Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?

I tend to take a pretty negative view of the player who "just plays himself as a dwarf" (or whatever). To me, this player is a giant black hole sucking all the life and enjoyment out of the group, contributing next to nothing.

Now, before anyone jumps up and down, I'm certainly fine with making allowances - a new player for example who just hasn't really gotten into a character. Fair enough. Hopefully once that new player sees how much fun the rest of us are having, they'll join in and contribute.

But that player whose presence at the table is so lacking that even basic elements of the character are completely absent? Yeah, good riddance. The race thing might be a personal pet peeve of mine, but, by the same token, generally players who cannot be bothered presenting a character's race probably aren't contributing to the game in a host of other ways as well.

I'm just so sick and tired of passive players who figure that the DM will roll up the plot wagon and spoon feed them content so that they can sit back and consume without ever bothering to contribute anything positive to the game. IOW, a dice bot with a heart beat reacting without ever actually being proactive.

Sorry, got off on a little rant there.

Hussar said:

Hrm, so, your Butler player never references anything? Zero description. We're supposed to guess that he's a butler and proper English Gentleman by the fact that he does what exactly? The player never attempts to sound like a butler or English for that matter? Never tries to affect a different diction? Nothing? His responses in no way give any clue about what he is?

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I don't know what you have in mind by never references anything.

We're playing a RPG. So there is a lot of talking. Exchanges between participants are the main currency of play. Action declarations are spoken. The player describes what his character is doing. I would hope it's obvious that, in denying that RPGing is a literary endeavour characterised by performance, I am not asserting that it doesn't involve talking. This is why I've repeatedly stated that not all talking, and not all communication, is performance or literary in the salient sense.

But no, the player of the butler did not try and affect an English accent. He has a fairly broad Australian accent.

But we could tell he was English - eg he took steps to avoid interaction with or dependence on dubious Contintental types. We could tell he was proper - he called the police on suspected thieves, and tried to uphold the reputation of the master of his house. When he declared his actions and framed the motivations behind them and his intentions for them, this was in terms of ensuring the welfare of his master's house, so he could keep his position.

Hussar said:

Put it another way. Two players choose English Gentleman and Butler for their descriptors. According to you folks both characters should be indistinguishable from each other.

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This is an obvious non-sequitur.

There is more than one way of declaring actions that reveal that a character is a butler, or a knight, or an Englishman, or a dwarf. There is more than one set of motivations and goals available for such characters.

But this has nothing to do with performance. You don't need to engage in theatrics of any sort in orderd to reveal your PC's motivations, to reveal his/her goals, to reveal his/her capacities.

Hussar said:

I'm just so sick and tired of passive players who figure that the DM will roll up the plot wagon and spoon feed them content so that they can sit back and consume without ever bothering to contribute anything positive to the game.

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I have no idea what the bolded bit has to do with the topic of this thread.

What players contribute to the game is protagonism. Which in a RPG primarily takes the form of action declaration (though I think I have a thicker notion of action declaration than some other posters on these boards). Perhaps I've misunderstood something - but I've repeatedly posted about the centrality of action declaration on the players' side of RPGing, and you've said nothing about it. That's giving me the impression that you think it doesn't matter.

And consistently with this, I see your account of the player function - as best I'm making sense of it - as being most appropriate for "plot wagon"/railroad-y games, where the player doesn't have anything to contribute in terms of action declaration (because this is all pre-configured in the GM's pre-established plot) and so what the player contributes instead is characterisation that doesn't actually make a difference to how things unfold in the game.

As I said, perhaps I've misunderstood something.

EDIT:

Hussar said:

a dice bot with a heart beat reacting without ever actually being proactive

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See, I don't see what "proactivity" has to do with "performance". The player of the butler in the game I mentioned was proactive. How does the diction/accent of his play of his character even bear on that?

And as far as "dice bots with heart beats" are concerned, who is deciding what actions they are performing? You call for player proactivity, but I'm not seeing any account of protagonism in what you're describing. I'm seeing players who talk about their dwarves grooming their beards, but that's not protagonism. Where are the players who have their characters striking off to the mountains to recover their lost treasures from dragons? That's how we know a player is playing a dwarf!

Hussar said:

I tend to take a pretty negative view of the player who "just plays himself as a dwarf" (or whatever). To me, this player is a giant black hole sucking all the life and enjoyment out of the group, contributing next to nothing.

Now, before anyone jumps up and down, I'm certainly fine with making allowances - a new player for example who just hasn't really gotten into a character. Fair enough. Hopefully once that new player sees how much fun the rest of us are having, they'll join in and contribute.

