Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?

Hussar said:

Now there is a zifnarb in your building. What do you do?

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Whow know? Tell me what it is.

If you think telling me what it is necessarily requires literary effort, then what's your conception of teaching children the language?

Hussar said:

At some point in time, you have to drop the analogies and actually describe what's going on, directly. And, if you want to have any hope of hooking the players, you need to use at least some evocative language. Unless your game consists of nothing but retreaded material, where the context is already set, you need to actually paint that picture for the player.

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I think it's possible to describe a situation without "painting a picture" in the literary sense. If I can't engage the players unless I "paint a picture" in the literary sense, then I worry that it's probably not a very good situation.

EDIT: Having read on, I see that [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] has made much the same points upthread.

Also,

Hussar said:

I've spent far, far too long dealing with non-native English speakers who do not share our culture to take any description for granted. Every single reference you've made presumes a native English speaker (or near native anyway) with a deep grounding in western Judeo-Christian culture. As soon as you lose that background, none of your allegorical explanations are going to work. Imagine teaching D&D to ten year olds and you're trying to reference Men In Black - a 20 year old movie they've likely never seen.

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As [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] has said, what does this have to do with literary quality?

hawkeyefan said:

/snip

That’s not to say that he should say “it’s a big red lizard that spits fire” but is a whole lot more needed?

Now something like the githyanki...something that many folks won’t already have an idea about...sure, maybe more of an effort is needed. But again, it just needs to be enough to establish context for the specific scene. If some action is about to happen, why go into the whole history of the gith and the lore about the lich-queen and all that? I just want the relevant context for that moment of play, and save the other stuff for another time.

So maybe it’s a question of the level of immersion in the sense of the fictional level....immersion in the specific scene that’s happening now versus immersion in the larger fictional world. If there’s a scene going on...the githyanki are doing something and the characters have to decide what to do about it, then I’d think keeping the narration focused on that would be the best approach, no?

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Ok, so, you agree that "more of an effort" is needed. Isn't that where the literary starts? If the situation is that the Githyanki are stealing something, well, without any literary effort, it doesn't matter if they are githyanki or orcs or Zifnarb because, lacking any literary effort on the part of the DM, all these things are are bags of game stats. There's nothing distinguishing them.

Or, to put it another way, what's the difference between a 5 hp orc and a 5 hp goblin?

Aldarc said:

Is this another new goalpost?

But not necessarily the literary text of D&D. The point being is that the cognitive context for this TTRPG is informed by the entirety of a person's experiences within a culture. This does not make TTRPGs a literary endeavor simply because D&D has literature. If you want to claim that D&D's associated literature is literary because it is literature, then you have only successfully argued a truism.

I believe that you are underestimating many things. I'm not a novice to literary discussions or living abroad. I work in ancient literature, with multiple dead languages, and applying some cognitive linguistics for my research. I live in Austria and surrounded by non-native English speakers. Sure, they have a deep grounding in western Judeo-Christian culture. However, our conversation has NEVER been contingent on whether participants have a shared grounding or not. You are also speaking of a huge corner case. I suspect that most people who sit together to play TTRPGs will share a sufficient cognitive background that will enable the contextualization of game play through a shared cultural vocabulary. It has NEVER been contingent on whether or not evocative language is ever used or not. It has been about whether TTRPGs are a literary endeavor, the function and nature of GM/player narration, and how this ties into the TTRPG play experience. Suggesting otherwise is most definitely moving the goalposts of pemerton's argument.

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I'd argue that it's not a huge corner case. Any new gamer, particularly young ones like myself when I started, have little to no context to base things off of. While something like D&D is broad enough that it generally isn't too hard to find context, something like, say Call of Cthulu certainly isn't. I've played far, far too many RPG's where the players treat it like D&D to not think that context matters a HUGE amount. Imagine if your only RPG context is D&D, and you start playing Call of Cthulu with a DM who refuses to give any description that is more evocative than bare bones, plain English. That experience would suck. A lot.

pemerton said:

Whow know? Tell me what it is.

