Elements of Books or Movies that don't/do work in game

[Psion]

From another thread:

Games are not books. Games are not movies. Some things that work well for those mediums work well for games. Many do not.

Certainly. The key to adaptation is finding what elements do translate naturally from one medium to the next, which need a little work to translate properly, and which just won't work (and have to be replaced).

Perhaps we should discuss what some of those easy- and hard-to-translate elements are?

Well, I think it is easier to identify the more difficult features.

The biggest difference that one needs to recognize is that
1) Authorial control, as it is, is limited in a game. So you can't expect PCs to avoid doing something that is inconvenient to your planned progress of the game. You may want that villain to get away, but the players are gonna try there darndest to chase down and kill him, for example
2) Instead of 1 or 2 focus characters, you typically have 5 or 6. This means, on one hand, you can more easily afford a few deaths since a larger group shoulders the responsiblity for maintaining continuity. On the other hand, you should probably not consider party members as dispensible as you would supporting characters in a book or movie.

 

[Faraer]

One famous discussion of this is Gary Gygax's Sorceror's Scroll article "Books Are Books, and Games Are Games, and Never the Twain. . .". His argument is solid except that by 'games' he was discussing his particular ideas of how games and AD&D in particular worked; and in many such talks since people have taken dynamics and habits of D&D and extended them to RPGs in general. It's also easy to confuse conventions of modern commercial novels with those of prose fiction in general.

The differences are real, but taking Psion's second point, that isn't any inherent thing about RPGs: you can have roleplaying with a few protagonists, and prose fiction with several.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

1) Authorial control, as it is, is limited in a game. So you can't expect PCs to avoid doing something that is inconvenient to your planned progress of the game.

The Movie/Book

Gandalf: This is your Uncle's ring, Frodo. Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

Frodo: I will, Gandlaf.

The Game

Gandalf: This is your Uncle's ring, Frodo. Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

Frodo: Sure! Hey, what's it do, anyway? Feather Fall?

Gandlaf: No. Now keep it safe.

Frodo: Jumping? That'd be cool. What with me being short and all.

Gandalf: No. Now, just put it away.

Frodo: Look, if it's cursed just dispell it. Don't pass it off on me, man.

Gandalf: It's a lot more complicated than that.

Frodo: Oh! Oh! I know! It's a wish ring, right? I wish for 15,000 gold peices! Dang. Nothing.

Gandalf: Frodo!

Frodo: Ah crud. I'll just put the silly thing on, how bad could it be? Hey! Invisilibity! Cool! You should have said.

Gandalf: Aaaaaaaaugh!!!!

 

[Liolel]

Almost everything in books and movies can be used, it just a lot of it makes for a bad game.

A few things that are inbetween not usuable at all and usable in the realm of only a good dm can use them well with the right group would be the following.

1. Scenes where the narration moves to say look at the villians. I've seen it in story hours and I've heard of a few successful games using it but I wouldn't know how to use it in a game without spoiling to much, and taking away from the players time to interact. There is an exception with scrying this happens all the time.

2. Encounters which are for npcs to get a chance to shine. Now these work sometimes when the adventure was structered for it (An example off the top of my head: Escort an old but high level cleric to deal with some powerful undead. He's to old for psyical combat, and doesn't want to waste his gods spells, and is only along to stop the undead. Here the party has some definate role in the adventure although even this will fall apart with the wrong group of the wrong dm.) If such an encounter is set up not as a powertrip, and with a more roleplaying orientate group it might work. But even then theres a fair chance of failure to have a good encounter

These two I'd put in the realm of possiable to pull off but not at all easy to pull off in a good maner.

 

[Psion]

The differences are real, but taking Psion's second point, that isn't any inherent thing about RPGs: you can have roleplaying with a few protagonists, and prose fiction with several.

Which is why I said "typically"

But, what is inherent in RPGs is that the main protagonists each has one person who is primarily interested in that protagonist's well being. The REAL point behind my point number two is that participants aren't just readers, they have an attachment to a single, specific character, and you can't off them as easily as you might a secondary character in a novel.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

1. Scenes where the narration moves to say look at the villians. I've seen it in story hours and I've heard of a few successful games using it but I wouldn't know how to use it in a game without spoiling to much, and taking away from the players time to interact. There is an exception with scrying this happens all the time.

I have often written such things, but I keep them in my binder until after an adventure. For instance, I might give one hand-out describing an evil minion undermining his master's attempts to destroy the PCs in a mine by sending more guards to the main entrance when he knows the PCs are coming through the air shafts, another describing a troop of would-be-ambushers that would easily overwhelm to PCs encountering a border-patrol (eliminating the ambush without the PCs ever being aware of it), and another of the BBEG determining which helpless, innocent NPC is to be the sacrifice. When I give these out, I then give them points of association; "This one occured while in the abondoned dwarven minds, this one happened while you were in Spiderhaunt Woods crossing into the Duchy of Tveroc, and this happened just prior to Suzanne being kidnapped by Gnolls and taken to the evil priest you defeated." This provides some "meta-world" detail for the players to understand the "larger picture" of the entire adventure. In other instance, such as the ambush encountering the border patrol, I also highlight the bit of luck (destiny?) that allows PCs to foil, encounter, and defeat their otherwise superior foes with nigh-unlimited resources.

