are you so dismissive of your players.

>Also why are you so dismissive of your players.
Because things that are obvious and important to you (the GM) will not always strike the same chords with your players.

It's not even malicious, people tend to be self-centered at times and I recognize that putting in extra effort into something like RPG's is ultimately a waste of time when I can improv the bulk of what happens and get better than average results just because my group is comprised of people who are willing to do shit to move the narrative forward so it's a group activity, rather than me talking for a few hours.

if you are trying to push an agenda

You don't exactly need to pour in a tonne of effort to have literary themes and such, user. Also
>narrative
How can you argue against themes and then casually drop in narrative?

RPGs are more than just dumb fun.

they can be improved by having one, but "need"? hell no

They should at least try to.

Yeah but a good one does need it
is correct. If you're not gonna have any ambition, why are you doing it at all?

Bear in mind that "themes" doesn't mean "super serious".

>How can you argue against themes and then casually drop in narrative?
Because the narrative is what happens during play.
>RPGs are more than just dumb fun.
Not really, even in AD&D the game was full of dumb inside jokes, NPC's who were based off of past D&D characters that Gygax and his group created, and shit like a magic item that was basically a Coca-Cola vending machine that some wizard made after he discovered one while jumping across the planes.

In fact, I think that tabletop gaming as a whole suffered once the people who played it began to treat as something greater than it actually was.

How can you be this complacent? What you're describing isn't even dumb. A wizardly vending machine is good, user -- that's not empty genrefaggotry.

Tabletop hasn't changed for the better or for the worse. Well, mainstream's gotten worse IMO, but only because D&D's gotten worse.

That's why AD&D sucked.

Y'all are probably having different definitions of what "theme" means in this context, and it's hurting communication. Still, I'm interested in where dis discussion is going, so if you could clarify yourselves that would be neat.

Themes don't have to explicitly try to educate. Themes are part of reaching fun as an end. Just because something is complex and meaningful doesn't mean it is that way for reasons other than fun.

>What you're describing isn't even dumb. A wizardly vending machine is good, user -- that's not empty genrefaggotry.
It's the same stupid shit that me and my friends could come up with, not that there's anything wrong with that of course because some of the best games I've been in were generally more the result of the people involved than the actual plot that the GM had come up with.
>Tabletop hasn't changed for the better or for the worse.
I disagree, I think that tabletop games were spiraling until 5e dropped and people started to treat it like a game again. Hell, the advantage/disadvantage system they made was one of the best mechanics they came up with, just because it allows the players to do shit without being bogged down by either the rules or the numbers.

That's just my opinion though.

We can just use wikipedia's just so there's a frame of reference.

>Themes can be divided into two categories: a work's thematic concept is what readers "think the work is about" and its thematic statement being "what the work says about the subject".

Some aspect of the human condition, as dissected/explored by a work. I mean, you also have social and political themes, but they're shit.
RPGs aren't about plot, user. They're about interacting with a world. A hardcore dungeon crawl can have genuine themes.

RPGs don't have to be treated "like a game" in order to be used properly. There's plenty of different ways of playing RPGs. I wouldn't treat Song of Swords or Burning Wheel like a game. That doesn't make them worse than 5e.

>I wouldn't treat Song of Swords or Burning Wheel like a game.
It's the difference between playing a JRPG vs. a Visual Novel. One is more focused on gameplay, the other is more focused on narrative, but they're still games at the end of the day.
>That doesn't make them worse than 5e.
Never said that it did.

>It's the difference between playing a JRPG vs. a Visual Novel
No, not at all. They use the same basic mechanics (interact with the world, get a result) to produce the same emotional reactions, but they go about it in completely different ways -- and only some of them are (or should be) treated like a game. Also, both Song of Swords and Burning Wheel are focused on gameplay, with Burning Wheel carrying out its narrative ambitions through mechanics, and Song of Swords attempting to wholly represent actual medieval combat.
>but theyre still games at the end of the day
A lot of people would say visual novels are not games...

What is your definition of "game", here? How do you treat an RPG like a game?
>Never said that it did.
I must have misunderstood you when you said that RPGs worsened until 5e came along. Those games do come from before 5e, and they aren't treated in the manner 5e is treated...

