Is RPGing a literary endeavour?

Riley37 · Jun 9, 2019

Imaro said:
Without evocative language my players wont be engaged with the situation or scenario.

I am curious what level of evocative language is necessary, that is, the level below which your players stop caring, stop enjoying the session.

Would this level suffice:
"GM Alex tells the players: "You enter the room. There's a wooden door on the north side, comfortably sized for Jinbat (the gnome PC) but Yurk (the human PC) would have to squeeze through. There's a jagged crack in the west wall, leading into a dark, damp tunnel. There's a staff leaning against the walls in the northwest corner, made of dark wood, with a spiral pattern of intricately carved symbols."

How about this level:
GM Bob tells the players "You enter the room. Exits are north and west. There's a staff."

What's the lowest you can go, on that scale, and still keep players engaged?

Bedrockgames · Jun 9, 2019

Imaro said:
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] ...

This question has already been asked. I used to run Ravenloft exclusively, and I bought into all the advice in the line that basically made the point you are making here: Use very evocative language to create atmosphere in horror. My answer is a bit involved. First, if your players respond to that, I say go for it. But it is really important to understand not all players respond to this at all and you can't force tone and atmosphere on them they don't want (well you can try but it just creates issues). I was just on the phone with a player who was exactly of this mindset and I asked him about this issue specifically. Basically he just cares about what his character can do and the details that enable him to make choices around that. He doesn't particularly care for setting details (something I've experienced first hand with him at the table, and I am a GM who loves making setting details). He is all about efficiency of information. Doesn't particularly care how it is packaged.

To the point about Ravenloft and horror. There is no simple answer here. I will say, I think there was tremendous faith placed in the ability of evocatively and dramatically narrated descriptions enhancing horror atmosphere. I think on the GM side, this can feel good to deliver, and I think some players respond to it. i also think many people are not as interested as the writers of these modules and books thought. And I think in practice, what really makes a Ravenloft game work the subtly of the horror. That will rely on some amount of description being well worded. It doesn't mean it needs to read like a novel though. My experience running Ravenloft was moving more and more to natural style of talking, and focusing less on word choice, more on 'the angle of the description'. But that said, I do think horror is one genre where this can be important.

However, I think horror is fairly exceptional as genres go, and one of the hardest to do well. I don't think you should build general rules about what is good for gaming around that one genre (because while word choice can matter in a session of Ravenloft, it definitely isn't going to be as important in my wuxia or fantasy RPG sessions).

Also, just a note about those Ravenloft descriptions. While your word selection can matter, many of the examples they used to give in the books were exactly the sort of thing you really have to avoid, even when running a horror game. These were super well crafted, literary prose style examples. They were not the sort of thing that was easy to come up with off the cuff. I struggled to achieve that for many years as a GM, and it was actually counterproductive. I simply don't speak that way, so I was spending all of my energy on description and not enough on other details. And for the most part, the players were getting kind of tired of lengthy prose-like descriptions. Again, word choice mattered, but it is a different medium, and you have to account for that. Also, I don't think the use of literary techniques like foreshadowing or things like applying a three-act structure to the adventure, were particularly suited to the medium. We have to be careful about equivocation for this reason: word choice being important doesn't mean literary techniques should be ported into the game. It just means word choice can matter.

Maxperson · Jun 9, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
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.

I am not using the first definition. I quoted the Oxford definition, which matches the first one. I also looked at multiple dictionaries. You shouldn't assume.

The first definition is from the Oxford dictionary.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/literary

There is also, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/literary

"1. pertaining to or of the nature of books and writings, especially those classed as literature."

So same difference.

And...

Webster says it relates to literature.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literature

One of the definitions there is printed matter.

It's in virtually every definition if you care to look, like I did.

Problem two, you ignore important qualifiers in the definition. You ignore secondary definitions.

I don't ignore secondary definitions at all. They just don't invalidate the definition I am using.

You ignore other definitions from different dictionaries and from more long form sources.

Except as I point out above, before I posted the first definition, I looked at the others and almost all of them agreed with the first, so I used it.

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.

Hey, you're right. There's not much point to having the terms "life," "universe," "matter," or any other broad term. We should get rid of them all immediately!!

