Is RPGing a literary endeavour?

Aldarc · Jun 9, 2019

Maxperson said:
In the context that you used it, it does. "They are speaking conversational English, but they aren't" is what it amounted to.

Except that isn't what it amounted to at all, Max. The point is that the discourse of conversations are contextualized based upon the interlocutors. So I would suggest that you learn to read and accept the fact that you goofed.

hawkeyefan · Jun 9, 2019

Maxperson said:
Why does it have to be one or the other?

It doesn’t have to be. But of course there could be times when one is sacrificed for the other.

Maxperson said:
With highly limited prep time I work on a few general ideas to present, so content. I can improv the descriptions and encounter details as I go. If I couldn't improv as well as I do, I'd call off the game for that week so I could prep both and we'd play board games. Terraforming Mars, Scythe, Clank and Tyrants of the Underdark are our current favorites.

Sounds about right.

Maxperson · Jun 9, 2019

Aldarc said:
Except that isn't what it amounted to at all, Max. The point is that the discourse of conversations are contextualized based upon the interlocutors. So I would suggest that you learn to read and accept the fact that you goofed.

So now we're back to everything, including high quality literary language, being conversational English. Most of us gamers know and understand high quality literary language, so it would be conversational to us.

Aldarc · Jun 9, 2019

Maxperson said:
So now we're back to everything, including high quality literary language, being conversational English.

Nope.

Riley37 · Jun 9, 2019

pemerton said:
I am saying that entertainment in virtue of quality narration and performance is not what makes RPGing a distinctive and worthwhile creative endeavour. Rather, it's situation and resulting inhabitation and protagonism.

Yes. There are many human activities which seek quality narration and/or performance. TRPG is unusual, maybe even unique, in its use of situation and resulting inhabitation and protagonism.

Hussar, you agree with that, right? If you've said so before, would you like to re-affirm your agreement?

pemerton said:
because quality narration and performance are the weakest elements of the typical RPG experience

Apparently your typical RPG experience differs from mine. I've more often seen pacing and focus as the weak links. "Two hours of fun, packed into a four-hour session" is all too often the weak link, whether that's due to the GM performing poorly, players performing poorly (such as not giving the game their primary attention), or a combination of GM failure and player failure.

pemerton said:
When [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] say that they would quit games with ordinary-language descriptions because they'd find them too boring, my thought in response is that those games must have weak situations, or GMs who don't facilitiate protagonism.

I take Hussar and Imaro at their word. I find it plausible that they've played in games in which the situation was adequate, the facilitation was adequate, and the narration was lackluster; and since they've played in games with strong situation, strong facilitation AND strong narration, they're disinclined to settle for a game which underperforms on any one of those three factors.

pemerton said:
As far as I can tell those sorts of notions play little or no role in Hussar's conception of RPGing - if they do, he hasn't said anything about them in this thread as best I can recall.

Maybe if you'd given the thread a title which emphasized the importance of situation and facilitation, you would harvest more discussion of those factors.

pemerton said:
[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], too, has quite recently posted that a GM should use language to make situation "more interesting", and has said that "situation is always going to be there no matter what". But this second claim isn't true if by situation one means what I've been talking about since the OP. I've played in, and witnessed, and read reports of episodes of RPGing in which there is no call to action, no meaningful framing, no genuine action and consequence. My contention that that is a failure of RPGing regardless of the literary quality of the narration and the evocative nature of the performances.

I for one agree with you here. Perhaps Lanefan was assuming *competent* DMing? If so, that was unwise, since there is (alas) such a thing as TRPG in which the GM fails to establish call to action, and/or fails to establish genuine consequence.

Bedrockgames · Jun 9, 2019

Maxperson said:
Literary only doesn't apply if you incorrectly believe that only high quality literary works are literary. If you believe that all things written are literary(the definition), then any time you are choosing these more evocative words to use over those words, you are moving up the literary scale. Using the named wood and describing briefly the carving, was more evocative than #1.

Even though both of my examples fell into the conversational category, #2 chose words that were more evocative than #1, which made it fall farther up the literary scale than #1.

We've had this discussion already Max and I don't think you made the case at all. Further, I think any discussion like this where 'literary' means anything written, is kind of pointless because if that is the case, well it doesn't really matter does it? Because no matter what you do, it will be literary. However, the truly important thing here is we are not talking about written information. We are talking about what you say at the table. Unless the GM is always and only reading from a page, rather than putting words together themselves to describe something. Talking isn't literature, even by your very very expansive definition.

