Right. So, the mood is something that engages you. So... what tools are used to establish the mood? When you play, does someone *just tell you*? "This scene with the Senechal is jocular, with an undertone of imminent threat, so please play accordingly,"?
IME, sometimes yes.
Not to speak for [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], but one of the points that I raised in this thread has been about how different storytelling mediums have different tools at their disposal. Films can create mood in ways that books can't. Likewise TTRPGs have more tools than any sense of literary wordcraft available to utilize for establishing the mood: music, terrain and minis, pictures, scene/grid layout, countdown timers, rules, DM presence, etc.
Many TTRPGs also draw on the personalized experience and collective memory of their table. You may have a group of characters who have never encountered an aboleth before,
but the players have. And when a DM pulls out an aboleth, it can trigger a sense of collective memory in the players. "Remember that time where we nearly wiped to the aboleth and had to flee?" So often I have seen mood created simply through this manipulation of play experience, memories, and stock monsters.
OTOH, the main sticking point here is because I still have no idea what you or Aldarc mean by these terms you are using.
And I still have no idea why you haven't bothered to read my posts where I explain my position quite explicitly. Maybe you have, but you certainly show little to no actual evidence that you have sincerely engaged my posts, apart from making vacuous claims that I have moved my goal posts.
As far as I can see, literary does not include the following:
Assuming that you are not intentionally trolling, then at this point it is clear that you do need to be drawn a picture and possibly a basic tutorial on Venn diagrams. Otherwise I don't know how to be clear enough about an argument that everyone but you seems to be following. I'm sorry, but my patience for your repeated errors is not infinite.
This is a Venn diagram, which has interconnected circles on it. This one has three interconnected circles on it. Let us imagine that Circle A = Literature; Circle B = Film; and Circle C = Tabletop RPGs. Things that are in A but not in either A-B, A-C, or A-B-C represent features and elements that are entirely unique to A (i.e., literature) as a storytelling medium. In segment A-B-C we may have broader storytelling techniques and features that most stories utilize: e.g., foreshadowing, pacing, characters, mood, language, etc.
If we identify something that exists in quadrant A-B-C, then we can say that it is a feature of A, a feature of B, and a feature of C. But this also means that it is inaccurate to refer to it simply as a feature of A because it is not unique to A but is instead shared by other storytelling modes in media. It is more accurate to call A-B-C a representation of storytelling techniques than literary ones (A) because its inclusion as part of A is not entirely distinct from category B and C. Sure, we can call things located in A-B-C a literary technique when we are talking about features of A, but we are not talking about A; we are talking about C. For example, if we were talking about "foreshadowing" in film, we probably should not call foreshadowing a literary technique. It is a literary technique in literature, but Herr Doktor Kinoprofessor in your Film Studies class would probably get frustrated if you refer to it as such, since they likely want to hear about foreshadowing as a
cinematic technique as expressed in film. Foreshadowing is more broadly a narrative device. It's a narrative device that we can use in TTRPGs. But calling it a literary technique is not entirely accurate outside of that context. (TTRPGs are outside of that context.)
But let us take something perhaps easier for you to understand: animals. Dogs have four legs. Cats have four legs. But if someone pointed to a cat and said it was a dog because it also had four legs like a dog, then we would probably correct them. Both cats and dogs have four legs because they are tetrapod animals, albeit tetrapods who also have a number of other common features due to their overlapping lineages: e.g., synapsids, mammals, carnivores, etc.
If we were talking about literature,* then we would be talking about foreshadowing as a literary technique in literature. If we were talking about film, then we would be talking about foreshadowing as a cinematic technique in film. If we were talking about TTRPGs, then we should be talking about foreshadowing as a roleplaying technique in TTRPGs.
Now some people in this thread think that TTRPGs
are literature and so it is applicable when discussing TTRPGs to refer to these features and techniques in TTRPGs as literary techniques. I don't think that TTRPGs qualify as literature.* They have different forms of associated literature (e.g., rulebooks, character sheets, GM notes, etc.), but I don't think that we can speak of them in any general sense as literature. Cinemas, video games, radio, theater, and television have already recognized that their storytelling is distinct from conventional literature due to the unique pecularirities of their respective media. Video games are younger than TTRPGs but even 12-year-old boys on the internet have likely heard that video games engender unique storytelling experiences distinct from other forms of media. The video game industry (including scholarship and consumers) is having a conversation about its storytelling as medium that TTRPGs should be having.
* Pick whatever definition you want for "literature" here. I don't care. There are three prominent definitions: wordcraft, high art, and anything written. My point would still be applicable to each. Just don't accuse me of shifting the goal posts for engaging other people's definitions that they have provided.
If you want to reference my position or respond to my post in this thread, then I request the basic courtesy of showing evidence that you have bothered to engage it beyond with some depth and fullness.
