Is RPGing a literary endeavour?

Sadras · May 27, 2019

hawkeyefan said:
I would say that as an attempt to craft a story....or at least to craft the beginning of a story that the players will pick up and run with...this would be a literary endeavor.

Now, having crafted that story from all those threads, what would you say would most engage your players? The literary merit of your efforts? Or the content of the fiction?

I think that this is part of the issue with this discussion. Some folks are simply trying to answer the question posed in the thread title (I was guilty of this with my first post, too) instead of reading the OP and additional posts that explained what the actual point was. For the most part, that element of the discussion’s become mired in arguments over definition.

But the actual point raised in the OP asks if literary quality is more important than content as it relates to player engagement.

So I would agree with you that your effort (and by extension any such story crafting effort by a GM and players) does constitute a literary endeavor.

But for the second part of the discussion, without knowing all the details, it’s hard to say. What do you think? Are your players going to be more excited about what you’ve set up, or how you’ve set it up?

Bold emphasis mine.
I agree with your assessment in that the content is more important than the execution, that is not to say that the execution does not have its value - it just does not need to be The Brothers Karamazov. I think we are in agreement.

Maxperson · May 27, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
Again Max this isn't how words work. This isn't the end of the definition. There literally isn't a period, but a big qualification.

It's not a qualification, which is what you don't seem to get. This would be a qualification, "Written works considered to be of superior or lasting artistic merit." That qualifies the written works as having to be of superior or lasting merit. This, "Written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit." does not qualify them like that. It only specifies that a subset is more valued, not that all things written are not literature. The "especially" portion does not disqualify my grocery list from being literature.

Literature as a word is pretty nuanced, and can carry this broad meaning, but generally doesn't.

This is wrong. It always carries the broad meaning, as the definition is broad. It's just often used more narrowly by someone who wishes to use the subset of "superior or lasting artistic merit."

You can advocate for the broad meaning. But in a thread that began with meaning B, it is strange to do so. Especially when you seem to be making the case for using literary techniques associated with meaning B (or at least arguing that RPGs ought to meet some literary level of quality in their delivery). Either way, you are still not grasping the importance of what Aldarc is saying. Again, if you don't accept that cooking or sports are literature, then you also can't assert that RPGs are literature just because some aspect of them involves text.

Cookbooks are literature. Sports rules are literature. RPGs books are literature. Character sheets are literature. Player notes are literature. DM notes are literature. Modules are literature. DM adventures are literature. There's a lot more writing going on in RPGs, even to the point of typically happening by every player and the DM every session(updates to the character sheet, notes, etc.) than in sports or cooking.

Bedrockgames · May 27, 2019

Maxperson said:
It's not a qualification, which is what you don't seem to get. This would be a qualification, "Written works considered of superior or lasting artistic merit." That qualifies the written works as having to be of superior or lasting merit. This, "Written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit." does not qualify them like that. It only specifies that a subset is more valued, not that all things written are not literature. The "especially" portion does not disqualify my grocery list from being literature.

I am open to correction here if I am wrong that this is a qualifier. But it seems to meet all the requirements of being a qualifier to me. And your response is essentially just 'it isn't a qualifier'. It isn't specifying that a subset is more valued. It is clearly stating that this secondary meaning (meaning B) is what the word usually means. It is setting it apart as the most significant use of the word.

hawkeyefan · May 27, 2019

Sadras said:
Bold emphasis mine.
I agree with your assessment in that the content is more important than the execution, that is not to say that the execution does not have its value - it just does not need to be The Brothers Karamazov. I think we are in agreement.

We are!

I think that’s the crux of the initial discussion. To put it slightly differently, because it’s a different type of media, is it more important that RPGing aspire to literary quality of the kind we typically attribute to novels or plays, or that it function as a game in which players interact with the fiction?

Maxperson · May 27, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
I am open to correction here if I am wrong that this is a qualifier. But it seems to meet all the requirements of being a qualifier to me. And your response is essentially just 'it isn't a qualifier'. It isn't specifying that a subset is more valued. It is clearly stating that this secondary meaning (meaning B) is what the word usually means. It is setting it apart as the most significant use of the word.

It's NOT a second meaning. If it was, it would be part of a different definition with a different number. It's clearly a subset of literature. One that is often more highly valued.

Maxperson · May 27, 2019

Sadras said:
Bold emphasis mine.
I agree with your assessment in that the content is more important than the execution, that is not to say that the execution does not have its value - it just does not need to be The Brothers Karamazov. I think we are in agreement.

I think they are equal in value. Writing like The Brothers Karamazov would be if you valued execution more highly than content.

Bedrockgames · May 27, 2019

Maxperson said:
It's NOT a second meaning. If it was, it would be part of a different definition with a different number. It's clearly a subset of literature. One that is often more highly valued.

But that establishes two potential meanings: 1) written works and 2) written works of superior or artistic merit. And in this conversation we see people equivocating between those two different meanings. I think at this point, we just have to leave this be. There isn't any further convincing of you I am sure. But this is definitely a second meaning imbedded in the definition. There is just no way around that.

