Is RPGing a literary endeavour?

Bedrockgames · Jun 10, 2019

Hussar said:
But, at that point, why not just eschew all description? After all, the player has zero idea what a githyanki is, so, Generic Monster X has just as much heft. "You enter a room with monsters" should be just as good as "You enter a room with orcs" since all the background (what I'm lumping into literary anyway) doesn't matter.

I think you can go either way here. If players know what a Githyanki is, then saying 'it is a Githyanki', gets to the point really fast. If they don't know what it is, describing it in more detail is the better way to go. I want to be clear here that this isn't about avoiding descriptions, at least not for me. I do describe things. It is just I don't approach my descriptions like I am author writing a book or a dramatic narrator. I approach them like I would how I'd describe things if I was telling you about something that happened to me that day. I use a lot of colloquial language in my descriptions for example.

hawkeyefan · Jun 10, 2019

Hussar said:
But, at that point, why not just eschew all description? After all, the player has zero idea what a githyanki is, so, Generic Monster X has just as much heft. "You enter a room with monsters" should be just as good as "You enter a room with orcs" since all the background (what I'm lumping into literary anyway) doesn't matter.

I don’t think anyone’s advocating for no description. But in an instance where players and their characters have no knowledge of the creature beyond what they can see, I think it makes sense to describe only what they see. No need to talk about the astral plane and lich queens and former servitude to mind flayers and all that lore. Save that info for when it makes sense to reveal it.

But, after characters and their players have grown familiar with the githyanki, then I think it makes total sense to just refer to them by name rather than describing them every time. Especially when something is happening that demands action by the characters. Why bog it down with more detail than needed?

“The yellow skinned creature charges you, its sword raised! What do you do?”

I’d think that the immediacy of the situation should dictate the pacing. If the player stopped to ask more questions...”What is it wearing?” I’d very likely say something like “Armor of some sort, but you can’t really tell. It’s almost upon you. What do you do?”

All this to say that the level of description to be offered is dependent upon the situation, the familiarity the players have with the content, and so on.

Imaro · Jun 10, 2019

pemerton said:
If the village in the Marvel game is a small, remote, sinister mountain village in (say) Latveria, then probably yes.

I addressed this... it's not a "sinister" village

pemerton said:
I use the words I need to describe the situation. These will depend on mood, whim, what has previously been said, what seems to matter in the current situation, etc, as well as (obviously) upon what I want to describe. That is to say, the words I use will depend on all the normal determinants of spontaneous human communication.

I don't feel like this is right... in conversation we rarely are consciously choosing our words it's more a stream of conscious effort (which is why people often put their foot in their mouth or have to correct/explain what they actually meant)... while in this situation you are consciously selecting certain words to emphasize a mood, theme, etc.

Manbearcat · Jun 10, 2019

pemerton said:
Why not?

This take me, at least, back to some of the points @Manbearcat was making fairly early in this thread. If I'm going to use a qallupilluit in my game, I will want to establish a situation which gives it some sort of heft or significance. There are very many ways of doing that (and obviously RPG system will have a significant impact, on top of system-independent techniques). In my experience, an elaborate or literary description isn't one of them.

If the sudden appearance of a terrifying hag from under the pack ice isn't - for whatever of innumerable possible reasons - going to engage the players, why would, or should, piling on the evocative words make a difference?

So the Qallupilluit is quintessential bogeyman mythology.

For bogeyman mythology to be thematically potent, it has to have some way to hook into the PC's childhood or folklore, otherwise, its just another creepy monster.

So this is actually the perfect example where a GM's deftness of framing is hierarchically the apex currency in the purchase of a great gaming moment.

"Your little sister was lost so many years ago but your mother's words echo in your mind nonetheless; 'look after her while we're gone or the Qallupilluit will take her.' The frozen forest gives way to clearing. The babe's soft cries give way to gentle parting water. A mask of sharp teeth and oily hair disappear with it."

Imaro · Jun 10, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
However, I think horror is fairly exceptional as genres go, and one of the hardest to do well. I don't think you should build general rules about what is good for gaming around that one genre (because while word choice can matter in a session of Ravenloft, it definitely isn't going to be as important in my wuxia or fantasy RPG sessions).

Okay I find this interesting... so if you're playing grim and gritty fanatasy say Zweihander or Warhammer you don't use different descriptive elements in your narration/"conversation" vs. say a Lord of the Rings-esque high fantasy game? If you're playing Dark Sun it gets the same treatment/presentation/descriptive elements and narrative content as Ravenloft or Dragonlance? You're telling me the description of say a village in the mountains is the same in all fantasy genres?

