Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?

[Maxperson]

I think my approach to a campaign is a bit different here. There isn't the sense in my campaigns that the players have to get to the end of an adventure. They can lose an adventure by not making progress. Things still happen of course. And many of those things are interesting and even dramatic. But I don't think it makes them literary if you are just trying to solve the problem of the game grinding to a halt. I mean, that is a problem that can arise in the medium of roleplaying games. You can use literary techniques to get around it, but you can also use techniques designed for the medium itself (like wandering monsters). You use these yourself as an example. I don't see wandering monster tables as a literary technique. I certainly wouldn't want books written using encounter tables.

Whether or not you are specifically thinking in literary terms, you are in fact employing the literary technique of pacing when you do that. Wandering monsters by the way, are an example of the literary technique of pacing at work. In books, the protagonists often come across a wandering monster as an encounter. That the wandering monster was written in, instead of rolled randomly does not change the fact that both the story and the RPG are using the literary technique of pacing. Both the author and the DM decided that something exciting needed to happen at that spot and engaged the technique to move the pace along.

Like another poster pointed out, this is not unique to literature and it isn't something I actively worry about controlling.

That was a deflection(not saying it was an intentional deflection), though. It's irrelevant whether it's unique to literature. All the matters is that it is a literary technique. To give an analogy, while breathing isn't unique to humans, it is still a human activity. It doesn't stop being a human activity just because millions of other species also breathe.

When people talk about pacing, they don't just mean "keep the game from grinding to a halt". That is an extreme situation. They also mean controlling the flow of encounters, controlling the rate at which the players make it through the adventure, providing a steady course of entertainment in the right proportions over the evening.

Not quite. It doesn't ALSO mean controlling the flow of encounters and the rate that players make it through the adventure. It CAN mean those things. Keeping the game from grinding to a halt is pacing, but the DM is not required to also control the flow of all of his encounters and the rate of the adventure in order to engage in pacing. Like many things, there are varying degrees of pacing.

 

[Maxperson]

We also think about pacing when cooking, but I would not call TTRPGS cooking either.

I guess it was a deliberate Red Herring after all, as well as a False Equivalence. Cooking, even though it has pacing, is entirely irrelevant here and is a deflection. RPGs are not cooking, so they are not comparable.

RPGs ARE literary, though. The rule books are literature. The techniques the rules suggest to DMs are literary techniques. DMs engage in these literary techniques, even when they are unaware that they are doing so(see pacing and descriptions). And so on.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't accept this "downside" argument as a reason not to do or like something. I mean, cheating is a downside of playing a game. Just because there are some DMs out there who will write excessive descriptions does not make literary descriptions bad, just like there being some players out there who cheat does not make playing games bad. These are examples of bad DMs and bad players, not bad writing styles or bad games.
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I agree that isn't a good reason not to do it. I never said people shouldn't do it. I prefer not to myself, but I've never taken issue with you doing so. However, would you agree it is a potential pitfall? I think it is something one should consider if it is an approach they are weighing. My approach certainly has its pitfalls and being aware of them is useful for knowing whether it is a style that fits you and for engaging the style in a way that doesn't succumb easily to its pitfalls.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I guess it was a deliberate Red Herring after all, as well as a False Equivalence. Cooking, even though it has pacing, is entirely irrelevant here and is a deflection. RPGs are not cooking, so they are not comparable.

It isn't a red herring at all. It is a very valid point. He is saying many different activities include pacing. Just because activities share pacing with literature, that doesn't mean their use of pacing makes them literary. Yes RPGs are not cooking. They also are not literature, they are not movies, they are not sporting events and they are not game shows. All those things do have pacing though.

 

[Bedrockgames]

RPGs ARE literary, though. The rule books are literature. The techniques the rules suggest to DMs are literary techniques. DMs engage in these literary techniques, even when they are unaware that they are doing so(see pacing and descriptions). And so on.

But you haven't established this and it has been the main point of contention over the thread. I don't think most of the people here agree that rulebooks are literature. But even if they did, fewer would agree that the games once played are literary. Even if you are trying to bring in techniques from movies, books, etc (and we clearly disagree on whether you are or not), that doesn't make a game a literary endeavor. At the end of the day, the purpose of a game isn't to produce literary content. And as a medium it has many things pulling away from producing good literary content. For example, the participants and the audience are the same. Unless you are talking about an RPG podcast or show, there are not people watching the story of the game unfold. In that respect it is more like being involved in a pick up game of flag football with no spectators.

And I think sports are another great analogy here. RPGs involve teamwork, they involve procedures, they have an element of competition to them at times (at least in terms of players competing against bad guys and competing against the adventure itself), they produce thrills in much the same way (you don't know if your PC is going to land his attack just like you don't know if someone is going to land a goal in a sporting event, and that sense the it could go either way produces a lot of excitement). There are many techniques, tools and features of RPGs that come from sports are a part of sports. Would you argue that RPGs are a sporting activity? I wouldn't.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That was a deflection(not saying it was an intentional deflection), though. It's irrelevant whether it's unique to literature. All the matters is that it is a literary technique. To give an analogy, while breathing isn't unique to humans, it is still a human activity. It doesn't stop being a human activity just because millions of other species also breathe.