Manbearcat · May 27, 2019

Quote Originally Posted by Manbearcat

For instance, a few things come to mind.

<snip 1 and 2>

3) I think understanding how pacing and a dramatic arc compels emotion and investment in content (even if you aren't scripting them to railroad a set of players through) are extremely important aspects of both GMing and writing a game (particularly a game like My Life With Master where you're running through a pre-conceived, but not pre-rendered, thematic arc with a diversity of ultimate outcomes).

pemerton said:
I think your (3) puts more pressure on my contention - I would describe the source of this being that it puts pressure on the contrast between form and content - this is the contrast that [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] has helpfully articulated upthread, and that I also tried to capture (via some examples, and comments around them) in my post not too far upthread from yours.

This is because dramatic pacing (probably) can't be completely divorced from the words - the form - whereby the content is conveyed.

In the context of a RPG, though, where the pacing concerns - at least the sort that you refer to - are more at the "scene" level than the line-by-line level, I think the dependence of pacing on words becomes pretty lose. A GM who can't control his/her words at all is going to have troube wrapping up a scene, or cutting to the next situation, in a smooth way; but I think the threshold of skill to be able to do this falls well short of being able to write an evocative opening or closing line.

I'll finish this post by saying that, in denying that RPGing is a *literary* endeavour I'm not denying that it has an important aesthetic component. But I think that the aesthetic component is much more connected to a sense of motion and drama in human affairs, than to a sense of beauty in composition or performance.

Alright, so about 5 weeks late to the party with this response, but that is the kind of ENWorld timescale I work off of these days!

When reading this my brain goes to the following question:

In scene resolution mechanics (say, 4e Skill Challenges), or in conflict resolution mechanics within a scene (say, Clocks in Apocalypse World or Blades in the Dark), how does the GM's management of the necessary dramatic arc inherent to the fiction <> mechanics < > fiction < > mechanics <rince/repeat> win/loss condition paradigm interact with your premise?

For reference, when I write management above, I mean:

1) Managing the evolving fictional framing of the arc as the mechanics dictate the arc moves through its phases toward macro resolution. This includes the situation changing dynamically in accordance with what the arc necessitates and...

2) The nature of language used to transliterate the evolved fiction from its related gamestate. For instance, I think most people can agree that economy of language is a large component of pacing. If a scene is in the midst of the precipice of its Rising Action to where its transitioning to Climax (because the mechanical state of affairs says it should be there), I think we can agree that its poor GMing for a GM deploying 100 words where 10 will more impactfully convey the information. Quantity, economy of language, matters.

So after quantity, we have type/kind. When you're evolving a scene from one (lets call it) "arc-state" to the next, can one descriptor (of the same quantity) more aptly convey the urgency, gravity, or tempo of a situation vs another?

Manbearcat · May 27, 2019

I want to do a quick example of the above:

You're in a Level +3 Complexity 3 Skill Challenge at mid Paragon Tier.

Let us say the following is true about the gamestate:

1) Both Advantages and all 3 Secondary Skills have been used (to buff actions/wipe out failures etc).

2) We're at 7 Successes and 2 Failures.

3) Only 1 Hard DC has been deployed by the GM thus far. As such, this final obstacle will be at the Hard DC. Given that it is Level +3, that means that the Hard DC here will be 2 beyond the of-level Hard DC.

In terms of the fiction, let us say that its an exorcism in the throne room to determine whether the powerful demon possessing the princess (who is the sole heir...the king was cursed with infertility after her birth) claims her body forever (thus cueing a significantly up-leveled battle where not only must she/it be defeated, but the King and Queen, Minions, must be protected) or the demon is cast out, back to the Abyss.

So the situation is dire (both mechanically and fiction-wise), on the precipice of disaster or fortune (on the roller coaster plunge of the Falling Action).

Is there a collection of, say, 15 words that can impel the gravity (say, better depict the steep angle of descent down the Falling Action roller coaster) better than any other collection of 15 words, where both collections of words conveys the situation appropriately (appropriately here meaning, inform players sufficiently that they can make intuitive action declarations for their PCs).

Aldarc · May 27, 2019

Maxperson said:
Cookbooks are literature. Sports rules are literature. RPGs books are literature. Character sheets are literature. Player notes are literature. DM notes are literature. Modules are literature. DM adventures are literature. There's a lot more writing going on in RPGs, even to the point of typically happening by every player and the DM every session(updates to the character sheet, notes, etc.) than in sports or cooking.

Sure, but you are not demonstrating that TTRPGs are literature, only that its associated literature is literature, which I don't think has been in doubt.

Maxperson said:
ROFL Since we are not attributing that as an argument to other people, it cannot be a Strawman. Responses that you disagree with don't automatically become Strawman dude. What is rude, though, are false accusations like that.

Nice gaslighting you're doing there, Max. But I'll call your bluff:

Maxperson said:
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).

It turns out that you did present this strawman argument in a response to my post before and so it seems that you are full of crap, Max. So I would say that my accusation was verified by the literature you provided in this thread.