>A lot of people would say visual novels are not games...
A lot of people also say the same thing about narrative games as a whole, doesn't mean it's actually true.
>What is your definition of "game", here? How do you treat an RPG like a game?
Generally, you say you want to do a thing, GM tells you if you can/cannot do a thing, and then you roll dice to see how well you do a thing while adding whatever modifiers your character would have that would increase your chances of successfully doing a thing.
>I must have misunderstood you when you said that RPGs worsened until 5e came along.
When I said that, it was in reference to 3.PF, which dominated the industry and made it difficult for non-D&D games to find a foothole in the industry, making it seem as though all tabletop games played like 3rd edition even though there were alternatives available on the market.

Yes, although there's a good and bad way to handle it. The good way is to express themes in the game. The bad way is to express themes in the system.

>doesn't mean it's actually true.
Visual novel are NOT GAMES. They're VISUAL NOVELS.
It's in the fucking name. Most of them have zero gameplay element for fuck's sake. Some of them don't even have choices! You only read the fucking text until the end!

Dude, this isn't /v/, you don't have to beat this dead horse just to fit in.

Besides, most games nowadays are just as interactive as VN's are since all they have you do is walk forward.

I'm not fitting in, retard. I'm playing visual novel on a constant basis and I have been for years. They're not fucking game, the community doesn't refer it as games, and only retards thinks they're game.

They have NO GAMEPLAY ELEMENT. They're NOT GAMES.
They're VISUAL NOVELS. NOVEL WITH VISUALS.

You're retarded.

Dude we get it, you just hopped the boat and feel the need to spout jargon to fit in. This is Veeky Forums, not /v/, we don't argue about how every video game sucks ass here.

We just say how D&D is the worst shit ever.

Eat shit.
Don't talk about something if you don't want people to respond to you about it.
Your analogy was shit, your reasoning is shit, and your response are shit, like your bloodline.

...

...

>your bloodline

VN's are games, deal with it nigga.

Is she going to the bathroom? If so, that's pretty hot.

yaaaay.

Anyone who posts on Veeky Forums shouldn't be talking about other having shitty bloodlines.

>You can't talk about bloodline when you're on Veeky Forums
Go open a white wolf book, fag

Mods are retarded. What's new? Go suck nazimod's cock if you like it so much

Your anal anguish sustains me user. Cry some more.

No. It's something White Wolf made up because back in the day you could get publicity from trying to convince people you were doing something more "mature" and "serious" than those nerds playing D&D.

Need to? Absolutely not. Many systems have been successful without depth at all.

You know what's magical? All of your games may have a deeper theme or meaningful conflict, without you even noticing.

Your DM may be telling a overarcing story that is expressed and driven by the party's actions and interactions with the world. He may not share it with you, but you can might find it expressed in the small details that point to a theme.

Your cast members may have a deep backstory that the don't blatantly share but still draw on to inform their actions.

And the magic is: All of it is possible - none is necessary.

This video is about video games but it feels relevant to this thread
youtube.com/watch?v=fLKVg-2d54c

Not necessarily, but it helps. As a pretentious fucker, I love me some philosophical pondering and battles of ideals.

This. I had the absolute worst fucking experience and I feel so guilty about it to this day
>be player
>GM wanted to tell big, meaningful, thematic story with symbolism and allegory and a really tight narrative structure
>we didn't realize and just fucked around while kind of following the story
>he spent the time crafting subplots based on our backstories and we totally missed the point of all of them
>after the campaign he said that was the last time he would ever put that kind of effort into one
i'm so fucking sorry man i didn't know

>Do RPGs need to have a deeper "theme" or a meaningful, symbolic conflict, like literature or cinema?
Not inherently, no. But then again, neither do books, movies, or videogames.

Having one DOES however make them more valuable though, and turn what is largely a pointless exercise into something profound, meaningful and truly worth engaging in.
The again, in order to achieve something like that, you need an exceptionally gifted group of people pulling it off, and that does not happen very often.

Bottom line:
It's OK to be indulgent, it's OK to make mindless entertainment, and you should not feel guilty for doing that:
But it's ALWAYS more valuable if you strive for something more. It should never be an obligation, but it should always be an ideal.

No, but a setting can benefit one if written well.

No

elaborate

The assumption is incorrect. Literature and cinema don't inherently have deep themes unless the author intends them to.

Since every RPG campaign is wildly different, the same goes for RPGs.

There is really not much discussion to be had on this topic, since it all varies from group to group.