Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?

Aldarc said:

It still qualifies unless either Lanefan or you plans on arbitrarily moving the goalposts.

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My goalposts remain firmly planted. Step back from the table and look at the overall process:

Who suggested Fiasco? Who provided the rules? Who schedules and-or hosts the games? Who ends up getting the calls from players who can't make a session?

Almost invariably the answers to at least any three of those questions end up being the same person...and that's the 'one key person' I'm referring to. That in many TTRPGs this person is also the DM/GM is not the point I'm getting at here.

Ovinomancer said:

Confused, if the "GM's role" is shared, then there's no GM -- the game is GM-less. Here'e the reference to the GM that's been proposed for this line of discussion:

"A key person who co-ordinates/organizes/runs things and-or keeps things going"

You're now contending that if the game is co-ordinated, organized, and keeps running but these tasks are not assigned to any person specifically, then there's still a GM's role involved because the tasks still exist but are shared amongst the players? Okay, in that case, every game everywhere, not just RPGs, have a GM, so this isn't a valid unique criteria for RPGs.

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Again, the original question was along the lines of what is required for an RPG, not what is unique to them.

Also, even a completely GM-less game is still going to end up with one person who does the social co-ordination required to get people together on an ongoing basis...which falls exactly under the definition you quoted above: "A key person who co-ordinates/organizes/runs things and-or keeps things going"

Ovinomancer said:

Confused, if the "GM's role" is shared, then there's no GM -- the game is GM-less. Here'e the reference to the GM that's been proposed for this line of discussion:

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The game is not GM-less. It's GM-more. Every player also acts as the GM at appropriate times. 5 players = 5 GMs, which is more than the 1 for a typical game.

"A key person who co-ordinates/organizes/runs things and-or keeps things going"

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All 5 do that in that game.

You're now contending that if the game is co-ordinated, organized, and keeps running but these tasks are not assigned to any person specifically, then there's still a GM's role involved because the tasks still exist but are shared amongst the players? Okay, in that case, every game everywhere, not just RPGs, have a GM, so this isn't a valid unique criteria for RPGs.

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It does not apply to every game. Chess for example does not have such a person. Nor does checkers, and so on. GMing in RPGs involves more than just set up or handing out money and deeds.

Lanefan said:

My goalposts remain firmly planted. Step back from the table and look at the overall process:

Who suggested Fiasco? Who provided the rules? Who schedules and-or hosts the games? Who ends up getting the calls from players who can't make a session?

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I don't view that stuff as GMing. However, in Fiasco, the players take turns setting up scenes(GMing) and the other players then resolve the scene or conflict for the player who set up the scene(GMing).

Lanefan said:

The question is not one of what's unique to RPGs, though; it's one of what elements are required for all of them. That the same thing(s) may also be required for other types of games doesn't matter here.

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But it's kinda meaningless. It's like every boardgame is initiated by someone indicating a desire to play it. In academia, as we often ask, "so what?" I am missing the "so what" of this statement. Sure, RPGs involve one or more people organizing the event, but that is true for nearly every group activity, including ordering a pizza.

Lanefan said:

My goalposts remain firmly planted. Step back from the table and look at the overall process:

Who suggested Fiasco? Who provided the rules? Who schedules and-or hosts the games? Who ends up getting the calls from players who can't make a session?

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Step back from the internet web forum and look at the overall process. Who suggested ordering pizza? Who picked the pizzeria? Who picked the pizza? Who decided when it would be ordered? Who gathers the money for pizza?

Almost invariably the answers to at least any three of those questions end up being the same person...and that's the 'one key person' I'm referring to. That in many TTRPGs this person is also the DM/GM is not the point I'm getting at here.

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Not always the case in my experience.

Bedrockgames said:

I have think having a human referee (or referees in some cases) is the crucial thing that makes RPGs so different from say video games. A human mind can consider any possible course of action the player wants to try.

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Sure, but that is also something that is shared by wargaming and sports.

Maxperson said:

The game is not GM-less. It's GM-more. Every player also acts as the GM at appropriate times. 5 players = 5 GMs, which is more than the 1 for a typical game.

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All 5 do that in that game.

