Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
GM DESCRIPTION: NARRATION OR CONVERSATION?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7626157" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I object that you do. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Is that what the movie maker ultimately cares about as well? I mean, even a horror movie maker that wants to inflict scares, or a dramatists that wants to provoke tears in a scene, ultimately wants to do that because at some level the audience enjoys that experience and came to the movie to experience it. I don't see this distinction as a distinction at all. If all you care is that the game is fun, then you do care about having good scenes. What makes the scene good is that it is fun.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You have an excessively narrow view of movies, personal drama, or character arc. It's perfectly fine to have a movie where there protagonist is experiencing some breathing setting that doesn't revolve around them. Plenty of movie makers try to capture the experience of actually being peripheral to the events of the story either as the audience or the characters of the story, and for the events of the story to be essentially random and meaningless on the grounds that the movie maker perceives this to be how life goes. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah, I'm just not getting this. You've got a simplified stereotype of a movie you are fighting against, and yet ultimately movies are about entertainment. And there is no formula for what entertains an audience.</p><p></p><p>And in any event, I have defined 'scene' for the purpose of an RPG without reference to a movie 'scene'. So while there is an obvious relationship, no one is or should be surprised if what makes a good scene in an RPG is not exactly the same as what makes a good scene in a movie. No one should be particularly surprised if there is some overlap, but there is no reason that anything that applies to a movie needs to apply to an RPG. That's not generally what an analogy is in the way most people use analogies, nor for that matter am I using analogy since I tend to think analogies confuse people more than they clarify. When most people use an analogy, they are normally stating only that two things share a limited set of features. They are not normally insisting that for every feature of the first thing, there exists a one to one and onto mapping to features of the second thing. Tolkien famous asserted that because people tended to assume from analogies that this was true, when it obviously was not, that people shouldn't use analogies at all. Whatever relationship between scenes in the story telling medium of an RPG that I'm drawing with scenes in a movie, it is certainly not a one to one and onto mapping.</p><p></p><p>As for Chekov's Gun, I've used it in an RPG several times to great success. I think you are trying to say that since an RPG has a branching story path (at least potentially) stories can be abandoned if the protagonists lose interest in them, and as such the Chekov's Guns of that story will never be fired, or perhaps will be fired, but will be fired offstage when the protagonists are no longer around to hear or even learn of their firing. And while that's true, I'll still insist that the very fact you are aiming to have a world that fills living and breathing means that those Chekov's Guns will tend to be fired by someone, because otherwise it wouldn't feel living and breathing.</p><p></p><p>My favorite Chekov's Gun concerned the neighbor of one of the PCs, an undertaker, introduced in basically Act II, Scene 1 of the story, helping the PCs collect the dead after a natural disaster. That gun didn't get fired for about 2 years of gaming, but when it went off, oh boy was it a good one.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7626157, member: 4937"] I object that you do. Is that what the movie maker ultimately cares about as well? I mean, even a horror movie maker that wants to inflict scares, or a dramatists that wants to provoke tears in a scene, ultimately wants to do that because at some level the audience enjoys that experience and came to the movie to experience it. I don't see this distinction as a distinction at all. If all you care is that the game is fun, then you do care about having good scenes. What makes the scene good is that it is fun. You have an excessively narrow view of movies, personal drama, or character arc. It's perfectly fine to have a movie where there protagonist is experiencing some breathing setting that doesn't revolve around them. Plenty of movie makers try to capture the experience of actually being peripheral to the events of the story either as the audience or the characters of the story, and for the events of the story to be essentially random and meaningless on the grounds that the movie maker perceives this to be how life goes. Yeah, I'm just not getting this. You've got a simplified stereotype of a movie you are fighting against, and yet ultimately movies are about entertainment. And there is no formula for what entertains an audience. And in any event, I have defined 'scene' for the purpose of an RPG without reference to a movie 'scene'. So while there is an obvious relationship, no one is or should be surprised if what makes a good scene in an RPG is not exactly the same as what makes a good scene in a movie. No one should be particularly surprised if there is some overlap, but there is no reason that anything that applies to a movie needs to apply to an RPG. That's not generally what an analogy is in the way most people use analogies, nor for that matter am I using analogy since I tend to think analogies confuse people more than they clarify. When most people use an analogy, they are normally stating only that two things share a limited set of features. They are not normally insisting that for every feature of the first thing, there exists a one to one and onto mapping to features of the second thing. Tolkien famous asserted that because people tended to assume from analogies that this was true, when it obviously was not, that people shouldn't use analogies at all. Whatever relationship between scenes in the story telling medium of an RPG that I'm drawing with scenes in a movie, it is certainly not a one to one and onto mapping. As for Chekov's Gun, I've used it in an RPG several times to great success. I think you are trying to say that since an RPG has a branching story path (at least potentially) stories can be abandoned if the protagonists lose interest in them, and as such the Chekov's Guns of that story will never be fired, or perhaps will be fired, but will be fired offstage when the protagonists are no longer around to hear or even learn of their firing. And while that's true, I'll still insist that the very fact you are aiming to have a world that fills living and breathing means that those Chekov's Guns will tend to be fired by someone, because otherwise it wouldn't feel living and breathing. My favorite Chekov's Gun concerned the neighbor of one of the PCs, an undertaker, introduced in basically Act II, Scene 1 of the story, helping the PCs collect the dead after a natural disaster. That gun didn't get fired for about 2 years of gaming, but when it went off, oh boy was it a good one. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
GM DESCRIPTION: NARRATION OR CONVERSATION?
Top