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Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7609388" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Good post. And for what it's worth, I would say that 90% of my efforts as a GM over the past 30 years has been focused on this issue, of coming up with compelling situations. (Although only for about half that time have I had a vocabulary for describing what it is I've been trying to do.)</p><p></p><p>The RPG product that had the biggest initial impact on me, in this respect, was the mid-80s Oriental Adventure supplement. I don't know if I could have explained it at the time, but in retrospect I think I can identify what it was about OA that was significant:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">(a) Characters are located within a motivational context - families, martial arts mentors, temples, and the like. (Classic AD&D could in principle have this - clerics' temples, MUs' masters - but the default presentation deliberately eschews making these connections a significant element of play. They're <em>mere </em>backstory.)</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">(b) Characters' choices have non-instrumental stakes, by way of the honour rules as well as the possible impact they might have on those families etc.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">(c) Characters have themes that are established via trope and genre resonance, and that players can easily buy into when they build and play those PCs (eg martial arts masters, noble samurai, wily ronin etc).</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">(d) Monsters have a significance and orientation within the fiction (spirits, celestial bureaucracy, etc) which is connected - however tangentially, and perhaps aided by having watched an episode or two of Monkey as a kid - to those themes, motivations and stakes. So when the PCs encounter a creature there is already some sort of "pull" to response which goes beyond just <em>shall we kill it to earn some XPs and recover its loot</em>?</p><p></p><p>My overall take-away would be: strong situations <em>engage the players</em> by <em>engaging their PCs</em>, and this is about the way the situation speaks to PC concerns/motivations/themes. Preferably in ways that are more <em>intrinsic</em> to the character than simply <em>Welll, we <u>are</u> lawful good so I guess we should do the fetch quest for the villagers</em>.</p><p></p><p>For a long time I primarily GMed and played Rolemaster, and one notable feature of RM is its intricate character build rules. These are one important device that players use to express goals and theme in that system, and as a RM GM I paid close attention to PC builds (including things like changes of direction in build with levelling) in thinking up situations. Some of this is about testing skills - if a player builds a PC with stealth and disguise and impersonation skills, than good situations will be ones that invite infiltration, cunning, the use of multiple personas in elaborate ploys, etc. But some of it is also about engaging implicit theme/motivation - if a player builds a PC with social skills, knowledge skills etc because that PC is an up-and-coming lawyer and public official in his/her city, then good situations will speak to that image and conception of the character. The player may only rarely actually test his/her PC's lawyering skill, but that skill sitting on the PC sheet nevertheless tells us this really important thing about this character, and <em>that really important thing</em> can be a key focus of play (can the character schmooze the right people, maintain his/her social station, achieve his/her goals without having to betray loyalties, etc).</p><p></p><p>Systems/rulebooks that have shaped my thinking and my techniques over the past decade-and-a-half, whether or not I've actually played them, have tended to be ones that actually address this whole issue - of how to build PCs that have these inherent "hooks", of how to frame scenes that will engage with them - directly. Luke Crane's Burning Wheel, Robins Laws' HeroWars/Quest, various Vincent Baker games, Nicotine Girls, and Maelstrom Storytelling are probably the main ones. Some of these systems use formal devices to establish PC themes/motivations/concerns (eg Beliefs in BW) and then give the GM formal instructions to engage with those (so in BW the GM is expressly directed to frame scenes that challenge Beliefs, and if players try to dance around the challenge then the GM just "says 'yes'" until the challenge is confronted, at which point the dice have to be rolled). But I've done a lot of GMing of systems that don't use such formal devices (the aforementioned RM, 4e D&D, and more recently Prince Valiant and Classic Traveller all being examples).