Maxperson · Jun 9, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
We've had this discussion already Max and I don't think you made the case at all.

I don't have to. It's literally THE definition. If you have an issue with it, argue the case with those who defined it.

Further, I think any discussion like this where 'literary' means anything written, is kind of pointless because if that is the case, well it doesn't really matter does it?

It absolutely does have a point. Once people can accept the facts and understand that anything written is literary, the question stops being, "Is this literary" and becomes, "What level of literary is preferred?" or perhaps, "What is the average level of literary language in RPGs?" It helps clarify things and direct the conversation to the point where it can progress. The OP asks the wrong question.

Talking isn't literature, even by your very very expansive definition.

Oral literature is a thing, which means that oral literary techniques are a thing.

Imaro · Jun 9, 2019

hawkeyefan said:
That’s fine. I’d even agree in some instances.

But what do you focus on with your game prep? Do you focus on creating situations or scenarios with which to engage your players? Or do you focus on how the scenarios are presented?

Let’s say you have minimal prep time for a session....you can only get so much done. What kind of prep would you typically do?

We are telling you we focus on both... without situation or scenario what am I using evocative language for? Without evocative language my players wont be engaged with the situation or scenario.

If pressed I jot down situation or scenario notes with what I call keywords and improvise description with said keywords.

Bedrockgames · Jun 9, 2019

Maxperson said:
I don't have to. It's literally THE definition. If you have an issue with it, argue the case with those who defined it.

Again Max we have already hashed over this discussion and it isn't this simple, and we clearly are not going to settle it here. But I've made several responses to the rhetorical and definitional arguments you are using. Problem one: you use the first line from the first definition of literature that crops up on a google search. Problem two, you ignore important qualifiers in the definition. You ignore secondary definitions. You ignore other definitions from different dictionaries and from more long form sources. You focus on the first two words of the first sentence and do so in a very expansive way: "written works". Not only is this vague, the word 'works' to me doesn't merely suggest 'all words on a page' it suggests completed projects. A wouldn't describe a handwritten note on lined notebook paper as a 'written work' for example. But most importantly, if anything written ever, for any purpose, of any quality, is literature, there really isn't much point to the term. The fact is literature is a word that shifts meaning depending on how it is used. In this thread, we have mainly been talking about quality of the words. So that sense of the word seems most appropriate. If you want to use a broad meaning of literature, such as 'written works', in order to make arguments related more to quality of the works, then you are equivocating.

It absolutely does have a point. Once people can accept the facts and understand that anything written is literary, the question stops being, "Is this literary" and becomes, "What level of literary is preferred?" or perhaps, "What is the average level of literary language in RPGs?" It helps clarify things and direct the conversation to the point where it can progress. The OP asks the wrong question.

I don't think it does, because I think this assumption that it is literary is very much in dispute. And I think if we accept this conclusion, then it begins making literary quality a measure of GM and RPG quality (which I don't think it is at all). I would agree you can have a spectrum of 'literariness', but you wouldn't describe something that is at the far end of not being literary as 'literary'.

Oral literature is a thing, which means that oral literary techniques are a thing.

This is a term I am less familiar with, so I don't really have an opinion on it. But I would make the point that in the context of this discussion, this makes for an even more meaningless use of the word. It was expansive and pointless enough to have literature to mean 'written words'. Now you are using it to mean 'any words' (but I see music is on the description of Oral Literature, so perhaps 'any communication' is more apt). Basically if that is your definition, then it is going to happen no matter what, unless we are not communicating during play, so it doesn't matter. If it just automatically becomes literary, what is the point? Are you seriously arguing because you've made a linguistic argument that RPGs must always be literature, that this means anything in terms of porting in literary techniques? Because that argument doesn't get you there. All it does is establish, wrongly I think, that games are always literary. It doesn't tell us anything about what techniques used to make written literature and fictional stories would be effective, necessary or desirable in an RPG. You are literally just playing word games here.

Imaro · Jun 9, 2019

Let me ask a question to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=9200]Hawkeye[/MENTION], [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] and [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]. Would you use the same words/language/etc. to describe a remote village in the mountains for say a Ravenloft campaign vs a Four color superhero game like Icons? let's assume good faith in that the Icons village isn't supposed to be haunted or anything tht would make it more Ravenloft-esque....

EDIT: Meant [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] ...