The Unhappy Medium
Posted 19th November 2009 at 05:04 PM by pawsplay
Updated 24th November 2009 at 04:59 PM by pawsplay
Updated 24th November 2009 at 04:59 PM by pawsplay
Not every great book turns into a great movie, and just as evidently, not every great movie turns into a good video game. Each medium, from silent movies to flash movies, has its own unique characters. Therefore, it should not be surprising to reflect that in the case of RPGs, some stories are more gameable than others, and indeed, system matters.
Any kind of story involving a solo character has to be altered for an RPG. Even if you only have one GM and one player, the narrative process is different in first person than as an author, standing outside the game, and the interactive process means the GM can not simply lead the player through an odyssey. Similarly, stories involving characters separated by time and distance are problematic, since the characters are unable to interact and hence the structure of an RPG works uncomfortably with them. Things improve immensely if players can interact using the game rules in some fashion even when their characters are apart, but it is still a difficult issue to address because of the moving spotlight.
Action-oriented, character-driven, scenic, comedic, horror, and romantic stories work relatively well in RPGs. Erotic stories and moral tales are hard to pull off, because creating those emotions interpersonally is very intense, hence the lack of soft-core porn RPGs, serial killer RPGs, and RPGs centered on identifying and preventing child abuse. Existential stories, surrealism, and the like are hard to pull off because they are often predicated on alienation, whereas RPGs are predicated on identification and immersion. Hence, you would have to engage in pretending to be someone who is disengaged, which is certainly doable but makes the game more work and may make it harder to share the experience. I can read existential terror or a nihilistic crisis right off a movie screen our in a book, but it's hard to peel that off a person in front of you and then know what to DO about it.
GMs and players don't often have months to develop an entire milieu, the way a novelist or playwright might, and there is no backtracking to pull the world together if certain dramatic needs are identified later. Thus, genre-based games, games based on licensed properties like Star Wars, or games that are sequels or new editions are easier to game than truly original work. From a new player standpoint, games that use familiar tropes and a familiar world are more accessible than very strange situations and a strange world. At the same, a game set in something too familiar is boring, because the imaginary reality is not as stimulating to create. Thus, an ideal RPG setting tends to have a modernist theme or a post-modern "playing with text" kind of feel, as opposed to being a fairy tale, a piece of surrealistic fantasy, a docudrama, or a realistic psychological portrait set in the real world. If we want to think about a cop with PTSD, we are often as, if not more, satisfied reading about it than imagining ourselves as that cop. To make it interesting, we have to put the cop back on the streets and into danger, turn him into a vampire, or devise a less likely but still realistical scenario like a moral redemption or emotional decay to explore.
Similarly, characters should be easily grasped, since the players will have less time to acuaint themselves with each other's characters than the fictional characters in a book. A novelist might write that two characters are best friends and put their relationship in display at the beginning of the story, but in an RPG, the players would have to develop the backstory in conjunction with the GM to get a similar result. Thus, stereotypes are the norm in gaming. That should not be read as an endorsement of lazy, offensive, or trite stereotypes, but as an acceptance that recognizable character types are a good starting point. Complex, unusual characters need to have ways of interacting with the world, hooks and styles and habits, that are memorable, so we can become familiar with them over time. RPG characters should have really good names.
The supremacy of fantasy and superhero genres is probably not just an accident of history and geekdom. The genres are self-sustaining because they make for good games. Both involve team play, in which vast geographic differences can be used if the characters are sufficiently mobile, while powers such as telepathy can make it possible for characters to be apart but interactive. Since dialog is snappy and pithy, and themes fairly tight, the moving spotlight is not much of a problem. Both are action-oriented and romantic. Both are morally fierce. Both exist in a world that resembles Earth, but fantastically transformed. And you never need to justify having a really, really good name.
Any kind of story involving a solo character has to be altered for an RPG. Even if you only have one GM and one player, the narrative process is different in first person than as an author, standing outside the game, and the interactive process means the GM can not simply lead the player through an odyssey. Similarly, stories involving characters separated by time and distance are problematic, since the characters are unable to interact and hence the structure of an RPG works uncomfortably with them. Things improve immensely if players can interact using the game rules in some fashion even when their characters are apart, but it is still a difficult issue to address because of the moving spotlight.
Action-oriented, character-driven, scenic, comedic, horror, and romantic stories work relatively well in RPGs. Erotic stories and moral tales are hard to pull off, because creating those emotions interpersonally is very intense, hence the lack of soft-core porn RPGs, serial killer RPGs, and RPGs centered on identifying and preventing child abuse. Existential stories, surrealism, and the like are hard to pull off because they are often predicated on alienation, whereas RPGs are predicated on identification and immersion. Hence, you would have to engage in pretending to be someone who is disengaged, which is certainly doable but makes the game more work and may make it harder to share the experience. I can read existential terror or a nihilistic crisis right off a movie screen our in a book, but it's hard to peel that off a person in front of you and then know what to DO about it.
GMs and players don't often have months to develop an entire milieu, the way a novelist or playwright might, and there is no backtracking to pull the world together if certain dramatic needs are identified later. Thus, genre-based games, games based on licensed properties like Star Wars, or games that are sequels or new editions are easier to game than truly original work. From a new player standpoint, games that use familiar tropes and a familiar world are more accessible than very strange situations and a strange world. At the same, a game set in something too familiar is boring, because the imaginary reality is not as stimulating to create. Thus, an ideal RPG setting tends to have a modernist theme or a post-modern "playing with text" kind of feel, as opposed to being a fairy tale, a piece of surrealistic fantasy, a docudrama, or a realistic psychological portrait set in the real world. If we want to think about a cop with PTSD, we are often as, if not more, satisfied reading about it than imagining ourselves as that cop. To make it interesting, we have to put the cop back on the streets and into danger, turn him into a vampire, or devise a less likely but still realistical scenario like a moral redemption or emotional decay to explore.
Similarly, characters should be easily grasped, since the players will have less time to acuaint themselves with each other's characters than the fictional characters in a book. A novelist might write that two characters are best friends and put their relationship in display at the beginning of the story, but in an RPG, the players would have to develop the backstory in conjunction with the GM to get a similar result. Thus, stereotypes are the norm in gaming. That should not be read as an endorsement of lazy, offensive, or trite stereotypes, but as an acceptance that recognizable character types are a good starting point. Complex, unusual characters need to have ways of interacting with the world, hooks and styles and habits, that are memorable, so we can become familiar with them over time. RPG characters should have really good names.
The supremacy of fantasy and superhero genres is probably not just an accident of history and geekdom. The genres are self-sustaining because they make for good games. Both involve team play, in which vast geographic differences can be used if the characters are sufficiently mobile, while powers such as telepathy can make it possible for characters to be apart but interactive. Since dialog is snappy and pithy, and themes fairly tight, the moving spotlight is not much of a problem. Both are action-oriented and romantic. Both are morally fierce. Both exist in a world that resembles Earth, but fantastically transformed. And you never need to justify having a really, really good name.
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