Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?

Bedrockgames said:

They might. It depends. The point is they can interject—-and that interjection might lead to a different description because the GM is reacting to the player’s curiosity. The bigger point is: players don’t expect long moments of narration by the GM, they expect to be active participants in what is going on. This isn’t a story the GM is unfurling for passive players.

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hawkeyefan said:

I think it's a question of the amount of narration. Sure, you can have a lot of descriptive language around a call to action.....they need not be mutually exclusive. And for me personally, I think how I would present the call to action would really depend on the specific situation in the fiction. Do I want to set a mood by really painting a detailed picture of the situation and their surroundings, what they see and hear and smell, and then give the players a choice? Or do I want to hit them with the choice like a punch to the gut?

I think both options have their place, ultimately. But I think I would rely on one more than the other to try and make the game compelling and keep it moving.



I think that it's a case of the GM's narration leading to a point of decision. I don't think all boxed text does this by any means. I've read plenty of boxed text and then my players stare at me without any sense of what to do.

I also think that boxed text is A THING.....like it's a trigger that the GM is talking and the players should shut up and listen. And while I think this is good in some ways (attention, etc.), I think it is bad in other ways. I often think it's good to break it up with questions and answers rather than to expect everyone to retain all of it in one infodrop.

My two most recent GMing experiences have been running Tomb Of Annihilation for 5E, which consists of a hexcrawl followed by a classic dungeon delve, and with running Blades in the Dark, which has almost no prepared material other than the setting. In Tomb, I had to read boxed text and adhere to it because the procedures that the players had their characters perform mattered very much....the actions, they took and where and how and when....all of that could matter quite a lot due to traps or monsters or secret doors and so on. You had to know when someone entered the room and touched the statue, and where everyone else was and so on. I had to read nearly all boxed text multiple times. Now, this is largely because of the play style of the adventure, but I think it's also the nature of boxed text.....it usually tries to cram as much information in as possible. So afterward, the players always have questions.....and because the boxed text is there, you reread it, or part of it to them.

It's kind of an awkward way of presenting information, and I would rarely think of it as literary. Sure, there is some flavor that is included to help set mood and so forth, but the way it winds up working at the table is just awkward.

Blades in the Dark summarizes a RPG as being a conversation. There's meant to be back and forth. There are meant to be questions and response and building on what others ask or say. There's no point where you are reading prepared material (although you could pre-write some bits if you really wanted, but they'd be limited to the start of a session).

For me, the natural flow of Blades in the Dark is much more preferable, and actually engages the players more, in my opinion. That could of course be entirely unique to my group, but I expect others would agree.

Again, I agree that evocative narration and the call to action are not mutually exclusive....but I think that there's a strong case for one being more central to many RPGs.

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Imaro said:

I think your issue is predicated on the length of the boxed text as opposed to its literary quality though. The two keep being confused in this thread.

Side A: We like/enjoy/get emotionally invested in/whatever a well written description...

Side B: Yeah I dont like long boring narrative by the GM before action in my rpg's

Side A: Who said they did?

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Imaro said:

No in my mind playing an rpg isn't passive entertainment... so claiming any players are passive (not acting or making choices but just being read to) means they aren't actually playing an rpg.

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Imaro said:

So the difference boils down to whether players interrupt each other or not and/or the length of description a group prefers. Seems a silly distinction to me but whatever.

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Imaro said:

So it probably has been answered... right, I'll get on searching over 100 pages of a thread for what might be answered....

Oh and for the record this isn't school or a job I don't have work, and I don't have a responsibility related to this. Chill dude. You don't want to help fine then just don't reply... it's way easier than the wasted word count you're adding to.

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Maxperson said:

It's sort of like their buzzword, "equivocate" that they like to falsely accuse others of so often. If you don't have much to go on, you have to be as unhelpful as possible.

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Imaro said:

Though I think I would still contend I'm passive until you've communicated the situation (a bomb about to go off in the buiding) to me and I require further clarification, information, etc. The thing is I'd probably gain more/better information/clarity if I waited until you finished telling me wat you know before interrupting...

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Bedrockgames said:

Equivocate is a very real thing, and was occurring frequently on this thread

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pemerton said:

I don't think this is true. I don't intend what follows to be triggering for anyone, and apologise if it is - I couldn't come up with a completely safe example. But, that said, and continuing on:

If I relate to you the information that a bomb is about to go off in your building, I don't think you would be a passive audience. I think you would engage with what I'm saying in many quite active ways. Including, perhaps, certain sorts of interruptions, but not limited to those.

EDIT: I think this post from Campbell, not far upthread, presents an idea of players as something different from a passive audience:

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Conversely, a way upthread [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] talked about a GM "rolling up the plot wagon". To me at least, that suggests a situation in which the players are something of a passive audience.

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