A discussion of forms.

[RangerWickett]

I just skimmed a book called The Writer's Life, and the author at one point suggested that books should not try to be like movies, nor movies like books.

Movies are huge sensory spectacles that dazzle you - people are huge on the screen, sounds are coming from all around you in great volume, colors are vivid, and images are the primary form of storytelling.

Books, on the other hand, are literary - they are subtle, appealing best to your interior senses like morality and emotion, and they consist of imaginary sounds and events. In books, it is the interaction of words with your psyche that impresses the reader.

Now, books and movies that are well received usually employ the elements that those forms seem best suited to. Blockbuster movies are gloriously visual and auditory explosions, and literary novels and fiction slowly interact with the reader's emotions and intellect in an effort to engage his mind and keep him thinking.

Of course there are exceptions. Playing with forms encourages the artist - writer or movie-maker - to put more thought into their work. Whether the form-playing actually helps the movie or not, the extra thought certainly does.

I'm not saying that all books or movies ought to be one way or the other, but certainly the form of writing lends itself to certain storytelling techniques that movie-making does not.

What does the form of roleplaying work best with? Obviously you want to involve the playing of roles in some way. Regardless of game system, genre, or style, everyone in an RPG should have a character, and should be encouraged to play the character, to 'get into character.' I don't have time to type the rest of my thoughts right now, but I'd like to discuss what elements of storytelling can take advantage of the roleplaying form best, what options or advantages roleplaying has that other forms don't, and what roleplaying should really not try to do.

I look forward to the discussion. Indeed, I demand it.

 

[MonsterMash]

I suppose to kick things off I'd see roleplaying as being like a form of participatory semi-improvised theatre as it allows for individual participants to act in a precreated scenario or setting (hence the semi-improvised), with the theatrical element coming from the acting (role-playing).

 

[argo]

In my games I try to hang the RPG experience on two points. Dialogue and a Sense of Living History.

Dialogue is crucial because it is really the primary way in which players relate to each other and the gameworld. You can show people a stat block, draw maps and place minis on them and you can describe at length the scene and setting taking place but all those things are badly out of focus. It takes two minutes for me to describe all the detail a character should see in two seconds and minis on a grid (much as I love them) are too crude to represent the dynamic nature of a living world. But dialogue, that is the one thing that happens as it really happens so the players can interact with the npc's just as their characters are. Consequently, if dialogue is the most important medium of interaction then characterization becomes the most important form for RPG's. Characterization can be handled almost exclusevly throught dialogue and it is by way of characterization that the DM can introduce both dazzling spectale and subtle appeals to your interior senses. By that I mean that it is easy for the players to conjure up an image of the good king seeking out the evil warlord for single combat on the field of battle (all those adjectives are characterization) so they can see the spectale in their mind's eye; but it can also appeal to their psyche if the players know that the evil warlord is the bastard son of the good king who in turn regrets the hostility his lost son feels towards him (and the players know all this because they talked to the people involved of course). This form, the ability to speak with other characters when you do not know or control what they will say, is one of the most uinque traits of roleplaying (other artforms being inherently more passive).

The other crucial point is a Sense of Living History. By that I don't mean the conceit that the players can "change the gameworld" that many DM's I know strive for. A gameworld is just a toy that disapears once you put it away. No, what I mean is those moments in game where somebody does something so absouetly stunningly cool that everyone else just stops to take notice: the ranger uses a hero point to buy himself an extra turn which he then uses to stuff a vial of alchemist's fire in the lich's decapitated head and drop kick the head across the riverbank, the swashbuckling pirate who has just been taken down to 0 HP uses his last action to throw his only remaining weapon, a broadsword, accross the room to imbed it in the wicked sorcorer's chest, a wrestling match on the deck of a ship takes both combatants over the side and they continue fighting even as they sink to the bottom of the river, a thief scales a tower wall with his sword in his teeth, a monk leaps across a canyon. The moments when everybody at the table stops and says COOL! while thinking in the back of their head that they will remember this story ten years from now. That group participation, where you are showing off for your friends as well as cheering them to success, is the second unique form of RPG's; you are making something with friends that will never be repeated but will be remembered. Living History.

