Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?

Lanefan said:

That entirely depends on one's definition of 'literature', doesn't it.

The rulebooks both are literature, in that they have some organized words on paper that are intended to be read by others; and are not literature, in that their quality of prose is for the most part rather mundane.

Again, this varies table by table. After each session, for example, I post a point-form game log online which over time adds up to becoming the record and story of what happens in the game.

Is it high-quality writing? Hells no.

Is it literary content? Absolutely.

But the key point is that the literary part mostly comes after the fact, where you seem to be more talking about whether literary content can or does arise during the actual run of play.

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To be clear, I am not saying literary stuff can't arise. I am saying it doesn't have to, and it doesn't have to be the point of play. But the main thing is people are taking meaning A of literature, in order to build an argument for B being necessary as well

Lanefan said:

The DM can allow for this by also pausing briefly between each paragraph, almost as if seeking clearance to continue.

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But again, it then feels like a narrative the GM had planned. There are just much more natural ways of handling an entrance into a tavern where the players can feel like they are active participants in what is going on. My feeling is heavy narration builds a wall between feeling like an active participant and puts you more in the position of a spectator. You can interrupt. but you have to interrupt the flow. There is a flow.

Lanefan said:

That entirely depends on one's definition of 'literature', doesn't it.

The rulebooks both are literature, in that they have some organized words on paper that are intended to be read by others; and are not literature, in that their quality of prose is for the most part rather mundane.

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It does, and I've said if one means literature to be just words on a page. Sure a rule book is literature. but there is a lot more in this argument. People are trying to establish rulebooks and narration in gaming are literary because 'words on page'. But then they shift to the second part of the definition making an argument that the literary quality matters. This is the problem. The 'all things are literature' part of the debate is just so literary can be established as the measure of good gaming.

Bedrockgames said:

First, yes this meaning certainly exists. It is only the most important part of the definition itself: "written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit". That is what especially means.

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You're seriously denying that it's a subset of literature?

But okay, let's say your right. If that is the case then you have no argument for all your other points. If RPGs are literature because they involve words on a page, that says nothing about whether descriptions ought to be or are of literary quality, or that the literary quality of any of it matters.

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As I said in a prior post, many treat movies, T.V. and plays as literary, because they portray written words. So does roleplaying. The PCs are written words. Their backgrounds(if any) are written words. The rules governing actions are written words.

It is the most important meaning of the word.

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There is by definition, only one meaning of the word. The "especially" part only denotes a subset of literature that is prized. Nothing more.

Literature in the very general sense of words on a page, is very broad. It has its uses. But we are clearly not just talking about words on a page here.

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Right. We're also discussing subsets of literature, such as "those considered superior or lasting artistic merit."

This isn't just sophistry. It is bad sophistry.

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It's not sophistry at all.

Again, you are using an edge case to build a general rule when I've established I don't care about the other six areas of pacing. You are insisting that pacing matters to me because on the rare occasion that the game grinds to a halt, I may nudge the players.

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Then you introduce absurdly inactive players as the norm in gaming to assert this would be a constant problem if the GM wasn't on top of pacing or didn't have extremely proactive players. I run multiple campaigns at a time. One of my groups has two very non-proactive players. Yet I don't have to worry about pacing because, like most other players I've met, if you give them the freedom, they do stuff with it.

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You have just made two opposing claims. Claim one, you have two very non-proactive payers. Claim two, if you give those non-proactive players freedom, they do stuff with it. Doing stuff with freedom is being proactive. If they are doing stuff when you give them freedom to choose, they are not "very non-proactive." You have a full group of proactive players it seems, so pacing doesn't fall on you very often, which is why you are allowed to think you don't care about it. Even if they were truly reactive, instead of proactive, they would still be carried along by your other proactive players, so the pacing would still not fall on you.

I literally only have to worry about pacing maybe once every several months. That is hardly a priority or even a real concern.

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Same here. It's a blessing to have proactive players to move things along so that we don't have to.

And I can assure you, not being very concerned about pacing, is a way.

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Sure, but it's only made possible by proactive players. If you had a reactive group, you'd have to be concerned with it.

Lanefan said:

That entirely depends on one's definition of 'literature', doesn't it.

The rulebooks both are literature, in that they have some organized words on paper that are intended to be read by others; and are not literature, in that their quality of prose is for the most part rather mundane.

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But hopefully we can recognize that RPGs exist as far more than their rulebooks, much as cooking is more than the recipes and sports are more than their rulebooks.

Lanefan said:

It adds interest to an interesting situation; and (most important) can make what might otherwise be a boring situation be or become interesting.

Simple as that.

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I don’t know about that last bit. In actual literature, I’d say yes, the quality of prose can make what would otherwise be a bland situation to actually be compelling. When it comes to RPGs though....I don’t think the same is true. A boring encounter is gonna be boring no matter how the GM may try and spruce it up with narration.

Lanefan said:

The first description is wonderfully evocative and engaging except that it's missing one very obvious element: if the PCs can see that his gaze is sweeping the room they should also be able to see that said gaze is being done with just one eye; thus that little detail should be included in the narration, hm?

And if the eyepatch was intentionally left out of the first description as a trap then I call shenanigans.

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The eyepatch was indeed left out. I provided one example where the GM was relying on evocative narration and one where he provided content relevant to the player. Which touches upon the OP.

hawkeyefan said:

I don’t know about that last bit. In actual literature, I’d say yes, the quality of prose can make what would otherwise be a bland situation to actually be compelling. When it comes to RPGs though....I don’t think the same is true. A boring encounter is gonna be boring no matter how the GM may try and spruce it up with narration.
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This is my experience.

