Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?

Maxperson said:

None of that is required for the content to be literary. Conversational dialogue(simply being a conversation) is a literary technique. What he does is literary, as is what I do, and what you do, and what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] does, and...



I agree. The scale is from a grocery list to Shakespeare. It's all literary is my point.



LOL No. I'm saying it's all literary. They're saying it's not literary unless it's an attempt to be Shakespeare or similar quality.

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No, I don’t think that’s what’s being said. What’s being said is that the concern over the quality of the narration....the attempt to bring the narration as close to the Shakespeare end of the scale as possible...isn’t as important as creating engaging scenarios for the PCs to interact with.

Would you agree with that? Would you say that presentation is more important than content? Do you want to have an actual discussion or simply keep going on and on with an endlessly broad definition of the word literary that renders the discussion meaningless?

You cut out each question I asked in my last post. I’d genuinely appreciate you addressing the questions. I feel like we could perhaps move forward if you did so.

Imaro said:

Emphasis mine... a few points...

1. You can't state that it's a thing everyone defines for themselves and then turn around and define it. That's one of the issues with this thread everyone has their own definition but then the OP is trying to use that preference to define what is core to roleplaying instead of just stating what we prefer.

2. Situation in turn is just as broad. Does it also encompass relationships? Setting? Environment? Description? Exploration? IMO the definition of "situation", at least how I've seen it used here is just as broad and ill-defined if not more than the definition some are using for literary. I think clarity around both is needed if a real discussion to take place. At least so we are all talking about the same thing.

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1. Yes, I can. You can proceed with the expectation that any such definitions I put forth would be my own. In this case, it also happens to be that of the OP. The question is how important the literary quality is. We can proceed with Max’s definition that seems to encompass the entirety of human communication....that’s fine. With that definition in mind, how important is the quality of the literary elements employed by the GM?

2. I thought situation or content had been used all along, but I’ll provide an example. A player has made a PC. One of his stated goals is to find the man who killed his brother. All he knows is that the man has one eye, and wears an eyepatch.

So, the GM sets a scene and includes a man in an eyepatch. Do you think that the mere presence of a one eyed man would be enough to engage the player? Or do you think that the one eyed man must be described in great detail in order to evoke a response from the player?

Yes, I know these need not be mutually exclusive things, but which do you think is more vital to the shared fiction of the game?

hawkeyefan said:

No, I don’t think that’s what’s being said. What’s being said is that the concern over the quality of the narration....the attempt to bring the narration as close to the Shakespeare end of the scale as possible...isn’t as important as creating engaging scenarios for the PCs to interact with.

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I have yet to meet a DM who wasn't concerned with the quality of the narration. Every last DM I've played with or DMd for has wanted their descriptions to not suck. That's concern for the quality.

Would you say that presentation is more important than content?

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I've already said multiple times that one is not more important than the other. They are interdependent. Good presentation with crappy content isn't generally going to go well, though it can. Good content with crappy presentation isn't generally going to go well, though it can.

You cut out each question I asked in my last post. I’d genuinely appreciate you addressing the questions. I feel like we could perhaps move forward if you did so.

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I cut out one question about scale which was answered in the response to the post.

hawkeyefan said:

With that definition in mind, how important is the quality of the literary elements employed by the GM?

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I depends on the group I suppose.

2. I thought situation or content had been used all along, but I’ll provide an example. A player has made a PC. One of his stated goals is to find the man who killed his brother. All he knows is that the man has one eye, and wears an eyepatch.

So, the GM sets a scene and includes a man in an eyepatch. Do you think that the mere presence of a one eyed man would be enough to engage the player? Or do you think that the one eyed man must be described in great detail in order to evoke a response from the player?

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"There's a man in the room" is enough to evoke a player response. Including the eyepatch as part of the presentation is even better. A more detailed description of the things about him that are immediately obvious would be better still.

Yes, I know these need not be mutually exclusive things, but which do you think is more vital to the shared fiction of the game?

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Presentation and content are roughly equal.

pemerton said:

/snip for brevity

I think it's not mere coincidence that all those reasons go to protagonisim and situation, and none of them speaks to the aesthetic qualities of the conversation as such. There's no suggestion that one reason to play is because your friends will entertain you with the quality of their performances.

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Ok, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], we're back to literary=high art. So, yup, I agree with you.

hawkeyefan said:

/snip

Yes, I know these need not be mutually exclusive things, but which do you think is more vital to the shared fiction of the game?

