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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 840091" data-attributes="member: 463">After reading the Vile thread I couldn't resist posting this article, which British RPG guru Andrew Rilstone posted to Usenet in 1998.He has more good stuff on his website (link at end).What do you think of this?  Andrew's definition of 'mature' is the kind of stuff I might actually buy - I wonder if WotC or other publishers are interested in producing such content?From: Andrew Rilstone <andrew@aslan.demon.co.uk>Newsgroups: uk.games.roleplaySubject: "Mature Themes"Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 00<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/13a.jpg"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":13:" title="13th Age    :13:" data-shortname=":13:" />05 +0100Can Role-playing games deal with Mature Themesby Andrew "definitely not a columnist" RilstoneSome things are liked by children but not by adults. Some things areliked by adults but not by children. An awful lot of thing are liked byboth children and adults. "The Care Bears Movie" is in the first category; "Mrs Dalloway" is inthe second category and "Star Wars" is in the third category. (It isn'ttrue that all children like "The Care Bears", but it is, I think, truethat all people who like "The Care Bears" are children..) We couldtherefore say that "The Care Bears" is immature and "Mrs Dalloway" ismature: but what would we say about "Star Wars"? I agree that "immature" is not a particularly useful term in thisdiscussion.What characterises the for-the-sake-of-the-argument "immature" stuff?Answer: it can be enjoyed at a very immediate level, with little effort.It is, to use the technical term, in-yer-face.Adventures stories, cartoons, super-hero comics, action movies, slap-stick comedy, shoot-em-up computer games, "pop" music, dungeon bashingRPGs: they all involve primary colours, loud noises, relativelystraightforward morality, instantly memorable melody or beat; simplejokes that generate immediate belly laughs; violent confrontations withclear resolutions fairly simple language; lots of exclamation marks. Kids can enjoy, understand and consume this sort of stuff easily anduncritically. And--here comes the point--most adults enjoy it as well.Further more, most of the for-the-sake-of-the-argument mature stuff hasmany of the same characteristics. It's okay for classical music to havememorable tunes, it's okay for "serious literature" to have thrillingstories with chases, escapes and explosions, it's okay for sophisticatedsatirical comedy to make you laugh.  "Mature" art, then, doesn't necessarily delete the in-yer-face pleasureof childish stuff, but it adds something else as well: more subtlety ofcharacterisation, say, or social commentary, or stylistic brilliance.The instant-hit we get out of an "immature" story may be delayed,watered down or even removed altogether; to the extent that thebook/film/symphony may be "difficult", hard to read, not much fun on thefirst attempt. However, the "deeper" pleasures of the "difficult" workare such that we press on with it. The book improves with each reading,we end up saying "it changed my life" or "it really opened my eyes" or"those characters are always in my mind, as real to me as my ownfamily".Maturity implies growth: it would be foolish (childish, even) to say"So-and-so is immature because he likes "Bugs Bunny" movies." It wouldbe reasonable to say "So-and-so is immature because at 35 he *only* like"Bugs Bunny" movies; his tastes have not progressed since he waseleven."Those with "mature" taste, can, on the whole, still enjoy and appreciate"immature" things; but those with "immature" tastes often find "mature"taste inconceivable. They are very likely to say "No-one really enjoysSalman Rushdie/Ingmar Bergman/Virginia Woolf. They are just pseuds,PRETENDING to like them because it makes them feel clever. They wouldreally rather be watching Terminator II."Many RPGs are in-yer-face; provide instant thrills and excitement,simple morality, violence, explosions and lots of exclamation marks.There is nothing wrong with this. However, very few RPGs deal withsocial comment, realistic characterisation, human relationships and soon.We have games based on martial arts movies, where the fun comes fromthinking up ludicrous stunts and smashing large numbers of bad guys. Wehave games based on space opera movies, where the fun comes from, er,thinking up ludicrous stunts and smashing large numbers of bad guys. Wehave horror story games, where the fun comes from the adrenaline-thrillof going into darkened rooms where there might be terrifying monsters--horror comics, almost fairground ghost-trains. We have many, many,macho-military games, where the fun comes from tooling up with anenormous weapon and pretending to rush headlong into battle against theenemy, and, er, smashing large numbers of bad guys. Games are usuallypredicated on an escape from danger, a conflict with a baddy, thesolution to a puzzle or a combination of all three: rarely withresolving a relationship, changing a social situation, gaining in selfknowledge. Arguably, the "cybergoth" tendency has introduced the themeof growing up or coming of age, but it does it through an adventurestory medium.Quoth Michael Moorcock:"Very few adult characters exist in pure swords-and-sorcery stories.They are either permenant adolescents like Conan, actual children likeGed in "Wizard of Earthsea", youths like Airar Alvarsan in "The Well ofthe Unicorn" or quasi-children like the hobbits in "Lord of theRings."