Is RPGing a literary endeavour?

Maxperson · May 25, 2019

hawkeyefan said:
Yes exactly. People have asked exactly that and then have had conversations about commitment versus raw talent, or offensive capability versus fielding, and so on. What you don’t tend to see is people getting hung up on what the definition of “important” is, or dodging the question by saying “all factors are important”.

So it's not a dodge, and I have seen exactly that.

Maxperson · May 25, 2019

hawkeyefan said:
I’d like to introduce you to a guy that goes by @Bedrokegames!

LOL He has said he doesn't want dull descriptions, so he also cares about the narrative literary quality. It's just not the most important thing for him, or even very high up on the list it seems.

More seriously, this is where you are creating the false dichotomy. No one is saying that description and embellishment have no place, just that they find another element of GMing more central to satisfying gaming.

It's not a dichotomy of any sort, false or otherwise. Narrative literary quality is a part of description. I've never said it was one or the other, and suggesting that I have is just plain incorrect.

Which would you say would be more likely to succeed? If you were a player in a game, and it was going to wind up being lacking in one area or the other, what would you prefer? Evocative presentation of dull material, or dull presentation of interesting material?

As I said before, more than once, they are roughly equal. There's no way for me to answer that. I suppose if I had to give an answer under some scenario where it came up, I'd just flip a coin.

So you agree it’s a scale?

For at least the 10th time, yes. The scale of literary goes from a grocery list on up to Shakespeare.

Maxperson · May 25, 2019

Hriston said:
I can’t be sure, but you seem to be using being literary to mean something like using language.

What is literary is immensely broad. That's why it's broken up into so many sub-categories.

Even if I accept that usage, however, I still can’t make out how it’s important that the GM and players use language if they aren’t required to make a conscious effort to do so.

It takes me virtually no effort to describe an orc. It would take me a lot of effort to embellish the description with a lot of adjectives and details for an individual orc.

hawkeyefan · May 25, 2019

Maxperson said:
I depends on the group I suppose.

"There's a man in the room" is enough to evoke a player response. Including the eyepatch as part of the presentation is even better. A more detailed description of the things about him that are immediately obvious would be better still.

Presentation and content are roughly equal.

Okay....let’s continue with our one eyed brother killer example. The player made a character whose goal is to find his brother’s killer, the one eyed man.

GM 1 gives that player this bit of narration:
“The Great Northern road has been little more than a muddy trail for the past two days. The rain’s been incessant, varying only between total downpour and deluge. Finally, as night begins to take hold, you see firelight in the distance. You head towards it and are relieved to find it’s an inn and tavern. There’s a sign swinging wildly above the door, it reads ‘The Whispering Eye Inn’.

“You make your way inside. A small bell rings when you open the door. The small common room is packed with travelers seeking shelter. They look up at you with uninterested expressions, before turning back to their drinks. You remove your sodden cloaks, hanging them on a row of pegs along the wall beside the door. Immediately, the warmth from the large fireplace across the room hits you. You’d nearly forgotten what warmth was.

“The tables are all full, so you make your way to the only available seats, a pair of stools by the bar. As you cross the room, a redheaded serving girl emerges from the kitchen with a tray full of bowls, and a delicious smell wafts your way. From behind the bar, a bald man of middling years and a red beard smiles at you and gestures toward the stools. ‘Come in and warm yourselves, friends. What you smelled is my old marm’s beef and apple stew. I’ll have Tansy fetch you each a bowl. It’ll warm your bones.’ He looks at each of you, his eyes taking note of your gear, but he does not react in any way. He nods as you sit and then asks ‘Wine or ale, friends?’

“Soon enough you’ve a drink in hand and a bowl of stew before you, and you think your clothes may actually be less wet than they were. The bell rings, and heads turn to see who’s entering. The tall man removes his wide brimmed hat, revealing long dark hair. He shakes the rain from his hat with a look of contempt. He then eyes the wall pegs reluctantly before finally hanging his hat and cloak on one of the hooks. He moves with an economy of motion that you recognize as that of a fighting man, and indeed, a finely crafted sword hangs at his hip. One hand comes to rest on the pommel as his gaze sweeps across the room. Again, his lip curls dismissively. Wiping rain from his face, he makes his way into the room. You feel like perhaps you know this man, but you can’t say why.“

Now, GM 2 gives that player this bit of narration:
“You’re all seated at the bar of the Whispering Eye Tavern. It’s raining heavily outside. The common room is a bit crowded with folks taking shelter from the rain. The front door swings open, and in walks a man. He’s wearing an eyepatch.”

Which of these do you think will engage the player more?

hawkeyefan · May 25, 2019

Hussar said:
Really? So, you think there is a correct answer to what makes a good baseball player? An answer that everyone will agree with? Seriously? You honestly think the answer isn't "all of the above"?

Or, better yet, what makes a good movie? or a good book? Or a good pretty much anything.