Or else we can understand that broad terms do in fact have a point, and that the subgroups within those broad terms help us refine things.

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.

You are wrong. Using the defined term as it is defined, is not using it in two different ways. Stop with the false accusations already.

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'.

You might not describe it as literary. I might not describe it as literary. But the guy down the block from me might.

Bedrockgames · Jun 9, 2019

Max, I am not going to rehash this with you, because I think the basic arguments have already been made by us and I don't think you are demonstrating any willingness to listen to my points on the topic. But I do want to reiterate a central one: "especially" is a very important word in that definition, and you are completely dismissing it in order to make an argument that all words are literature. Again, context matters with this word. You don't seem to grasp that, or care about acknowledging it

Riley37 · Jun 10, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
I struggled to achieve that for many years as a GM, and it was actually counterproductive. I simply don't speak that way, so I was spending all of my energy on description and not enough on other details. And for the most part, the players were getting kind of tired of lengthy prose-like descriptions.

IMO this passage right here shows BRG turning from what someone else thinks *should* work, to what *does* work in actual practice. I respect that. I have a different personality and different players, so maybe the turning point between "this works" and "this doesn't work" falls differently for me; but BRG was right to recognize that for his purposes, and his players, he had passed that turning point.

When there is a dogma such as "more elaborate narration is ALWAYS and NECESSARILY better", and one pushes back against that dogma, one can end up pushing back so hard that one ends up with an opposite dogma of "less is always better"; which might also be wrong. If the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle (exact balance varying by table) then one can end up pushing back *all the way past the sweet spot*. BRG, I have a concern - from this thread, and from others - that you might fall into such a pattern of over-reaction. But without actually sitting at your table, I cannot fairly and confidently make strong conclusions, or pass judgement, beyond "sounds like BRG's table is not my cup of tea". Instead I must tip my hat to your rejection of overly elaborate narration, when overly elaborate narration got in the way, and you found that you could have more fun at your table by dialing back on narration.

Hussar · Jun 10, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
I think you are just making assumptions now...also I didn't say I preferred 1 over 2. I said 1 has more information, and there are definitely more analytically minded players who don't care about the flavorful description as much as they care about the info. And I don't think they are a small minority in our hobby.

That said, you are right, these two descriptions are both pretty conversational, not literary. So the example is a bit puzzling anyways. Example two is just a bit vague.

Again, I don't think this argument makes a whole lot of sense. We are talking about a conversational medium. Literary doesn't really seem like it would apply. you can try to run a game in a literary style. but I don't think it is necessary. Nor do I think it is particularly advisable.

This is why I don't think we're as far apart as it might appear. I look at words like "intricately" and I think "literary" not "conversation" because the words "intricately carved" would almost never appear in a conversation.
[MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] above talks about a mechanic using technical language. Thing is, that's not really a conversation either. That's a mechanic imparting information to the customer, but, it's probably mostly one direction and if the mechanic dives too far into technical jargon, there's no conversation at all as the listener has no idea what's being talked about.

Is it "literary"? Maybe not. But, it's certainly not conversation either. [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] keeps pressing me to prove that the language is literary. I'm not because the definition of "literary" is so nebulous. I don't have to. I only have to show that it isn't conversational to show that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is wrong. And I CAN show that because the language that's being chosen, often deliberately chosen, is being chosen to evoke specific reactions and is language that would almost never appear in a conversation.

Maxperson · Jun 10, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
Max, I am not going to rehash this with you, because I think the basic arguments have already been made by us and I don't think you are demonstrating any willingness to listen to my points on the topic. But I do want to reiterate a central one: "especially" is a very important word in that definition, and you are completely dismissing it in order to make an argument that all words are literature. Again, context matters with this word. You don't seem to grasp that, or care about acknowledging it

And I'll reiterate, "especially" just creates a subgroup of literature that is more preferred. It does not invalidate all other literature, or render it valueless.

Hussar · Jun 10, 2019

hawkeyefan said:
Thanks for clarifying your point.

Do you think that word choice used in conversation will vary based on the topic of conversation? Do you think that word choice will vary based on those involved in conversation?