It does not apply to every game. Chess for example does not have such a person. Nor does checkers, and so on. GMing in RPGs involves more than just set up or handing out money and deeds.[/QUOTE]
Again, the criteria is "[a] key person who co-ordinates/organizes/runs things and-or keeps things going...." This is a tasked shared by both players in chess, who both must organize, coordinate, and run things or keep things going for the game to progress. Same with checkers. Monopoly is actually a stronger case for you because someone is assigned the task of Banker, who does a good bit of organizing and keeping things running.

The upshot here is that you're engaged in special pleading after you've smeared the definition of GM into one that perforce must apply to all games that involve people. Heck, Klondike solitaire requires someone to "co-ordinate/organize/runs thing and-or keep things going" and it's a solo game.

Example of playing BLUEBEARD'S BRIDE

hawkeyefan said:

That's a great example, and I can understand why it was so compelling for you.

Would you say that it was the prose itself that made it so deep for you? You say that the content and the mechanics of the game itself were not to your taste, so that's how I read it....but I don't want to assume that I get all the nuance.

Would you say that this was a compelling experience as a game? Or more like experiencing a work of art? Were you invested in the play?



Yeah, I think this has a huge impact on the discussion for sure. [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] mentioned LARP, and that obviously has some significant differences from most other RPGs, despite also having similarities. I've played Microscope on a few occasions, and I've found that to be fun, and I think that the effort the group put forth was interesting and evocative....a literary endeavor....but I didn't really feel like I was playing a game as much as I do with most other RPGs.

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The actual content in terms of the story, theme and experience were to my taste -- I was using content really to mean the raw "this is what you need to do roleplaying" which is my understanding of what the OP's position was in the thread. But definitely the mechanics were not to my taste. Thanks for helping me clarify -- I really like the theme of the game and what it does, so "content" was a poor choice on my part as it confuses.

When reading it, it is more like experiencing a work of art. Like when I read recently LOVE IN THE AGE OF CHOLERA. I thoroughly loved reading it, although the main characters I disliked quite strongly, and the plot is minimal. It was all about the wonderful, wonderful language!

When I played BLUEBEARD'S BRIDE it was as strongly compelling experience. The experience was like cooperating to make art (although that sounds way more fancy than it actually was!) -- no-one was trying to test the mechanics, winning, or improve characters; we were trying to make a compelling story. Your statement on Microscope "I didn't really feel like I was playing a game as much as I do" is very apt. I'm not a fan of classic GNS theory, but I do think that roleplaying is a wide spectrum. I love playing D&D4E and it's game, game, game and more game; it is rare that I feel it's a literary endeavor -- at least in the tactical combat game part! Other RPGs such as BB and Microscope are more narrative and so I think lend themselves to a more literary experience.

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As a final piece of evidence I'm attaching at least an attempted literary exercise in roleplaying. This is a preview I created for my Dracula Dossier players as they headed to a final confrontation with Bathóry -- it details all the major players and gives a sort of cut-scene as to what's going on. I'm not going to claim it's good literature, but to me it feels like this was a literary endeavor.

http://willsfamily.org/files/rpg/dd/DD_glimpses.pdf

Aldarc said:

Sure, but that is also something that is shared by wargaming and sports.

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Sure but the role is different in an RPG from sports and even war games (though it shares many traits with the later for obvious reasons).

Ovinomancer said:

Again, the criteria is "[a] key person who co-ordinates/organizes/runs things and-or keeps things going...." This is a tasked shared by both players in chess, who both must organize, coordinate, and run things or keep things going for the game to progress. Same with checkers. Monopoly is actually a stronger case for you because someone is assigned the task of Banker, who does a good bit of organizing and keeping things running.

The upshot here is that you're engaged in special pleading after you've smeared the definition of GM into one that perforce must apply to all games that involve people. Heck, Klondike solitaire requires someone to "co-ordinate/organize/runs thing and-or keep things going" and it's a solo game.

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You can keep pretending that moving pieces is the same as creating a scene, controlling NPCs and deciding consequences, but it won't ever be true. False Equivalences are false.

Maxperson said:

You can keep pretending that moving pieces is the same as creating a scene, controlling NPCs and deciding consequences, but it won't ever be true. False Equivalences are false.

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The GM can go beyond the game in a way a sports referee or even a referee in a war game can't. Again, obviously it comes from war-games. But it was arrived at by putting players into the heads of individual characters and letting players go beyond the scenario of the war-game. The human mind as game master here is what allows for that opening up of creative possibilities that just are not present in other mediums in the same way.