Maxperson said:

You're seriously denying that it's a subset of literature?

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What I am saying is literature has many meanings as a word. One use of the word is broadly 'all written works'. But that especially part of the definition is important. It isn't just a mere subset, it is one of the most prevalent uses of the word literature. That is what especially means. And your argument relies on us accepting lit as 'words on a page' only to make further arguments that require lit to be aspiring to a higher quality. Whether or not lit is a subset or the most frequent meaning of the word: the important thing is, in either case you are equivocating on that distinction between the more general term and the more specific.

As I said in a prior post, many treat movies, T.V. and plays as literary, because they portray written words. So does roleplaying. The PCs are written words. Their backgrounds(if any) are written words. The rules governing actions are written words.

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First off, shows are scripted, RPGs are not. Shows rely much more heavily on the actual written words than RPGs in that respect. If you scripted all your games, by all means, make an argument for it being literature. But more importantly, when people talk about shows, movies, etc being literary it is usually because they are aspiring to part B of the definition (great works) rather than mere 'words on a page'.

There is by definition, only one meaning of the word. The "especially" part only denotes a subset of literature that is prized. Nothing more.

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That isn't how words work Max. Words do have multiple meanings. That first definition identifies two. Yes you can form a venn diagram with them, but they are still different meanings and uses of the word. Further that is just the first definition. Most definitions of literature offer up about 3-4 meanings. You are definitely equivocating on two very different meanings of the word.

Right. We're also discussing subsets of literature, such as "those considered superior or lasting artistic merit."

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But you need to demonstrate that is what RPGs are in order to do that (and not get it in the door by arguing they are literature because they use words. This is where you use equivocation in your argument.

It's not sophistry at all.

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Yes it is. I just explained why.

Maxperson said:

You have just made two opposing claims. Claim one, you have two very non-proactive payers. Claim two, if you give those non-proactive players freedom, they do stuff with it. Doing stuff with freedom is being proactive. If they are doing stuff when you give them freedom to choose, they are not "very non-proactive." You have a full group of proactive players it seems, so pacing doesn't fall on you very often, which is why you are allowed to think you don't care about it. Even if they were truly reactive, instead of proactive, they would still be carried along by your other proactive players, so the pacing would still not fall on you.
cerned with it.

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You are once again playing word games and ignoring what I am actually saying (and you are insisting I am doing things, I am point blank telling you I am not doing). There is an enormous spectrum of behavior within pro-active and non-proactive. You offered up an extreme case so bad, I haven't actually seen it in play. But I do have two players I would describe as particularly not pro-active. They still do things. They just don't in relation to most other players I've met, and they take their time. But eventually they start to explore if you give them that freedom. I am saying you can take someone who does nothing in a more railroaded adventure and they will do more if they know they have the freedom to do so.

Either way, my point was I have literally never encountered the issue you said was an ever-present threat and required considering pacing. Further, this was just a side trek because I identified something like 4-6 pacing considerations I don't worry about at all. Again. Word games. If there are 7 pacing concerns, and only 1 of them ever matters to me (and it matters so infrequently that I barely ever think of it). I don't think it is reasonable to assert I am a GM concerned with pacing. Particularly when we know there are GMs who are concerned with all 7 areas of pacing. Again, you are just using sophistry to say something is always the case and therefore all GMs actually do the things you care about in play. It is a terrible, terrible argument.

Maxperson said:

As I said in a prior post, many treat movies, T.V. and plays as literary, because they portray written words. So does roleplaying. The PCs are written words. Their backgrounds(if any) are written words. The rules governing actions are written words.

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Not quite. "Many treat movies, T.V. and plays" not so much as "literary," but, rather, as 'text,' which is a distinction that actual literary theorists do care about. And understanding these media as texts is more of a metaphorical/analogical understanding than a literal one. We should not confuse/equivocate the metaphorical sense for the literal here. We speak metaphorically, for example, of film literacy. No one believes that film literacy represents any person's actual reading literacy of films, but, instead, it represents a person's ability to know, understand, and interpret the intricacies of films and their craft.

The main reason why these media are discussed as "text" is because literary criticism is far more advanced chronologically than other burgeoning forms. Literary criticism dictated the terms of conversation, and many of the earliest film studies academics came out literary studies or imported their terms from literary studies. Film studies was largely discussed through literary criticism until the discipline began establishing for itself its own identity, idioms, and issues as a field. We probably should not claim that films are literature simply as a result of this historical accident.

So if you think that "many treat movies...as literary" it helps to appropriately understand how and why that is the case. Furthermore, treating something as literary does not necessarily mean that they are regarded as literary.

In TTRPGs, characters are far more than their representation on a character sheet. (Some players might even be offended by such an insinuation of their characters, since their characters are also their histories, actions, and words that may never one be committed to the written page.) Whatever rules may govern their actions are trumped by "rulings and not rules" (per 5e) where the DM frequently acts as a metatextual authority that exists above and beyond any notions of a governing text which implies that RPGs relegate the literature to a marginalized or less privileged role in the RPG process. (Here I would again note the parallel between cooking recipes and RPG rules.)

Max, one of the problems with your argument is that while you are doing a wonderful job arguing that texts exist as part of RPGs, which has never been in doubt, you are not doing a good job arguing that because RPGs utilize literature and text that RPGs are therefore literature.