Is RPGing a literary endeavour?

Maxperson · Jun 4, 2019

Lanefan said:
All of which becomes utterly irrelevant without the answer to this one single most important question: are they GM cows or player cows? (and, if both, how do you tell them apart?)

GM cows are genetically modified of course. Duh!

Bagpuss · Jun 4, 2019

pemerton said:
Some recent threads have discussed aspects of GM and player narration in RPGing. Which hase prompted me to start this thread.

My answer to the question in the thread title is a firm No.

RPGing requires narration: GMs describe situations, and players declare actions for their PCs that respond to those situations.

Considering the number of solo or two player RPGs where the player(s) creates a written document by the end of it, I think your view of what constitutes an RPG is limited, and your answer in my opinion is wrong, but not for that reason alone.

But I don't think the literary quality of that narration is important.

The narration is rarely written down in most games so never becomes literary, no mater the quality or nature of it. However some players keep detailed in character campaign diaries, or GM's produce great texts of campaign lore, all of which has literary quality and value, and is part of an RPG even if not necessary for one.

So my answer to the question "Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?"

It can be, and often involves literary endeavours, but doesn't need to be.

This is how I see RPGs, with their emphasis on participation in the creation of a fiction that is structured through distinct player and GM roles, working. And it's how I see them differening from more directly narrative mediums such as books and films.

There are so many RPGs now that don't have distinct player and GM roles, that I can't agree with that. I agree with the participation in the creation of fiction. I don't think the distinction of roles is what makes RPGs different from other narrative mediums such as books and films. Films have script writers, actors, and directors and other crew with distinct rolls.

I think the main distinction between RPGs and other narrative mediums is the improvisational aspect of it. Even if you have the same scenario and rules system you can run it several different times with different people and get different stories. You could even run it again with the same people and characters (not that you would want to) and you would get a different result.

Ovinomancer · Jun 4, 2019

Maxperson said:
Wow! A False Equivalence and a Strawman at the same time.

First the False Equivalence. Climbing a ladder is not a firefighter function. Their function is to fight fires. It's in the freaking name, so I don't know how you missed it. Climbing ladders is not specific to the profession. Painters use ladders, house owners use ladders, cleaning people use ladders, and so on. Creating scenes in RPGs, playing NPCs in RPGs and resolving scenes in RPGs are some functions specific to GMs, and at least two of those are present in Fiasco and Microscope.

Now the Strawman. It wasn't my reasoning that you used. I said GMs, participants of the games, are labeled GMs because they engage in GM specific activities, not a label for the functions themselves. You applied an incorrect argument to me and then responded to your own fictional argument.

We can agree to disagree, but I was hoping to see if you would succeed in a fallacy hat trick with your next response.

I take it back, Max -- do not explain fallacies, just keep using the titles. While that's a habit that indicates a lack of argumentative ability, better that than to remove doubt. I mean, while building your cases for the fallacies here, you completely missed the thrust of [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s argument and actually helped him land it more solidly. That main thrust was at the gooey, shifting center of your argument where you keep saying the are GM specific functions but are very careful to not list them. You've mistaken sarcasm for fallacy.

At least when you were just tossing fallacy names out one may have imagined you'd followed along. Now, we know you didn't.

Maxperson · Jun 4, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
I take it back, Max -- do not explain fallacies, just keep using the titles. While that's a habit that indicates a lack of argumentative ability, better that than to remove doubt. I mean, while building your cases for the fallacies here, you completely missed the thrust of [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s argument and actually helped him land it more solidly. That main thrust was at the gooey, shifting center of your argument where you keep saying the are GM specific functions but are very careful to not list them. You've mistaken sarcasm for fallacy.

At least when you were just tossing fallacy names out one may have imagined you'd followed along. Now, we know you didn't.

Go troll someone else dude.

Ovinomancer · Jun 4, 2019

Maxperson said:
Go troll someone else dude.

Ah, the Ad Hominem. That /is/ a good one.

Let's try more directly, then: what are the specific GM functions?

pemerton · Jun 4, 2019

Hussar said:
World building, while certainly not limited to the literary, is a primarily story telling element. We don't do world building in a conversation. @pemerton talked about how getting a letter from a relative has a viceral element and it's true, it does. But, that's because it's part of the real world and all the context is built right in. In a second world, you need to create that context for the reader, or, in the case of an RPG, the player. And, you create that context through literary conceits like world building.

uzirath said:
Context is important if you want fictional elements to have emotional resonance. If you're departing from well-known genre territory, you need to build that context into the game so that it becomes familiar. This can be all the GM's job or it can be shared by everyone (collaborative world building).

Well this certainly gets to the heart of it, or to the heart of something at least.

I see two related questions.

(1) Is worldbuilding done, and context established, for the players? That depends on the system and the table. My experience, going back over 30 years to my early years as a GM, is that players are more invested when the context is something that they have a hand in. This can be as simple as PC backstory that establishes a mentor/master.

And this is something that can be done conversationally. For a somewhat formalised/proceduralised version see eg Fate Core, or PtbA games. But informal approaches have been used for a lot longer than those games have been around.

(2) Does establishing context, and the resulting "pull to action", depend on evocative language/wordcraft? Like [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] not too far upthread, I tend to think that it doesn't.

If the context is something that the GM delivers to the players, then maybe evocative language is required to get them to buy in. As I posted early in this thread, I think this makes the success of the enterprise rest on the weaker rather than stronger aspect of the game form (ie it depends on one participant's literary capcity, rather than on the shared generation of fiction which, as I see it, is at the heart of post-dungeoncrawling RPGing).

