Is RPGing a literary endeavour?

Riley37 · Jun 14, 2019

pemerton said:
Is anyone seriously suggesting, on the basis of this post, that Hriston thinks that word choice never matters to human conversation? or that rudeness ("being a jerk") can't affect human communication?

Hey, if you have questions about anyone's assertions about who is or isn't a jerk, then please take them up with Ovinomancer, not with me. That's his topic, not mine.

If you want to defend the rigorous factual accuracy of Ovinomancer's assertion "Literally no one in this thread has said otherwise", then good luck with that. I doubt that you'll earn his gratitude; but I've been wrong before.

pemerton said:
Is anyone asserting, on this basis, that speaking loud enough to be heard or choosing the right word to accurately describe something is an aspect of literary quality?

If no one was before, then I am now. Speaking loud enough to be heard, and choosing the right word to accurately describe something, are aspects of literary quality. A poetry reading which fails on either or both of those qualities, will fail as a literary event. Speaking loud enough to be heard is not a relevant quality to *all* literary projects, but it applies to some literary projects; choosing the right word to accurately describe something applies to many and to most literary projects.

pemerton said:
Or in other words, is anyone asserting...

The thing about those different words, is that they form a different assertion, which does not necessarily follow from the previous assertion. Why conflate such different assertions?

My question stands unanswered: is light a particulate endeavor?

This question is a trap. Understandings of light which only consider it as a particle are incomplete. Understandings of light which only consider it as a wave are incomplete.

So far as I can tell from this thread, understandings of RPG which depend on whether the narrative aspects are primary over the framing aspects, or vice versa, are not useful understandings of TRPG.

I've learned from several of the exchanges in this thread. Not because the title by itself is a useful question; but because many people have done their best to bring useful understandings to bear on it.

Maxperson · Jun 14, 2019

lowkey13 said:
That's because it's tagged with Homebrew.

The only homebrew I partake in better get me wicked messed up.

I don't want my homebrew to make me read about exploding toads ... I want my homebrew to make me SEE exploding toads.

*hic*

I hear licking exploding toads can get you there, too.

Ovinomancer · Jun 14, 2019

Riley37 said:
Hey, if you have questions about anyone's assertions about who is or isn't a jerk, then please take them up with Ovinomancer, not with me. That's his topic, not mine.

If you want to defend the rigorous factual accuracy of Ovinomancer's assertion "Literally no one in this thread has said otherwise", then good luck with that. I doubt that you'll earn his gratitude; but I've been wrong before.

In your unseemly haste to get your digital boot in, you seem to have forgotten the context of my remark. Here it is:

Imaro said:
Sooo... Are you agreeing that how content is presented can determine whether people wish to engage with it?

Your saying [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION]'s actually said that how content is presented cannot affect if people wish to engage with that content. It's the only way that you can keep this e-peen wagging contest going. Well, okay, then. Yours is the biggest. Really. None larger.

Manbearcat · Jun 14, 2019

lowkey13 said:
"I can't frame that. There's loads and loads of things you just did that might as well be magic!"

You see where I'm going with this, yes? So when you ascribe positions on the hierarchy, it's necessarily from the position you have now; as you would put it, your aptitude bias.

It is somewhat difficult to fully grok the ways in which you have internalized the techniques you use, and how they impact your game... things that you now think of as merely incidental to framing, but which are both necessary and a predicate.

Since we both watch sports, I will use an analogy- a lot of people enjoy criticizing sports commentators (pick your sport, say, football). But have you ever tried to do it yourself? IT IS INSANELY HARD. Or, just watch an amateur calling a high school game on local access. With reps, and time, people eventually get good at it. They learn when to speak, when not to speak, when to let the images create the drama, and when to fill in space (blowouts, say). After a while it becomes second nature. For many, it is automatic.

And yet, it is there.

Ok, so I understand your position. So I guess I just have a few questions/thoughts:

1) Why can’t Aptitude Bias run the other direction (as so many do); overestimating the importance of a honed Skill-set or natural affinity?

2) In the last several years on these boards, we’ve seen a LOT of instances of people who are articulate, well-read, tenured GMs struggle significantly in one or both of (a) framing interesting scenes that hook into PC dramatic need and (b) evolving the scene dynamically post resolution such that the situation changes and requires a new decision-point to be navigated.

In these cases you saw overwhelmingly (c) people say they had a bad time and (d) the system sucks (rather than taking ownership to get better at a and b).