I doubt I'd ever introduce such during game-play, however; part of the fun for me as a player (and thus what I provide as a GM) is a bit of mystery regarding the plot and certain events (the enigmatic, "what is really going on here?"). Such interludes during game play would detract from that to an extent, I do believe.

 

[nyrfherdr]

In reading this thread, it made me think of something I was discussing with a fellow DM the other day.

In Fiction and Movies stereotypes and cliches are not generally acceptable. In fact, most editors will squash them outright if you can even get their attention by using them.

In RPG's they are often easy to grasp handles for the players to roleplay around. They can still be overdone, but fantasy tropes, broad brush NPC's and other cliches make the game what it is in many adventure settings.
Slight tweaks, which are difficult to pull off in fiction make an RPG session that much more fun.

 

[Psion]

In reading this thread, it made me think of something I was discussing with a fellow DM the other day.

In Fiction and Movies stereotypes and cliches are not generally acceptable. In fact, most editors will squash them outright if you can even get their attention by using them.

In RPG's they are often easy to grasp handles for the players to roleplay around.

This is a very important point. In fact, "cliche" is one of game designer S. John Ross' 5 elements of successful RPGs. It acts as a familiar element, and allows the players to quickly grasp what is going on.

In fact, if you think about it, I think that is why Eberron was one of the finalists, what helped it "make the cut." By appealing to visions that adventure gamers are familiar with (like Indiana Jones and Maltese Falcon), the author quickly summarized what the setting was about in the little space alloted.


That said, I partially disagree that cliches are not editorially acceptable in movies. Right now, it is hard to sell a movie whose concept cannot be summed up by a statement like "It's like this other movie, but..."

 

[Tonguez]

I use cut-scenes in game usually letting the PCs know whats going on while they sleep or at breakfast etc - I'll describe the activities of an Monster or NPC (not always an important one) and what they are doing somewhere that the PCs are likely to pass/go to eg I might describe something like

"Dressed in a dark cloak to remain concealed the goblin Blue ducked pass the Orc guards and checking that it was not followed started up the path towards the shrine. It spat its contempt at the orcs that had force its people into virtual slavery, and it cursed the cowardly nature of its own race who had bowed down in compliance as the Orcs drove them forward against the human lands. Tonight though all would change, tonight the Blue would call upon ancient powers and the Goblins would have their revenge..."

or

"Somewhere in the night, the waters of the swamp stir as some great shape rises up through its murky depths, moving towards the shore. Hidden beneath the slime unblinking feral eyes watch the path, waiting just as the Master has commanded"

- I find they help build interest and tension and let the PCs know that the world is alive around them.

 

[Eosin the Red]

1) Games are not books. Games are not movies. Some things that work well for those mediums work well for games.

Games are just as entitled to innovate and extrapolate as books and movies.

In short, this argument is a hoary old chestnut only trotted out by bashers desperate to validate their choice in games they play.

SNIPPED FOR BREVITY.

[SNIP] If someone uses that old argument on you, that it's just rhetoric designed to make them feel better and not to buy it.

The thread originator is not the only one allowed to bring up points related to the thread, you know. You do not "own" threads you create.

I guess I will haul my Hoary old chestnut out of the "Psion Bashing Closet" since I and others could never actually have any desire to voice our opinions other than to degrade the value of Psions own opinion.

I am so desperately seeking to validate my own form of game play that I feel that I must step up and address these deliberately slighting comments. While Psion’s opinion is certainly valid - his opinion that my opinion is voiced only to degrade the style of game that he and others like is hogwash and ill thought out hogwash. Believe it or not, most people don't get up in the morning and think about how they can go about changing the way other people game. Maybe a few folks at WotC and other game companies but other than that most people are looking for something that suits their own style.

There will always be people like you who deliberately attempt to make others feel bad and insecure for voicing certain opinions but I find that loud obnoxious gamers who wholly condemn another point of view are rarely worth listening to.

Fantasy can be new and inventive but fantasy has stepped so far away from its roots – which is mythology – that in places it is no longer recognizable. Hong calls upper level D&D something like D&D Wuxia – I like my Wuxia at the movies not in a game. Are you aware of some mystical reason known only to Psion why this opinion is invalid?

Games are games, movies are movies, books are books and legends are legends but to say that one is totally independent of the other is a fallacy. I use the motto “Mythological Gaming” for 3P because I hope to provide games for those who prefer a style much closer to what they read in fantasy or in mythology. I thought up the motto without ever even thinking of Psion or of degrading the way other people game. You might also note that while I dislike D&Disms for my game – if you like them Please, Please don’t let my opinion stop you from playing with them. I know that most people here cannot make up there own mind about anything without being handed something from on high by Psion but I have some small amount of faith that some people – if not the majority – are perfectly capable of picking out hoary old chestnuts when they see them. I know that I can.

I thought that I would go back and moderate my tone but looking back, I find that it is wholly appropriate.