</p><p></p><p>That's a perhaps over-long way of saying that <em>my</em> top tip would be (i) work with the players to help them make "laden" PCs, and then (ii) latch onto the hooks those PCs are laden with. And conversely, I think the easiest way to get crappy situation is to come up with it independently of the PCs, and to have the whole thing be driven by <em>We have to do the fetch quest because that's what the GM is serving up</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7609388, member: 42582"] Good post. And for what it's worth, I would say that 90% of my efforts as a GM over the past 30 years has been focused on this issue, of coming up with compelling situations. (Although only for about half that time have I had a vocabulary for describing what it is I've been trying to do.) The RPG product that had the biggest initial impact on me, in this respect, was the mid-80s Oriental Adventure supplement. I don't know if I could have explained it at the time, but in retrospect I think I can identify what it was about OA that was significant: [indent](a) Characters are located within a motivational context - families, martial arts mentors, temples, and the like. (Classic AD&D could in principle have this - clerics' temples, MUs' masters - but the default presentation deliberately eschews making these connections a significant element of play. They're [I]mere [/I]backstory.) (b) Characters' choices have non-instrumental stakes, by way of the honour rules as well as the possible impact they might have on those families etc. (c) Characters have themes that are established via trope and genre resonance, and that players can easily buy into when they build and play those PCs (eg martial arts masters, noble samurai, wily ronin etc). (d) Monsters have a significance and orientation within the fiction (spirits, celestial bureaucracy, etc) which is connected - however tangentially, and perhaps aided by having watched an episode or two of Monkey as a kid - to those themes, motivations and stakes. So when the PCs encounter a creature there is already some sort of "pull" to response which goes beyond just [I]shall we kill it to earn some XPs and recover its loot[/I]?[/indent] My overall take-away would be: strong situations [I]engage the players[/I] by [I]engaging their PCs[/I], and this is about the way the situation speaks to PC concerns/motivations/themes. Preferably in ways that are more [I]intrinsic[/I] to the character than simply [I]Welll, we [U]are[/U] lawful good so I guess we should do the fetch quest for the villagers[/I]. For a long time I primarily GMed and played Rolemaster, and one notable feature of RM is its intricate character build rules. These are one important device that players use to express goals and theme in that system, and as a RM GM I paid close attention to PC builds (including things like changes of direction in build with levelling) in thinking up situations. Some of this is about testing skills - if a player builds a PC with stealth and disguise and impersonation skills, than good situations will be ones that invite infiltration, cunning, the use of multiple personas in elaborate ploys, etc. But some of it is also about engaging implicit theme/motivation - if a player builds a PC with social skills, knowledge skills etc because that PC is an up-and-coming lawyer and public official in his/her city, then good situations will speak to that image and conception of the character. The player may only rarely actually test his/her PC's lawyering skill, but that skill sitting on the PC sheet nevertheless tells us this really important thing about this character, and [I]that really important thing[/I] can be a key focus of play (can the character schmooze the right people, maintain his/her social station, achieve his/her goals without having to betray loyalties, etc). Systems/rulebooks that have shaped my thinking and my techniques over the past decade-and-a-half, whether or not I've actually played them, have tended to be ones that actually address this whole issue - of how to build PCs that have these inherent "hooks", of how to frame scenes that will engage with them - directly. Luke Crane's Burning Wheel, Robins Laws' HeroWars/Quest, various Vincent Baker games, Nicotine Girls, and Maelstrom Storytelling are probably the main ones. Some of these systems use formal devices to establish PC themes/motivations/concerns (eg Beliefs in BW) and then give the GM formal instructions to engage with those (so in BW the GM is expressly directed to frame scenes that challenge Beliefs, and if players try to dance around the challenge then the GM just "says 'yes'" until the challenge is confronted, at which point the dice have to be rolled). But I've done a lot of GMing of systems that don't use such formal devices (the aforementioned RM, 4e D&D, and more recently Prince Valiant and Classic Traveller all being examples). That's a perhaps over-long way of saying that [I]my[/I] top tip would be (i) work with the players to help them make "laden" PCs, and then (ii) latch onto the hooks those PCs are laden with. And conversely, I think the easiest way to get crappy situation is to come up with it independently of the PCs, and to have the whole thing be driven by [I]We have to do the fetch quest because that's what the GM is serving up[/I]. [/QUOTE]
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