Is RPGing a literary endeavour?

hawkeyefan · Jun 9, 2019

pemerton said:
I would tend to think of "rictus grin" as falling on the literary side of things, as does [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION].

As I've posted, it does no harm if it doesn't impede (what I regard as) the real point of play.

It has a face like a skull might do just as well. I personally can't remember how I've described githyanki in the past - I suspect I'm more likely to have shown a picture, such as the one on the front of the Fiend Folio.

More generally, and feeding this into the current [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] - [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] interaction, I think that the role of description in RPGing is easily overestimated. It prioritises immersive imagination orver protagonistic inhabitation. Whereas the latter is the distinctive virtue of RPGs as games that are about producing a shared fiction.

All this said, I think you've fully understood my points in this thread, seem to agree at least to some extent, and have made many helpful posts into it for which I thank you.

Skeletal would certainly be plainer language. It’s definitely what I was trying to convey, but rictus popped into my head so I went with it.

I think description is important, but that the amount of description needed is often exaggerated. I’d even say that literary effort can be great for a game, but probably has to be used sparingly or minimally. But I think I’d agree with you about the priority you place on such when compared to inhabitation.

Maxperson · Jun 9, 2019

pemerton said:
I don't agree that there's a consensus: I can't really tell what [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] thinks, but [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] have made claims about the need for entertaining/evocative narration that I think clearly contradict the position I asserted in the OP.

For descriptiveness, I think I probably fall in-between you and Imaro/Hussar.

But one complicating fact pertains to vocabularly: eg I wouldn't regard cadaverous as a word to describe a Githyanki as especially remarkable or a-conversational, but Hussar probably would, and maybe [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] also. What counts as every day vocabularly among a group of RPGers is pretty highly variable and contingent on a range of factors (social background/status, educational levels, occupation, etc). I'm a humanities/social sciene academic (philosophy and law) and many of the people I talk to on a regular basis (ie the people I work with, my students, etc) are lilkewise, or are aspiring to be. So I think my every day vocaublary is probably richer than the New York Times.

That just puts you and your colleagues beyond the realm of everyday conversational English, though. The average American reads at the 7th/8th grade level. For the most part, they aren't going to speak much better than they can read.

hawkeyefan · Jun 9, 2019

Hussar said:
Not really. If you are using language that is above and beyond every day speech, then it's not really a conversation anymore. Not when you are specifically CHOOSING those words. Sure, Githyanki is a neologism and obviously is outside the realm of standard conversation. But, note, your description doesn't actually use that word. My point is, the words you used are very far outside the realm of standard conversation. And, it's not a "few" words. When 10% of your language is outside that standard 5000 words list, you're actually using a very difficult to understand set of words.

Think about it. If you didn't understand 10% of what someone is saying, would you be able to carry on a coherent conversation? One word in 10? That's REALLY high. Imagine if, when reading the newspaper, you had to stop every tenth word and look it up in a dictionary. That's WAY beyond every day language. Now, I realize that as native speakers, our vocabularies are actually considerably greater than 5000 words. Fair enough. But, it's still a measure of difficulty.

That's why I'd argue that the plain English version of your description of a Githyanki is outside the realm of conversation. It's certainly using language that would virtually never be used in spoken English. Think about it, outside of a gaming situation, when have you ever used the words "gaunt" or "wield" in a spoken situation.

You didn’t understand 10% of the words I used? Of course not...you understood them all. A few (shall we spend a few pages on the technical definition of “few” or will you simply accept my use?) of the words used are uncommon. That doesn’t make them unknown.

So I’m not going to accept this “10% of the description was useless” because that’s just silly. Honestly....D&D players are gonna balk at the word “wield”? Or “gaunt”?

Come on.

hawkeyefan · Jun 9, 2019

pemerton said:
I don't agree that there's a consensus: I can't really tell what [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] thinks, but [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] have made claims about the need for entertaining/evocative narration that I think clearly contradict the position I asserted in the OP.

Yeah I know....that last bit was sarcasm on my part. I know there’s no consensus.

pemerton said:
This is why I have brought it back to what are we aiming for? What counts as success, as good RPGing? What should a GM focus on?

“What are we aiming for” is probably the best way to look at it. I’d never say “quality prose” ahead of “an interesting game”. I wouldn’t expect that to be universal, but I’m surprised at the amount of support there seems to be for that view.

Hussar · Jun 9, 2019

hawkeyefan said:
You didn’t understand 10% of the words I used? Of course not...you understood them all. A few (shall we spend a few pages on the technical definition of “few” or will you simply accept my use?) of the words used are uncommon. That doesn’t make them unknown.

So I’m not going to accept this “10% of the description was useless” because that’s just silly. Honestly....D&D players are gonna balk at the word “wield”? Or “gaunt”?

Come on.

Sorry, you're right, they aren't unknown. But, my point being, they aren't what you'd use in conversation either. Would you actually use the words "wield" or "gaunt" in a conversation?

"A gaunt man wielding a gun robbed a liquor store" is not something you will ever hear in a conversation. You certainly might hear "A thin man armed with a gun" or "carrying a gun", but "wielding"? That's not going to be used.