Anyway, those are the two traits of RPG's that I think are it's unique "forms". Just MHO.

Later.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

What does the form of roleplaying work best with? Obviously you want to involve the playing of roles in some way.

It works best as group storytelling. It's its own art form, reflective of books and movies and theater in the round and improv. Take a little of each, add a dash of history and myth, stir, and voila!

Good questions by the way!

 

[shilsen]

It works best as group storytelling. It's its own art form, reflective of books and movies and theater in the round and improv. Take a little of each, add a dash of history and myth, stir, and voila!

Good questions by the way!

I think that's a decent description. The big thing that separates roleplaying from books and movies is that roleplaying is improvisational, whereas even the most innovative of books and movies are essentially finished products with a fixed form.

There's also a sense in which roleplaying resembles sports more than books/movies, i.e. the fact that roleplaying games usually have a system of rules which they adhere to.

All in all, I think your words "its own art form" describes it best.

 

[arwink]

All in all, I think your words "its own art form" describes it best.

Agreed. About a year ago I started a thesis looking at the way narrative worked in gaming, and it quickly became apparent that using the frameworks for other narrative forms and applying them to gaming wasn't really all that useful. It's a storytelling genre unto itself, and a fairly significant chunk of the work I'm doing is going to be based on defining the framework for looking at games.

Personally, I think the principle thing that guides gaming is the sense of engagement and almost control - even though various games imitate the storytelling styles of other narrative genres, they're careful to put some kind of control and active engagement in the hands of the players. It's why we have the kind of discussions abour railroading and other factors of adventure design that we do.

(As a side note, there are games where railroading tends to work - Feng Shui for example - but they do so through the simple expedient of trading a little less narrative leeway with a little more control over other factors. After all, when you're replicating an action film is it more fun to work out the story or to be the guy designing the really cool stunts and action sequences?)

Basically, I think games work best when they target the appeal of the genre they're immitating and give the players some control over that. Early gaming immitated board and war games, so we have levels and dungeons and defeating the monsters as a goal and rules revolving around those. As time goes on, there have been subtle changes in the way we approach this (as a general rule, I think taking 20 is one of the best rules I can think of for contructing a DnD adventure with a more narrative focus).

 

[RangerWickett]

The points I've read so far that I like best are:

• Dialogue is one of the strongest storytelling tools for RPGs, because dialogue one of the few ways action in the game matches action in the story, time-wise. Players should practice their dialogue skills to improve the gameplay experience.
• This is a game, so chance and options are key. There should be a limited sense of what is the 'best' way to go about a situation, since you are trying to win, though winning of course takes a lot of forms. You're not watching a movie or reading a book; you should have the opportunity to change the way things turn out, and how well you do depends on how skilled you are at playing the game.
• RPGs encourage improvisation, not perfection. Don't try to do something again to get it right. I'm sure there are odd exceptions, and I know I myself have tried to reintroduce characters who didn't work the first time, taking a different angle. But because player choice is important, undoing their actions is bad. Never say, "That never happened; let's start over."

Any other comments on the topic of the basics of roleplaying?

I'd like now to move on to discussing different genres in RPGs, and what tools of gaming should be used, and in which ways, to achieve the feel of each genre. Horror, heroism, action, drama, mystery, comedy, romance.

 

[S'mon]

I guess tabletop RPGs are a lot like theatre (or radio plays with a narrator), while PBEMs feel very literary - many literary genres I think can be done better in PBEM play than in a tabletop game.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

The author seems to know what he is talking about. You can't have a game go like a movie or a book or a comic as there is one or two writers who control everything. The bad guy misses at the last moment or gets away. One blow to the head knocks the hero unconscious long enough to be tied up or captured or allow the criminal to pull off a stunt.

By and large, unless you have a group that is very understanding, you (as a GM) can't really get away with that.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Old gamer more description, younger gamer more visual. Call it age if you want but it can be experence, I have found newer players or younger players like the visual image in their gaming where older long term players like to hear more details. So, it goes to target audience.

Does that make sense?