Bear with me a while, as the following becomes a lesson for writing stories in RPGs. My wife and I have been watching the HBO Game of Thrones series on DVD. We’re now into the fifth season. Not long ago she started to read the Song of Ice and Fire books (I read them long ago, and only remember major events). It’s interesting to hear how the show simplifies things, and sometimes drops characters altogether, as they must to fit into a “mere” 80 hours*.
I’ve noticed that as the show deviates from the plotlines of the book more and more, there’s a lot more coincidence in the plot. Part of life, part of stories, is chance. This is often expressed in stories via coincidence. Two parties happen to be in the same town or city, and happen to visit the same inn or tavern or brothel, at the same time. And at least one of the parties sees the other. Yes, something this unlikely happens occasionally, but when coincidence happens a lot, the author(s) are manipulating the plot, rather than letting the situation and the desires and propensities of the characters cause the story to flow naturally.
To me, using a lot of coincidence is inferior writing. But it isn’t surprising in television writing, because television writing typically emphasizes dramatic incidents to the detriment of sensible plot. The viewers are just as jaded as modern gamers, and (I suppose) don’t have the patience for long, intricate, sensible plots. It happens in movies as well: Star Wars has always had huge plot holes and non-sensical major elements, but also vast numbers of fans (including me until recently). As my wife reads Martin’s novels, we see more and more instances where the show has thrown together characters for a dramatic incident that is not part of Song of Fire and Ice. That’s how TV works.
Those who use coincidence a lot in stories are in good company. Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB), one of the fathers if not THE father of adventure fiction, litters his Barsoom stories with coincidences. Coincidence often drives the plot. But remember that ERB was writing only 65,000 words for serial publication. Coincidence is a way to move the plot forward much faster than by more organic means – just as it is in television and movies.
You can do the same (or not) when you write a story as part of a game. Stories in games are pre-eminently the domain of single-player video games, where the designers can control what the player can do. The games are quite linear. In the same way, the GM of a tabletop RPG (the second most common use of stories in games) can create a linear adventure. The question is, how much of this adventure will derive from the situation and the characters, and how much from coincidence and other results of chance?
I prefer to set up situations in adventures, with an overall arc (such as the war between Good and Evil), and let the players write their own story. Sometimes it won’t be as good as a story I might write, but it will be the PLAYERS’ story; to me, that’s what games are about, the players, not the story.
Your mileage may vary: how you create stories in games is up to you. I try to avoid coincidence, so that when I do resort to it, there’s a big impact.
* Reference: When I make a screencast/video for my Game Design YouTube channel, I talk at about 135 words a minute. (I transcribe the vids, so I can measure this accurately.) 80 hours of me talking constantly would be nearly 650,000 words. A TV show of that length would be far fewer words, but visuals would compensate. I don’t know how long Song of Ice and Fire is, but a typical novel is 90-100,000 words, and massive novels (such as these) can be 300,000. Online estimates put the series well over 1.7M. There are two more books to come, so we’re talking well over two million words for the entire series, over three times what the TV show has available. You can see why even a stupendously long TV program must drop or gloss over a lot of the detail we find in the books. It also becomes clear why a typical movie based on a novel must drop immense amounts of detail and even major plotlines. Book-based movies can at best only be the essence of the book(s).
This article was contributed by Lewis Pulsipher (lewpuls) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
I’ve noticed that as the show deviates from the plotlines of the book more and more, there’s a lot more coincidence in the plot. Part of life, part of stories, is chance. This is often expressed in stories via coincidence. Two parties happen to be in the same town or city, and happen to visit the same inn or tavern or brothel, at the same time. And at least one of the parties sees the other. Yes, something this unlikely happens occasionally, but when coincidence happens a lot, the author(s) are manipulating the plot, rather than letting the situation and the desires and propensities of the characters cause the story to flow naturally.
To me, using a lot of coincidence is inferior writing. But it isn’t surprising in television writing, because television writing typically emphasizes dramatic incidents to the detriment of sensible plot. The viewers are just as jaded as modern gamers, and (I suppose) don’t have the patience for long, intricate, sensible plots. It happens in movies as well: Star Wars has always had huge plot holes and non-sensical major elements, but also vast numbers of fans (including me until recently). As my wife reads Martin’s novels, we see more and more instances where the show has thrown together characters for a dramatic incident that is not part of Song of Fire and Ice. That’s how TV works.
Those who use coincidence a lot in stories are in good company. Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB), one of the fathers if not THE father of adventure fiction, litters his Barsoom stories with coincidences. Coincidence often drives the plot. But remember that ERB was writing only 65,000 words for serial publication. Coincidence is a way to move the plot forward much faster than by more organic means – just as it is in television and movies.
You can do the same (or not) when you write a story as part of a game. Stories in games are pre-eminently the domain of single-player video games, where the designers can control what the player can do. The games are quite linear. In the same way, the GM of a tabletop RPG (the second most common use of stories in games) can create a linear adventure. The question is, how much of this adventure will derive from the situation and the characters, and how much from coincidence and other results of chance?
I prefer to set up situations in adventures, with an overall arc (such as the war between Good and Evil), and let the players write their own story. Sometimes it won’t be as good as a story I might write, but it will be the PLAYERS’ story; to me, that’s what games are about, the players, not the story.
Your mileage may vary: how you create stories in games is up to you. I try to avoid coincidence, so that when I do resort to it, there’s a big impact.
* Reference: When I make a screencast/video for my Game Design YouTube channel, I talk at about 135 words a minute. (I transcribe the vids, so I can measure this accurately.) 80 hours of me talking constantly would be nearly 650,000 words. A TV show of that length would be far fewer words, but visuals would compensate. I don’t know how long Song of Ice and Fire is, but a typical novel is 90-100,000 words, and massive novels (such as these) can be 300,000. Online estimates put the series well over 1.7M. There are two more books to come, so we’re talking well over two million words for the entire series, over three times what the TV show has available. You can see why even a stupendously long TV program must drop or gloss over a lot of the detail we find in the books. It also becomes clear why a typical movie based on a novel must drop immense amounts of detail and even major plotlines. Book-based movies can at best only be the essence of the book(s).
This article was contributed by Lewis Pulsipher (lewpuls) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
