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lowkey13
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No.
A lot of people with great ideas have been ignored by people, because the one with the idea didn't say it right. A lot of horrors have happened, because someone with a bad idea that people generally wouldn't listen to, were sold on it by someone saying it the right way. How you say something is very often more important than what you are saying.
Since I clearly lack the cognitive ability to understand the context of this discussion
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why don't you explain it to me like I'm a slightly dumb golden retriever, since it is very very tiring for people to keep saying "But you just don't understand what the OP really meant" without proffering an explanation.
Good? So tell me, in your own words, what exactly the intent behind the term "literary" is, and why that distinction matters for the post your responded to.
I'd say that's a matter of opinion. Without words, there is no framing; and without the right words the framing very likely isn't going to come off in the manner intended.Couple things:
1) In the spirit of this thread, I was trying to demonstrate that the framing of the creature is hierarchically more important than the words used to depict it (though again, they matter...they’re just lower in the hierarchy).
Perhaps, but it's still a slimy creature with big teeth and an attitude that the PCs have to deal with in whatever manner they see fit.2) If you aren’t thematically framing a “bogeyman” as a bogeyman, then it seems pretty apt to point out that the situation the PCs are confronted with would be “bogeymanless”!
I'm saying it's possible to present the creature as consequential etc. without even pulling out the bogeyman trope. That, and my example was dealing with the idea of maintaining interest by making up a new creature on the fly rather than relying on the standbys; this doesn't work with the bogeyman trope as that trope requires some prior set-up and-or foreshadowing either direct from the PCs' backstories or stories they've heard from elsewhere.3) In your last sentence, what do “threat”, “interesting”, and “does it right” mean here in terms of confronting the PCs with a bogeyman trope? Are you just saying that you can present bogeymen in “bogeyman-neutral” ways that are still interesting threats? If so, that’s a pretty straight-forward claim. Of course you can. But the framing will have an extremely consequential impact on both the gamestate and on players’ emotional entanglement.
Look at the comments you have made in defense of this theory. Long, lengthy, well-written, good grammar, decent vocabulary, engaged with the argument, and so on.
To the extent you do not enjoy longer narration, that's fine! That's a preference! But ... and I'm going to say this one more time ... just because someone prefers Hemingway over Henry Miller doesn't mean that they are both effective at what they do. Follow me?
Probably true, but as the thread title not only includes the word 'literary' but highlights it, it only follows that some time then has to be spent nailing down a) what the OP specifically meant by the word and b) what the word means to everyone else in general. These two things so far don't appear to be the same, and this difference represents about 500 posts so far.As I stated pretty early in this thread, I believe any attempt to define some immutable, univeral definition for "literary/literature" is a fool's errand.
And even this comes down to a) definition and b) preference. The OP has been fairly consistent over the long run in suggesting he prefers to frame situations that almost force the players - through their PCs - to act*. But it's also possible - and sometimes even desireable - to frame situations much more passively and merely give the players - through their PCs - a choice as to whether to act or not; leaving it up to the players to drive the action by what they do or don't do.What matters for this thread is not fixing some definition but rather [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s argument that what makes TTRPGs unique and distinct from literature is the framing of situations as a call to action on the part of the PC-inhabiting-player over descriptive flourishes as performance for performance's sake.
Well, it has; in that it's shown that some posters** feel the entire thread is built on a faulty premise due to a not-fully-agreed definition of the highlighted word in its title, and would like to see that foundation more firmly nailed in place before trying to build a discussion on it. That said, I'll confess to having mostly skipped over many of the definition-argument posts.While this thread has occasionally offered some other interesting discussion, I don't believe squabbling over definitions has provided anything really useful.
people are cutting each other off; etc. The participants in those conversations, however, may not even notice these rhetorical flaws, especially if they are deeply engaged with the content being discussed.