3) In the last 2 years, I’ve GM-workshopped (say in on games or outright taught) 3 adults and a couple of early teens on Dogs in the Vineyard, Dungeon World, Strike(!), Mouse Guard, and 5e. Only one of them is articulate and comfortable speaking. But we’ve focused on broad scenario design, how to think about interesting scenes that hook into play premise or PC flags, how to be forgiving of yourself and take a moment to ponder as you need to, how to develop shorthand and use note cards as personal cues. None have reported what happened in 2 above outside of the games I’ve sat in on, and the games I’ve sat in on were fun and well-paced despite often quite imperfect exposition. When things didn’t work, we’ve reflected upon it (or they’ve reflected to me) and it’s overwhelmingly something akin to “the idea I had sucked” or “this idea for what happened after x would have been much more exciting.” My guess is you think this is because we focus on that in the workshopping?

4) Do you think Dungeon/Hex design > scene framing/post resolution evolution > skill in exposition/oration all hook into the same bandwidth?

lowkey13 · Jun 14, 2019

*Deleted by user*

Satyrn · Jun 14, 2019

Maxperson said:
I hear licking exploding toads can get you there, too.

That glorious feeling I'm feeling right now? It's not because my local basketball team won a basketball tournament. All my time wasted in this thread had just paid off. I've just struck gold. GOLD! Black and gold chequered, hallucinogenic exploding toads. But it's not just when you lick them. Anyone caught in the explosion must make a Wisdom to avoid tripping out.

The next time my players face goblins is gonna be insane.

lowkey13 · Jun 14, 2019

*Deleted by user*

Riley37 · Jun 15, 2019

Manbearcat said:
Ok, so I understand your position. So I guess I just have a few questions/thoughts:

I sense the presence of some useful angles on the questions at hand. I also can't sort out the meaning of some of your sentences. I'm amused that I'm having this problem, in a conversation which has gone round and round on form versus content. I want to understand your points.

In #2: In how many of those cases, did the GM have a strong track record of success with systems they knew well, then struggle while running another, new-to-them system?

(If that's the issue, then I have further questions about GMs applying fundamentals in familiar systems versus in newly-learned systems.)

In #3: What is GM-workshopping? Does it involve GM A watching GM B prepare a scenario and then watch while GM B runs a table? Is it one-on-one, or a group activity?

In #4: are you using > to mean "greater than", or to mean "and then as subsequent steps in a process", or something else?

Thanks!

Riley37 · Jun 15, 2019

Satyrn said:
The next time my players face goblins is gonna be insane.

DMG has optional rules for Sanity as a stat, for campaigns with Sanity Loss as a horror mechanic (*cough* Call of Cthulhu *cough*). A bad trip could cause Sanity loss.

One of the PCs in my regular group has profiency with alchemy kit and an interest in the mushrooms of the Underdank which includes recreational usage. He's a Light domain cleric, whose go-to offensive action is channel divinity as Radiance of the Dawn. When he's been eating those particular mushrooms, Radiance might also be a dazzling, trippy light show. We've speculated on whether he could craft a spell which imposes hallucinogenic intoxication on others across an area, "Mass Chill Out", sort of a combination of Calm Emotions with Hypnotic Pattern.

You've now given me the idea of secondary explosions - that is, once one person starts tripping, that person then relays a psychic splash effect onto others nearby, possibly with ripple effects to tertiary and quaternary targets.

pemerton · Jun 15, 2019

[MENTION=6786839]Riley37[/MENTION], you didn't answer my question as to what you think it adds to the thread to insist that [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] said something that he didn't, on the basis of attributing a meaning to his words that they were not intended to bear, and which no reasonable reader of them in the context of their production would impute to them.

As to your question about light, light isn't an endeavour of any sort. It's a natural phenomenon. Unlike RPGing, which is an endeavour; and which is framed in the OP as an aesthetic endeavour (subsequent posts have noted classic dungeoncrawling as an exception; as best I recall no poster has disputed that framing or the exception), and which therefre has goals and features that contribute to quality, success, etc.

Unlike the case of light, it's therefore not a category error to ask whether RPGing is literary endeavour, any more than it would be a category error to ask whether theatre or film-making is a literary endeavour, and whether the qualities that make for good theatre or cinema are essentially literary qualities.

On speaking loud enough to be heard: of course if one can't be heard at the recital, it will not succeed. That doesn't make adequacy of volume a literary quality. If it rains and the noise of the rain on the roof drowns out the speaker, or the roof leaks and the audience all leave as a result, that will also cause the event to fail; but that doesn't make architecture or roofing a literary quality.

The general points are (1) that not all necessary or faclititive conditions for the success of a literary endeavour are, in virtue of that, lliteary qualities; and (2) that not all necessary or facilitative conditions for a successful RPGing session pertain to the character of RPGing as an aesthetic endeavour. And - as per my example of mathematics teaching not far upthread - the converse is true, also. Teaching mathematics doesn't become a literary endeavour just because doing it well requires thinking about words in something like the way a writer might. RPGing can be more fun with snacks; that doesn't make RPGing a culinary endeavour.

Anyone who thinks that RPGing is sui generis as an aesthetic activity of necessity agrees with the "no" answer in the OP, although perhaps not for the same reasons.