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That is a very strange argument. Again we are back into your "all conversations in the real world are literary because books have dialogue" argument. This makes very little sense. This isn't a deflection at all, it is one of the most substantive points made on the thread. You can take the argument you are making and use it to argue that RPGs are literally anything. I could make an argument that because they feature systems, and computers feature systems, RPGs are really computer programs. I could argue that you use sales techniques to get players to buy into hooks, therefore GMs need to know how to make sales pitches to their players and RPGs are really sales. I am sure there are better examples, but it is pretty clear to me where this kind of argumentation leads.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Not quite. It doesn't ALSO mean controlling the flow of encounters and the rate that players make it through the adventure. It CAN mean those things. Keeping the game from grinding to a halt is pacing, but the DM is not required to also control the flow of all of his encounters and the rate of the adventure in order to engage in pacing. Like many things, there are varying degrees of pacing.

So the only pacing that is required in play is keeping the game from grinding to a halt? Doesn't sound like pacing is all that important.

This also seems like a weird point. Either something is an element of pacing or it isn't. The things I listed are all clearly pacing concerns that can come up in a game. I've explained that I am only interested in 1 of them. And so your response, rather than just admit I don't seem that interested in pacing, is that those other things are not necessary requirements of pacing (even though they are pacing considerations), so I am still interested in pacing as a GM.

Let me ask you this, if a GM showed zero concern for pacing during a campaign, except when the game ground to a halt. The only time this GM literally engages anything to do with pacing is when everything just stops because the players are stumped, would you say this GM cares about pacing very much? The GM is fine with the session ending five minutes into the game. The GM is fine with there being no climactic battle or encounters just happening however. The GM is fine with there being no sense of rising action or tension. The GM is not trying to emulate any of the pacing flow of a story. But if the game grinds to a halt because the players can't put together some clues and they can't think of anything else to do, he nudges them so they are not just trifling their thumbs. Would you say this GM is concerned with pacing?

 

[Aldarc]

But they ARE literary notions, because they exist in written works. Just because they do not exist ONLY in written works does mean that they are not literary techniques. Also, many do consider film to be literary since film is a representation of written media(the script).

We are not debating whether or not these are notions found in literature, Max. The issue is when people argue that the presence of these elements identify a thing as being "literary." Yes, they ARE literary notions, but they are notions also found in other media and not exclusive to literature. We cannot categorically assert that because RPGs can share these overlapping notions that RPGs are therefore literature, i.e., categorical errors.

Would help if we explained this to you by drawing you a picture? Maybe a venn diagram with overlapping concentric circles? I'm not entirely sure how this is controversial.

Let's spot the logical fallacy:
X is a technique that can be found in literature.
Film also contain X technique.
Therefore films are literature.

Dogs have four legs.
Cats also have four legs.
Therefore cats are dogs.

Cakes contain eggs and flour.
Pasta also contain eggs and flour.
Therefore pasta is a type of cake.

I guess it was a deliberate Red Herring after all, as well as a False Equivalence.

Or none of the above because you are misusing informal fallacies as the basis of your argument. Thankfully, [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] has the right of my post.

 

[Maxperson]

But you haven't established this and it has been the main point of contention over the thread. I don't think most of the people here agree that rulebooks are literature.

To be blunt, it doesn't matter what they agree with. The definition of literature is anything written. Period. That makes RPGs objectively literary as they are literature. Those who object to calling RPGs literature can also object to calling Earth a planet, the sun a star or that diamonds are hard. Those objections are irrelevant to the facts and reality.

But even if they did, fewer would agree that the games once played are literary. Even if you are trying to bring in techniques from movies, books, etc (and we clearly disagree on whether you are or not), that doesn't make a game a literary endeavor.

At the end of the day, the purpose of a game isn't to produce literary content. And as a medium it has many things pulling away from producing good literary content. For example, the participants and the audience are the same. Unless you are talking about an RPG podcast or show, there are not people watching the story of the game unfold. In that respect it is more like being involved in a pick up game of flag football with no spectators.

And I think sports are another great analogy here. RPGs involve teamwork, they involve procedures, they have an element of competition to them at times (at least in terms of players competing against bad guys and competing against the adventure itself), they produce thrills in much the same way (you don't know if your PC is going to land his attack just like you don't know if someone is going to land a goal in a sporting event, and that sense the it could go either way produces a lot of excitement). There are many techniques, tools and features of RPGs that come from sports are a part of sports. Would you argue that RPGs are a sporting activity? I wouldn't.

If you stretch the term of sports they way the Olympic committee has for some of its "sports," then sure.

Oxford Dictionary defines sport as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or a team competes against another or others for entertainment". Rolling dice takes physical exertion, and larping even more than that. You write things down on paper, which is physical exertion, and there is definitely skill involved in the game. The DM and players are on different teams and it's for entertainment. So why, not. D&D is a sport.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think your quote formatting may be a bit off max person