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I would have thought by now that the answer to that has been made pretty clear.

They are BOTH important. Sometimes one might be more important than the other, but, at the end of the day, one without the other leads to crap games. A DM who only presents in simple sentences, never uses a compound sentence, never uses a simile or metaphor, never uses any literary technique whatsoever in his or her game would be boring as heck. You can't avoid using literary techniques when gaming. It's virtually impossible.

Or, put it another way, there's a reason The Forest Oracle is seen as the worst module ever.
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is attempting this reductionist argument that one thing and one thing only matters to running a good game. I reject such notions. Running a game, just like anything else, is complicated and requires many factors.

It's no different than asking, "What one thing makes a good baseball player". What is the most important thing about being a baseball player?

Hussar said:

I would have thought by now that the answer to that has been made pretty clear.

They are BOTH important. Sometimes one might be more important than the other, but, at the end of the day, one without the other leads to crap games. A DM who only presents in simple sentences, never uses a compound sentence, never uses a simile or metaphor, never uses any literary technique whatsoever in his or her game would be boring as heck. You can't avoid using literary techniques when gaming. It's virtually impossible.

Or, put it another way, there's a reason The Forest Oracle is seen as the worst module ever.

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is attempting this reductionist argument that one thing and one thing only matters to running a good game. I reject such notions. Running a game, just like anything else, is complicated and requires many factors.

It's no different than asking, "What one thing makes a good baseball player". What is the most important thing about being a baseball player?

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Yes exactly. People have asked exactly that and then have had conversations about commitment versus raw talent, or offensive capability versus fielding, and so on. What you don’t tend to see is people getting hung up on what the definition of “important” is, or dodging the question by saying “all factors are important”.

Maxperson said:

I have yet to meet a DM who wasn't concerned with the quality of the narration. Every last DM I've played with or DMd for has wanted their descriptions to not suck. That's concern for the quality.

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I’d like to introduce you to a guy that goes by [MENTION=6831843]Be[/MENTION]drokegames!

More seriously, this is where you are creating the false dichotomy. No one is saying that description and embellishment have no place, just that they find another element of GMing more central to satisfying gaming.

Maxperson said:

I've already said multiple times that one is not more important than the other. They are interdependent. Good presentation with crappy content isn't generally going to go well, though it can. Good content with crappy presentation isn't generally going to go well, though it can.

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Which would you say would be more likely to succeed? If you were a player in a game, and it was going to wind up being lacking in one area or the other, what would you prefer? Evocative presentation of dull material, or dull presentation of interesting material?

Maxperson said:

I cut out one question about scale which was answered in the response to the post.

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So you agree it’s a scale?

Maxperson said:

Insofar as the activity couldn't happen without it, being literary is a very important part of the activity. It doesn't require a conscious attempt on the part of the DM or players for it to be that way.

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I can’t be sure, but you seem to be using being literary to mean something like using language. Even if I accept that usage, however, I still can’t make out how it’s important that the GM and players use language if they aren’t required to make a conscious effort to do so.

hawkeyefan said:

Yes exactly. People have asked exactly that and then have had conversations about commitment versus raw talent, or offensive capability versus fielding, and so on. What you don’t tend to see is people getting hung up on what the definition of “important” is, or dodging the question by saying “all factors are important”.

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Really? So, you think there is a correct answer to what makes a good baseball player? An answer that everyone will agree with? Seriously? You honestly think the answer isn't "all of the above"?

Or, better yet, what makes a good movie? or a good book? Or a good pretty much anything.

Very, very few things can be reduced down to a single element that you should focus on to the exclusion of everything else.

It's a reductionist argument that of course leads absolutely nowhere unless you start from an extreme position. Such as Literary=High Art. Well, I'd say that virtually everyone in this thread agrees that RPGing is not high art and no one really needs to aspire to that to run a game. Fair enough, we're all in the same boat.

Well duh. It's a pretty obvious statement.

What's happened though is that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has repeatedly shifted the goalposts, refused to actually define what is meant by the question and then ducked and dodged any counter points while trying to champion a reductionist vision of gaming that excludes vast swaths - LARPing, more story oriented gaming, etc - of the hobby.

It's no different than the folks that insist that Edition X isn't really a Role Playing Game. It's self serving twaddle and borderline trolling. And, frankly, I'm being to suspect that it was done with a complete disregard to good faith.