But that player whose presence at the table is so lacking that even basic elements of the character are completely absent? Yeah, good riddance. The race thing might be a personal pet peeve of mine, but, by the same token, generally players who cannot be bothered presenting a character's race probably aren't contributing to the game in a host of other ways as well.

I'm just so sick and tired of passive players who figure that the DM will roll up the plot wagon and spoon feed them content so that they can sit back and consume without ever bothering to contribute anything positive to the game. IOW, a dice bot with a heart beat reacting without ever actually being proactive.

Sorry, got off on a little rant there.

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But this is because you prioritize performance in the sense of theatrics. Plenty of people don't care about that at all, or don't care about to the degree that you do. I will be honest, I don't like playing iw th people who express your preference. I find it just as frustrating and annoying as you find someone who just plays themselves as a dwarf. I've had multiple bad experiences with players who judge the performance of others by a standard that to me, just seems too rooted in improv than gaming. On the other hand, I've had countless hours of fun with players who just play themselves as a dwarf (or elf or halfling).

But again, I think this lens of performance that is clearly your play priority, is impacting the discussion about categories and terms and this is why Pemerton and I are so reluctant to adopt the division being proposed (it is clearly and visibly an extension of this preference).

Hussar said:

Whoa, hang on. No one is saying color is the only thing. We are saying that color is just as important as content. There's a significant difference.

Or, put it another way, content bereft of color is tasteless.

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But your whole notion of what constitutes color, and what constitutes good color, is completely at odds with my notion. That is the crux of the problem here. And again I just don't buy into this Content/Presentation-performance distinction people are making. It hasn't been demonstrated to be a real distinction and it hasn't been shown by anyone to be useful for anything other than this discussion.

And you are prioritizing color and performance to the extent that it seems to be your primary consideration.

Also how are color and content not able to be the same thing? Plenty of prepared material contains color. It is one thing to say the game is divided into content and presentation. That is already a muddy distinction. Is boxed text content or color? Is an NPC personality description content or color?

Hussar said:

I'm just so sick and tired of passive players who figure that the DM will roll up the plot wagon and spoon feed them content so that they can sit back and consume without ever bothering to contribute anything positive to the game. IOW, a dice bot with a heart beat reacting without ever actually being proactive.

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Playing yourself has nothing to do with being a dice bot or not being pro-active. I've said repeatedly I want players to be enthusiastic and engaged. That is different from them playing their dwarf with the mindset of an improv actor. They are still talking actions, still able to talk in first person, still doing things that move the campaign forward, etc. You are stuck on this idea that if you are not acting then you are not active. That just isn't true.

Hussar said:

Good grief [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION], how many times do you need it explained? I KNOW, since you've entered this thread, I've explained the points pretty clearly at least twice. Now, you might disagree with the points, fair enough, but, complaining that you're not understanding it because no one is taking the time to explain it seems a bit disingenuous.

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I am not the one who keeps bringing this point up. You guys keep raising it. I barely even remember the initial exchange that led to this, nor do I particularly care about. But if people are going to accuse me of not understanding their posts, and then imply it is because I am an idiot who can't read a full thread of posts, I am going to respond. If you find my posts frustrating, then maybe be a tad more polite.

Maxperson said:

The humor is just that, humor. It's not ridicule lobbed your way or any other way. Some of it is a bit of ribbing.

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I come from the land of busting chops. This isn’t busting chops. This is the territory of being insulting. And most people don’t take bring insulted sitting down.

Bedrockgames said:

I come from the land of busting chops. This isn’t busting chops. This is the territory of being insulting. And most people don’t take bring insulted sitting down.

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Except not. I know for a fact that all I'm doing is having some fun, and not even all of it has to do with you at all, and what does is just ribbing. No insults at all. If you are feeling insulted, then you are seeing insult where there isn't any. [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION] is one of the nicest people here, so I'm certain that she is also just having some fun with a bit of ribbing. [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] I'm not as certain about, but he has a similar humor to mine, so I think he is probably doing the same as [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION] and I.

Maxperson said:

Except not. I know for a fact that all I'm doing is having some fun, and not even all of it has to do with you at all, and what does is just ribbing. No insults at all. If you are feeling insulted, then you are seeing insult where there isn't any. [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION] is one of the nicest people here, so I'm certain that she is also just having some fun with a bit of ribbing. [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] I'm not as certain about, but he has a similar humor to mine, so I think he is probably doing the same as [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION] and I.

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I don’t know how you can read lowkeys or the other posters responses and not take it as being insulting. Sorry but none of this is coming across as humor to me.