If you think telling me what it is necessarily requires literary effort, then what's your conception of teaching children the language?

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Holy crap [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]. That's blindingly ludicrous. Teaching language to an ESL student shares virtually nothing with playing in an RPG. But, funnily enough, it doesn't actually take too long before an ESL student is advanced enough to go beyond simple, basic conversation and into higher level communication. And one of the primary sources for teaching that is literature. Even at the most basic level, See Dick Run style phonics readers are a staple of any language class. And, then we graduate to See Dick run quickly. Then to I see Dick run quickly. Then to I carefully watch Dick running. Then to I observe Dick running.

IOW, we progress beyond basic conversation into more "wordcraft" in fairly short order.

So, according to you, we should never teach a child words like "quickly" or "observe" or higher band vocabulary, since, all conversation obviously rests within the first 2000 band of common words.

I really hope that's not true because if it is, that's just a really sad view of language. Should we never teach poetry to an ESL student? No Shakespeare? How exactly do you propose to understand Western Culture without even a basic grounding in Shakespeare? Students should never be allowed to touch a Thesaurus? After all, one word is all they need right? Never need synonyms for anything because, well, all we're doing is directly feeding information in the most basic, simplistic way possible.

Gimme a break.

Imaro said:

is there an agreed upon definition of literary for this thread... otherwise how can anyone discuss something without agreeing upon its meaning?

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Here's the way that I'm used to discussion working:


I'm not used to the idea that Person B can try and rebut Person A by picking up some term used by A, interpreting it differently, and on that basis disagreeing with something that A never said. (That is the equivocation that has been mentioned upthread.)

As Person A in this particular thread, here are the key claims that I made, in the OP and then not much later downthread:


This is a conception of RPGing that, I believe, you disagree with - eg when you suggest that you would quit a game, on the grounds that it's boring, if the GM didn't deploy evocative language.

lowkey13 said:

....but .... wait .... maybe if they really understood what literary means .....

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I raised a question on the first page, about parameters of the term for purposes of the thread.

AFAIK, no one has even tried to answer that question as asked.

How many paladins can dance on the head of a needle?

*Deleted by user*

pemerton said:

Here's the way that I'm used to discussion working:

Person A makes an assertion, explaining what s/he has in mind as best s/he can, ready to elaborate and defend if necessary.

Person B makes a reply - perhaps agreeing, perhaps disagreeing, perhaps distinguishing some point, etc. If person B is unsure about what was said by A, s/he asks for clarification.

Etc.​

I'm not used to the idea that Person B can try and rebut Person A by picking up some term used by A, interpreting it differently, and on that basis disagreeing with something that A never said. (That is the equivocation that has been mentioned upthread.)

As Person A in this particular thread, here are the key claims that I made, in the OP and then not much later downthread:

​

This is a conception of RPGing that, I believe, you disagree with - eg when you suggest that you would quit a game, on the grounds that it's boring, if the GM didn't deploy evocative language.

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Which would be fine. However, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], your points got buried under fifteen tons of extraneous text that I think most people skipped over.

And, despite REPEATED requests that you clarify what "literary", "literary quality" and "wordcraft" and various other words you've tried to toss into the mix, you've never actually sat down and defined what you mean by these terms in a way that folks in the thread understand what you're on about. I mean, what does "literary quality of that narration" actually mean? Since, apparently, it's a pretty nebulous thing. It might be using certain words, or not, it might be the length of the description, or not, it might be how the speaker speaks, or not. No one actually knows because, again, despite NUMEROUS calls for you to clearly define what you mean, you absolutely refuse to do so.

And, so, this thread circles around and around and around, with accusations of "equivocation" and "moving goalposts" and whatnot and unfortunate referrals to dictionary definitions because, AGAIN, you will not actually define your terms.