I think there are many answers to those questions, yeah. I don’t know if they’re “correct” because it’s all a matter of opinion. And no, I don’t expect people to agree, but I’d like to hear their opinions.

The answer “all of the above” may be true. But it’s boring. Pick something and discuss.

Hriston · May 25, 2019

Maxperson said:
What is literary is immensely broad. That's why it's broken up into so many sub-categories.

It takes me virtually no effort to describe an orc. It would take me a lot of effort to embellish the description with a lot of adjectives and details for an individual orc.

If we define describing things as a literary endeavor, then yes, RPGing is a literary endeavor because, as it says in the OP, it requires describing things. What I don’t get about what you said in your last post to which I responded is how you describe an orc without being conscious that you’re describing an orc.

pemerton · May 25, 2019

Aldarc said:
I'm not sure if using some of these techniques are core to running a game. When I look at early D&D, for example, these things do not really seem all that prevalent at all. The dungeon crawl is often regarded as the quintessential TTRPG experience (at least per its most popular system: i.e., D&D), but that mode has minimal integration of these techniques (apart from the historical veneer of Euro-medieval aesthetics). It's more of a puzzle game than narrative storytelling. And this is something even that the OSR movement has lifted up and run with as a lauded feature of "old school" TTRPGs. It's part of the talking OSR points about "challenging the player and not the character." It's behind the repeated mantra of D&D being about "killing monsters and looting their stuff." This is not to say that you can't use some of these techniques in your game or can't have them inform your storytelling or play preferences; however, I don't necessarily think that these are inherently core to running a TTRPG game.

At the risk of further controversy, I'll take up where you left off.

One central feature of the D&D-as-wargame experience is that the player plays a single figure. This obviously creates some sort of invitation to performance ("playing out my guy"), protagonism etc. I wasn't playing in the mid-70s, but between reading around a bit and looking at some of the products that get published in the late 70s (eg RQ, C&S, Traveller) it's clear that some sort of move towards character and "story" was happening in some parts of the hobby.

Dragonlance seems as good a thing as any to point to for the mainstreaming of this idea, and I think by the time AD&D 2nd ed is published in the late 80s, followed by the White Wolf break-out, the connection between RPGing and character/story has become a pretty solid one.

The question of how to make RPGing work as "story" turned out to be a hard one to answer. I think that the idea of literary performance - the GM narrating his/her heart out, the players doing their best to perform their characters - is one (broadly described) path that's been taken up. A focus on situation and protagonism is a different path, and the one that I am putting forward in this thread.

pemerton · May 25, 2019

Hussar said:
that excludes vast swaths - LARPing, more story oriented gaming, etc - of the hobby

I've got no idea where this comes from. As far as I know I'm the only Prince Valiant player who posts on these boards; am the only Cthulhu Dark player who posts on these boards; have played more Burning Wheel than most posters on these boards; am one of the relatively few posters whose primary point of reference for RPGing is not some version of D&D.

Hussar said:
I'm not "excluding" story-oriented gaming. I'm analysing it, and contrasting it with pseudo-"story" RPGing of the sort advocated by (say) the 2nd ed AD&D books.

It's no different than the folks that insist that Edition X isn't really a Role Playing Game. It's self serving twaddle and borderline trolling. And, frankly, I'm being to suspect that it was done with a complete disregard to good faith.

I don't think anyone could say that I don't make my views and preferences clear.

Do you have this sort of view about criticism in general, or is it only RPGs that you think ought not to be discussed in such terms?

Hussar said:
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is attempting this reductionist argument that one thing and one thing only matters to running a good game. I reject such notions. Running a game, just like anything else, is complicated and requires many factors.

I like this better - straightfoward disagreement!

All I would add is that one person's "reduction" is another's "clearing away the cruft"!

Hussar · May 25, 2019

I guess, at the end of the day, I'm just not seeing the division. If the DM and players are narrating their hearts out/doing their best to perform their characters, then protagonism is going to happen automatically. You can't perform your character without becoming the protagonist. It's just not possible. Conversely, you can't protagonize (to again, badly abuse the English language) your character without performing your character.

Protagonism without performance is what we do in board games, not RPG's.

Bedrockgames · May 25, 2019

Maxperson said:
LOL He has said he doesn't want dull descriptions, so he also cares about the narrative literary quality. It's just not the most important thing for him, or even very high up on the list it seems.
.

narrative literary quality does not equal not dull. In fact, something having too much literary quality, in my experience, can add to its dullness. Either way, you are attributing positions to me I haven't taken, because you can't conceive of someone running a game differently than you do. It is about the level of narration. I am not interested in presenting to players as though all my lines are boxed text or lofty examples of play. I speak very casually. And I don't see myself as a narrator or author. I see myself as a facilitator. Doesn't mean I don't describe things. But based on what you and Hussar have offered as examples of what you find compelling....that just isn't how I communicate with my players.