Imaro · Jun 10, 2019

Manbearcat said:
So the Qallupilluit is quintessential bogeyman mythology.

For bogeyman mythology to be thematically potent, it has to have some way to hook into the PC's childhood or folklore, otherwise, its just another creepy monster.

So this is actually the perfect example where a GM's deftness of framing is hierarchically the apex currency in the purchase of a great gaming moment.

"Your little sister was lost so many years ago but your mother's words echo in your mind nonetheless; 'look after her while we're gone or the Qallupilluit will take her.' The frozen forest gives way to clearing. The babe's soft cries give way to gentle parting water. A mask of sharp teeth and oily hair disappear with it."

But do you consider this conversational or a constructed narrative?

Manbearcat · Jun 10, 2019

Imaro said:
But do you consider this conversational or a constructed narrative?

I haven't been following this thread.

I'm assuming the above contrast or dichotomy you're trying to draw is something essential to this thread?

But if you're looking for an answer (insofar as I'm even remotely capable of inferring what you're looking for from this scant bit)...how about...

Probably both?

It seems to me that if a bogeyman creature of folklore with specific thematic focus is going to be injected into the fiction of play, then it follows that one or more character is going to have some relevant ties to the premise of that folklore (Belief, Relationship, etc) to be addressed through play.

So the foundation of that narrative would have been built long ago and led up to that point of play.

And all play is fundamentally conversation; an endless loop of declarative/question > response (which will take the form of another declarative/question). You literally cannot have TTRPGing without conversation?

lowkey13 · Jun 10, 2019

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Imaro · Jun 10, 2019

Manbearcat said:
I haven't been following this thread.

I'm assuming the above contrast or dichotomy you're trying to draw is something essential to this thread?

But if you're looking for an answer (insofar as I'm even remotely capable of inferring what you're looking for from this scant bit)...how about...

Sorry about that I assumed... Not necessarily a dichotomy but A contrast comparison between running games in a conversational-esque narrative ( How you would speak to someone if you were having a everyday conversation with them) vs a more constructed or structured narrative (Planned descriptions, word usage, structure or whatever else to evoke emotions, mood, atmosphere, etc.)

Manbearcat said:
And all play is fundamentally conversation; an endless loop of declarative/question > response (which will take the form of another declarative/question). You literally cannot have TTRPGing without conversation?

I agree with all of this the question is around the structure of said conversation.

hawkeyefan · Jun 10, 2019

Riley37 said:
I was at first baffled at the thread's emphasis on GM narration and apparent disregard of player narration. Either one can be literary. The emphasis makes sense only insofar as the GM has a task, informing player agency and resolving action declarations, which the GM can *neglect* if the GM excessively allocates limited resources towards florid narration.

I thought of the game ZORK from the 1980s, and similar games. The narration ranges from spare to florid, from "You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door", to the description of the grue as a "sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth". The game's interactive parser can only understand simple, spare player action declarations, such as (GO) NORTH, SEARCH MAILBOX or HIT TROLL WITH SWORD.

When humans sit at a table with each other, I prefer a player whose responses include "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead!", over a player whose responses are limited to the spareness of GO NORTH or HIT TROLL WITH SWORD. Going out on a limb: when the literary aspect of a TRPG session reaches excellence, player contributions are often - always? - part of that excellence..

Though not *only* with florid language, since florid vocabulary is not the *only* literary device, it's just an easy device for us to vary in this thread for the purpose of quickly demonstrating different points on the spectrum of literary versus conversational.

I wanted to revisit this post from a few pages back because I think the nature of the GM role would obviously take focus in a discussion of narration. But looking at player narration may shed some light on the subject.

I’d start off by pointing out that the game being played is a huge factor here. What the players are allowed to narrate affects how much narration is necessary and acceptable.

Having said that, generally speaking, I find high levels of player narration to be annoying. I don’t mind a bit, and I certainly like when players are engaged and talking about the situation. But when it’s a player’s turn and they start in with something like “Recalling his days on the high plains of Valinor, the stoic ranger Aspar presses on, undaunted by the challenges ahead....” I want to smash my head into the table. It just often seems so self indulgent. There’s a time and place for incorporating backstory, you don’t need to jam it in at every chance. Especially when other people are waiting to take their turn, too.

I’m curious how others feel about the player side, and if there’s a difference in how people stand from GM to player narration.

Is RPGing a literary endeavour?

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