You agree that the DM has to narrate the situation, but, claim that the quality of that narration doesn't matter, but, at it's root, that's demonstrably false. A narration that is confusing, for example, matters. So, the quality DOES matter. You claim that performance doesn't matter, but, again, that's demonstrably false. Someone who speaks too quietly to be heard, as an extreme example, is obviously going to make the session not enjoyable.

So, where do you draw the line? Can you give a clear example of what you mean? An example where you can describe a sitatuation using no "meliflous" language, no analogies, or metaphor or any literary technique whatsoever? We've had a few examples proposed before, but, you've been strangely reticent to show examples despite being very forthcoming with actual play examples in the past. So, how do you hook the players into a situation in a game where they have zero context for what your talking about, by only describing the situation using nothing but plain, conversational English and no references to any in-game elements. The reason no in-game elements is because those elements have been described to the players by the game itself using literary techniques.

Again, how do you distinguish that 5 hp orc from that 5 hp goblin?

Hussar said:

Ok, so, you agree that "more of an effort" is needed. Isn't that where the literary starts? If the situation is that the Githyanki are stealing something, well, without any literary effort, it doesn't matter if they are githyanki or orcs or Zifnarb because, lacking any literary effort on the part of the DM, all these things are are bags of game stats. There's nothing distinguishing them.

Or, to put it another way, what's the difference between a 5 hp orc and a 5 hp goblin?

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You describe them differently.

You snipped my post, but I’m assuming you read the whole thing. I bolded the part that I felt was most relevant; namely the distinction between simple communication and an attempt at literary quality.

I don’t think that simply describing an orc or a githyanki constitutes the kind of attempt at literary quality that’s being discussed.

Is it more important that a bit of narration offered by the GM makes the players feel compelled to act, or that it makes them smile because of its cleverness or creativity?

hawkeyefan said:

You describe them differently.

You snipped my post, but I’m assuming you read the whole thing. I bolded the part that I felt was most relevant; namely the distinction between simple communication and an attempt at literary quality.

I don’t think that simply describing an orc or a githyanki constitutes the kind of attempt at literary quality that’s being discussed.

Is it more important that a bit of narration offered by the GM makes the players feel compelled to act, or that it makes them smile because of its cleverness or creativity?

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Here's the part you bolded:

the attempt by a GM or player for their narration to have artistic merit beyond simple communication

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Ok, now, show me. How do you describe an orc or a githyanki without any attempt at literary quality.

I'd say that it's equally important that not only does the narration offered by the GM make the players feel compelled to act AND it immerses them in the setting, allowing them to have clear, compelling mental images of what's going on.

So, again, without ANY of what you are calling literary quality, describe an orc or a goblin in such a way that the players feel compelled to act AND differentiate between the two encounters.

pemerton said:

Here's the way that I'm used to discussion working:

Person A makes an assertion, explaining what s/he has in mind as best s/he can, ready to elaborate and defend if necessary.

Person B makes a reply - perhaps agreeing, perhaps disagreeing, perhaps distinguishing some point, etc. If person B is unsure about what was said by A, s/he asks for clarification.

Etc.​

I'm not used to the idea that Person B can try and rebut Person A by picking up some term used by A, interpreting it differently, and on that basis disagreeing with something that A never said. (That is the equivocation that has been mentioned upthread.)

As Person A in this particular thread, here are the key claims that I made, in the OP and then not much later downthread:

​

This is a conception of RPGing that, I believe, you disagree with - eg when you suggest that you would quit a game, on the grounds that it's boring, if the GM didn't deploy evocative language.

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Honestly this is as clear as mud... you use literary quality...then interchange it with performance and then admit description is required again without clearly showing where the line between what you consider just description vs. Evocative language actually sits...

hawkeyefan said:

Is it more important that a bit of narration offered by the GM makes the players feel compelled to act, or that it makes them smile because of its cleverness or creativity?

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Depends on the purpose of the scene/situation/setting/etc. I've never played in a game where everything is a call to action.

More importantly why cant I use my evocative words to incite a call for action.