I don’t believe that all topics and all participants are locked into the same pool of words from which to draw. I doubt you would say so, either, but here we are.

If you’d asked me to describe a criminal from the real world who was breaking into a home, I’d likely not use the word wield to describe how he was armed. But for D&D? I think it’s pretty firmly established as part of the lexicon. Same with gaunt or sunken eyes when describing inhuman, otherworldly things.

I would expect that certain words would be more common when playing D&D and others would be more common when playing Call of Cthulhu and still others when playing Marvel Super Heroes. Use of the word “psychic” in an X-Men campaign, for example....it’s not a common word heard in conversation, but it’ll certainly come up when talking about the X-Men.

Again, use of adjectives isn’t what I’m talking about. They’re descriptive by nature.

I would agree with you that sometimes one choice of word can be more creative than another. I think this can happen even when it’s not the focus of the speaker/writer. I think such examples are a bit tangential to the idea of craft.

The question I guess would be, "why"? Psychic in an X-Men game of course would be common, as it would likely be a game defined term. Like "to-hit" or "githyanki" or "humanoid" really. But, where [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] gets it wrong, is that we're talking about situational language that makes sense in context. Obviously there are going to be all sorts of jargon terms in any specialized and stylized conversation. Listen to two baseball fans going at it and they're not even really speaking English anymore.

But, we're talking about the other language choices. "Wield", "intricately", "gaunt" etc. There are plain conversation versions of these words and phrases, but, they are being left behind in favor of more colorful language. Why? As soon as you start injecting things like "eldritch" and whatnot, you're leaving conversation behind and moving along the scale.

Hussar · Jun 10, 2019

Riley37 said:
I am curious what level of evocative language is necessary, that is, the level below which your players stop caring, stop enjoying the session.

Would this level suffice:
"GM Alex tells the players: "You enter the room. There's a wooden door on the north side, comfortably sized for Jinbat (the gnome PC) but Yurk (the human PC) would have to squeeze through. There's a jagged crack in the west wall, leading into a dark, damp tunnel. There's a staff leaning against the walls in the northwest corner, made of dark wood, with a spiral pattern of intricately carved symbols."

How about this level:
GM Bob tells the players "You enter the room. Exits are north and west. There's a staff."

What's the lowest you can go, on that scale, and still keep players engaged?

Having run The World's Largest Dungeon, I would love to say that all my descriptions were there first type, but, frankly, I probably mix it up. There's times when the second description comes out. But, generally, that's because there's nothing in the room and I just want the party to move on, or, I'm tired (which happens) or my brain just decides to phone it in.

Which also happens more often than I'd like. Stupid brain.

But, if I'm actually prepping the scenario? Yeah, it's going to be the first one all the way. The more information I can get into the player's hands the better and the better it will engage the players.

And it works both ways. I just recently parted ways with a player who absolutely refused to engage in the game at any level higher than basic conversation. Every interaction was essentially your second example. It was incredibly frustrating as a DM because it totally sucked any emotion out of every scene. I talked several pages back about the dice bot with a heart beat. That's pretty much what it's like when players refuse to engage in the fiction with any language beyond the most bare bones, basic information exchange.

Heck, one of my most memorable D&D experiences was with a former Forumite [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION] who ran the first haunted house scenario of the recent Ravenloft WotC offering. It was FANTASTIC. Scenario wise it was pretty much bog standard haunted house. Fairly bog standard stuff - nastiness in the attic and basement, rising tension, yeah, usual haunted house stuff. But, he was so able to bring it to life with excellent description and prose that it remains one of my favorite gaming memories.

Lanefan · Jun 10, 2019

Aldarc said:
Considering your emphasis on interactionism as an integral part of the RPG process, where an important part of the gameplay is PCs interacting with the gameworld, I have been somewhat surprised by your position in this thread. From what I can tell, pemerton, is offering an incredibly pragmatic sense for the purpose of GM narration that is focused on aiding the player agency and decision-making process that is integral for an interactionist approach. Interactionism seems to hinge on players having a practical, informed sense of the scene.

Oh, I'm all about the practical - but I also don't mind if it's dressed up a bit when and where it can be.

I also freely admit to being myself rather poor at doing so when I DM. I blame beer.