The way I'm seeing it, we've got a spectrum with high art prose on one end (think Tolkien, high Gygaxian, H. P. Lovecraft - if we want to use genre literature) and what you'd hear in a conversation or in the news on the other. As far as I can tell, [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] is arguing for a level of prose where "an orc with a sword enters the room" is about as much description as he wants. You gave a Githyanki description that is much further along the scale, as did I with the description of the Vengaurak. As far as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] goes, I really have no idea where on the scale he's coming down on since he's playing arpeggios up and down the scale so long as he can keep pretending that there is any real disagreement going on.

So, no, it's not "10% of the description was useless". Sorry, I never meant that as the take away. Not at all. It's that the presence of that 10% slides the description away from the "pure conversation" end of the scale and further (and, really, where it's 10% of the words, pretty far actually) down towards the "high art" end of the scale.

Riley37 · Jun 9, 2019

pemerton said:
Why won't you engage with the fact that you disagree with me?

Maybe because you have not made any assertions which are (a) sufficiently concrete for falsification testing (Karl Popper style) and (b) in contrast with any assertions from Hussar.

You said in the OP that TRPG is not a literary endeavor. I asked, on the first page: if it is, then what? if not, then what?

100+ pages later, have you answered my question?

Hussar has said (if I understand correctly) that he prefers TRPG which includes descriptive prose which goes beyond bog-standard conversation in the core 2000 vocabulary.

You have stated that YOU have participated in games with flowery prose and YOU have not enjoyed them. Perhaps you and BRG would be happy at each other's tables.

You haven't yet made a concrete, falsification-testable assertion about anything other than your personal tastes in TRPG.

You have not, AFAIK, asserted "Hussar does not enjoy TRPG with flowery prose." THAT would be a disagreement, THAT would be a contradiction of his assertion.

You could - if you were willing to go out on a limb - assert that "GMs who put any effort into florid narration, are (invariably) GMs who run bad games. Their games are no fun for players - not fun for me, and also not fun for anyone else. We should burn any module which uses Gygaxian boxed text." If you stake out THAT position, then I will disagree with you; and maybe Hussar will too.

But you haven't said that, not yet. Will you?

I only have a problem with florid GM narration when it comes *at the expense of listening to players and resolving action declarations*. A GM who wants players to respond to his narration with a round of applause - as a passive audience - rather than responding with action declarations - THAT is a GM whose table would annoy or bore me, and perhaps many or most other players. I've known a GM who had a tendency in that direction; so I stopped playing at his table. Problem solved.

Lanefan · Jun 9, 2019

Following quote altered slightly by addition of numbers to make my response easier to parse...

pemerton said:
This is why I have brought it back to what are we aiming for? What counts as success, as good RPGing? What should a GM focus on?

And I'm saying

1. situation - framing, action, consequence - [over]
2. beauty or evocation in narration.

Where I say a GM should focus on using 2 to make 1 more interesting and-or immersive and-or exciting whenever she can, because 1 is always going to be there no matter what and at whatever quality it was going to be at anyway. Why not dress it up a little?

Lanefan · Jun 9, 2019

hawkeyefan said:
“What are we aiming for” is probably the best way to look at it. I’d never say “quality prose” ahead of “an interesting game”.

Ahead of? No

As a part of? Certainly! Quality prose, unless completely overdone, is far more likely to add interest than diminish it.

Aldarc · Jun 9, 2019

Maxperson said:
Hey, if all it takes to be using conversational English is to use it in a conversation, then even the most high quality literary language used in an RPG counts as conversational.

It's pretty well understood that when people here have been discussing conversational English, they mean using the simple words and not the ones that fall outside of normal, everyday conversation.

An automechanic will have a range of vocabulary that "falls outside of normal, everyday conversation," but I don't think that we would credibly accuse them for using the technical jargon of their field as part of their conversation as speaking with "literary language." That would be ridiculous. This is because we can recognize that they are not speaking with any sense of sculpted prose or word play, but with prevalent words of their field.

Aldarc · Jun 9, 2019

Lanefan said:
Ahead of? No

As a part of? Certainly! Quality prose, unless completely overdone, is far more likely to add interest than diminish it.

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.

Riley37 said:
You said in the OP that TRPG is not a literary endeavor. I asked, on the first page: if it is, then what? if not, then what?

100+ pages later, have you answered my question?

I thought that this was fairly apparent early on when he says that they are a conversational endeavor entailing a back-and-forth between the GM and player contributing to the fiction through their relevant roles. I gleaned this fairly easily from actually reading the OP.

You haven't yet made a concrete, falsification-testable assertion about other than your personal tastes in TRPG.

The meat of his assertion was that it's more important for the functioning of RPGs that information be communicated to players in a manner that informs and engages player agency in the fiction than for GMs to focus on the prosaic quality of the GM narration.

We could also rephrase pemerton's assertion in another way. What hurts the functioning of the game more? The loss of performative literary prosaic narration? Or players not having a sense of how to meaningfully react or contribute to the fiction in a scene as agents?