But when the players help supply the context then I think the emotional investment comes from inside rather than outside (to return to a metaphor I used a while ago upthread).

uzirath said:
I've been thinking about some comments that appeared some pages back (around page 90, I think) regarding the importance of evocative descriptions in the game. Instead of just calling out die rolls and watching the hit points go down, it's helpful to describe the action from the perspective of the characters. I tend to agree with this. As I've mentioned in this thread and others, I play a lot with new players. I've found that the descriptions are usually what hook new people, especially in combat. Missing your attacks repeatedly can be pretty frustrating, so I make a point of describing what happens with each miss. Subsequently, I encourage players to come up with these descriptions. This makes combat much more engaging and seems to help keep people focused. Indeed, some of those descriptions have been memorable enough to become part of the character's lore, talked and laughed about for many sessions afterward.

I tend to prefer a system that helps generate those sorts of descriptions and the resulting memorable events as part-and-parcel of the adjudication and resolution.

In the session of Prince Valiant I GMed on Sunday one of the knight PCs was trying to ride down a fleeing bandit. The player rolled Brawn + Horse + Gear + Riding (about 8 dice, I think) vs the NPC's Brawn + Agility (7 dice?). I got more successes than the player, and narrated the bandit as leaping onto the back of tjhe PC's steed.

This description changed the fictional situation, so that now the contest was the two wrestling for control of the horse. The new dice pools were put together, and another success for the NPC resulted in the PC being pushed from his horse.

One thing I find frustrating about classic D&D combat (ie hit pont depletion) is that it generally doesn't generate descriptions that actually matter to resolution. That's one reason why I took up Rolemaster as my main game for many years - it's quite different from Prince Valiant (!), but also generates desciptions that matter to resolution. I also found 4e D&D to be a departure from classic D&D in this respect, with combat generating fiction that matters to resolution.

Ovinomancer · Jun 4, 2019

Maxperson said:
Since you just laughed at my post, we can all take that to mean that you have no good response to the well reasoned argument I put forth.

This is from another thread, but I think I'll leave it here. For posterity.

[I edited out the mention to a poster not involved in this thread.]

Maxperson · Jun 4, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
This is from another thread, but I think I'll leave it here. For posterity.

Your response wasn't an argument. It was either a trollish attack against me or it was a joke. I chose to laugh at it and respond the way I did in order to cover both bases. Which was it?

Hussar · Jun 4, 2019

pemerton said:
Well this certainly gets to the heart of it, or to the heart of something at least.

I see two related questions.

(1) Is worldbuilding done, and context established, for the players? That depends on the system and the table. My experience, going back over 30 years to my early years as a GM, is that players are more invested when the context is something that they have a hand in. This can be as simple as PC backstory that establishes a mentor/master.

And this is something that can be done conversationally. For a somewhat formalised/proceduralised version see eg Fate Core, or PtbA games. But informal approaches have been used for a lot longer than those games have been around.

(2) Does establishing context, and the resulting "pull to action", depend on evocative language/wordcraft? Like [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] not too far upthread, I tend to think that it doesn't.

If the context is something that the GM delivers to the players, then maybe evocative language is required to get them to buy in. As I posted early in this thread, I think this makes the success of the enterprise rest on the weaker rather than stronger aspect of the game form (ie it depends on one participant's literary capcity, rather than on the shared generation of fiction which, as I see it, is at the heart of post-dungeoncrawling RPGing).

But when the players help supply the context then I think the emotional investment comes from inside rather than outside (to return to a metaphor I used a while ago upthread).
/snip

But, you say it right there - even in games like Fate, you aren't creating context through conversation. Your Aspects aren't simply general conversational points, at least, not if you're doing it right. You tyically create Aspects that are evocative. You aren't just "a butler". You're "an English Butler", to use your example. After all, it's not really the butler part that's driving the character, it's the whole package, which has been boiled down to a trope of "English Butler". And, the reason we can boil it down that far is because, well, all the contextual work has been done for you through literature and various other sources.

Imagine it this way. You are talking about Prince Valiant. Now, try playing that game with someone who has ZERO context for the genre. Has no idea what a knight is, what chivalry is, has virtually no background in European medieval history. And has never even heard of the comic book. How are you going to engage that player? "He wants to steal your horse", "Uh, ok, he takes my horse, what do I care, it's a horse."

You are not going to engage that player internally. You can't because that player has zero context with which to even begin to understand what's going on. The literary is totally required for an RPG simply to get to the point where you can actually play the game. "Um, it's about guys on horses riding around with swords" isn't really going to get the job done.

The problem, I think, is that you, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], are presuming that the player at the table already has all the context he or she needs to play. That is certainly not guaranteed, which is what I showed with the Vengaurak example.

Aldarc · Jun 4, 2019

Hussar said:
And, the reason we can boil it down that far is because, well, all the contextual work has been done for you through literature and various other sources.

Is this not you equivocating again on the meaning of "literature" and "literary"? If we take "literary" to mean "wordcraft" (as per pemerton) then why are you using it to mean "written literature" here? What do you mean by your terms, Hussar? Or is defining terms only a standard you expect from others?

Imagine it this way. You are talking about Prince Valiant. Now, try playing that game with someone who has ZERO context for the genre. Has no idea what a knight is, what chivalry is, has virtually no background in European medieval history. And has never even heard of the comic book. How are you going to engage that player? "He wants to steal your horse", "Uh, ok, he takes my horse, what do I care, it's a horse."

Conversational: "Horses are expensive and one of your status symbols of wealth as a knight. It's as if he stole your Lamborghini that also doubles as a tank in combat."

The problem, I think, is that you, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], are presuming that the player at the table already has all the context he or she needs to play. That is certainly not guaranteed, which is what I showed with the Vengaurak example.

So context can only be intermediated to players through literature?