....Innocent, sensitive, intensely loyal and enthusiastic, givento sudden tantrums and terrors, impressionable, sentimental andsometimes ruthless, these characters very rarely show mature humanresponses to their environment, their fellow creatures or the problemsthey face."Remind you of any PCs you know?Perhaps, in this sense, we could say that the role-playing hobby is"immature": it deals with a narrow range of easily accessible story-types, and has not grown or progressed (in this respect) significantlysince its inception.Is role-playing capable of dealing with the more "mature" subjectmatter, or is it by its nature limited to dealing with adventurestories?Role-playing is, by its nature, a dramatic medium. At its core is averbal exchange between player and referee: the referee says "What doyou do", the player says "I do such and such" the referee says "Such andsuch happens, what do you do now" and so on, for as long as people'sattention holds out. Therefore, things have to be happening all thetime. A character can't just sit at home hating the evil Octoplonks,being consumed by his hatred, but not doing anything about it. Thatwould be perfectly acceptable in a novel, if the writer's wit andunderstanding of human nature was sufficient to keep you interested, butit can't happen in a movie, a play--or, I would contend, an RPG.In a play, one of the "things which happens" can be a long conversation.People can and do run RPGs in which players and NPCs sit around and talkto each other. But in both cases, the conversation has to have a pointto be of interest: something has to happen in it. Fred the Fighter andWally the Wizard sitting around in the bar saying "Nice day at thebattle?" "So so-can't complain. Another ale." "Thanks. Did you cast yourspell okay." "In the end. We had some hassle due to staff shortages"would be boring as hell. Fred the Fighter confronting Wally the Wizardand demanding to know why he (apparently) betrayed them the evilOctoplonks could be extremely interesting and dramatic. Does it followfrom this that when role-playing games try to stop being adventurestories, they simply become melodramas instead?I am not convinced that it is harder for players to think of interestingand dramatic dialogue ("You fiend; you betrayed us, Eric the Cleric diedbecause of you") than it is for them to think up interesting anddramatic stunts, tactics, or fight manoeuvres. Phil Masters argued thata game which was purely predicated on characters "talking about theirproblems", while theoretically possible, would in practice not befeasible because of the demands that it made on the players. To make anIngmar Bergman RPG, you have to be as good at writing and acting asIngmar Bergman. I think that this is a fallacy; you might as well saythat in order to play "Feng Shui" you have to be as good atchoreographing fights as Jackie Chan. All RPGs are, considered as drama,hideously inadequate and inferior to the literature or movies they arebased on that doesn't stop us from playing them. There is a great wodge of "serious" literature which can't possibly beimitated in RPGs. I would suggest:  All psychological studiesAll "slice-of-life" dramaNearly all travelogue Most fatalistic tragedy All literature in which ordinary, dull events are made interesting bythe wit or stylistic flair with which they are described. This leaves a large range of literature which is dramatic (thingshappen) but which is also mature (the gratification is not instant; thethemes discussed are sophisticated) which RPGs could perfectly wellemulate.  The entire cannon of Shakespeare comes to mind. I've oftenthought that the Prince Hal trilogy would make a damn fine RPG.I would suggest the following strategies:1: Continue to run action-adventure, but regard the derring-do as thematrix within in which the real plot--the story of how the charactersgrew and were changed by their experiences-- occurs. This means allowing time and space in your gaming sessions for yourcharacters to have an off-stage life. If your game shows how a Prince, aFat Knight and a couple of low-life thieves went off to fight theOctoplonk on a back-water planet, then make sure they have time tocontemplate and react when one of their comrades is killed. Force themto play out the funeral, or break the news to his girl-friend. Don'tdrag them on to the next bit of the "scenario". Think of characters in terms of their personality types, be it ever sostereotyped, rather than their weapons skills. We care that Character Ais a gung ho patriot; Character B is a battle hardened veteran andCharacter C was nearly a conshi: not that A had 2 more hitpoints than B.Think of scenarios in terms of characterisation events, rather thanaction events. Don't say "This time, I've planned a really tacticallyinteresting battle for them to fight"; say "This week, they'll beanother battle, much the same as last week. The twist is that thesergeant will be shot in the back, so the raw recruit will have to takecharge of the squad..." A war story may not be the most sophisticated narrative in the world,but it's more mature then simple geek-bashing.2: Consider expanding the range of genre material that we play in. Iknow, I know, I've said this before: why are our characters exclusivelyover-the-top super-heroes, and never down-to-earth human beingstemporarily drawn into an interesting situation? One of my great un-rungames ideas is "tell the story of a hugely dramatic fantasy war againstthe dark lord from the point of view of the foot-soldiers, beginningwith a bunch of peasants getting pressed into service, and ending withthem coming back to their village, wooden legs, eye patches and all." Ihave never been able to work out a good reason why we can't run a gamewhere the main character is a lawyer, a medic or a social worker. (Thereare large numbers of TV series and novels based on these themes. But weonly run games about super heroes. Immaturity?) Heck, there've beenprecious few police or detective RPGs.3: Explore the free-form genre. Freeforms are a wonderful idea; atotally different structural approach to role-playing, in which subtle(not in-yer face) characterisation and action-free drama are at apremium. Unfortunately, they seem to have become frozen into a limited,game-play structure in which masses of characters walk around a roomswapping information cards and playing diplomacy. But they could stillbe salvaged as a sort of living theatre.All this is based on the assumption that we want our games to be moremature. Someone, possibly with a name beginning with "W" is likely tosay: "But I don't want social comment and realistic characterisation.After a hard day learning my 6 times table, I just want to come home andblow away some Orcs." And I will not put my hand on my heart and swearthat I disagree.-- Andrew Rilstone <a href="mailto:andrew@aslan.demon.co.uk">andrew@aslan.demon.co.uk</a>         <a href="http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/</a></blockquote>

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