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Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?
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<blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 7610875" data-attributes="member: 85555"><p>I understand that, but the thread has mainly been focused on narrative and literary style descriptions by the GM. I think part of the reason the conversation is so hard to have is because, as you point out, it can be about other things. I've just been trying to stay focused on the description since that is what seems to be the subject. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think my approach to a campaign is a bit different here. There isn't the sense in my campaigns that the players have to get to the end of an adventure. They can lose an adventure by not making progress. Things still happen of course. And many of those things are interesting and even dramatic. But I don't think it makes them literary if you are just trying to solve the problem of the game grinding to a halt. I mean, that is a problem that can arise in the medium of roleplaying games. You can use literary techniques to get around it, but you can also use techniques designed for the medium itself (like wandering monsters). You use these yourself as an example. I don't see wandering monster tables as a literary technique. I certainly wouldn't want books written using encounter tables. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Like another poster pointed out, this is not unique to literature and it isn't something I actively worry about controlling. When people talk about pacing, they don't just mean "keep the game from grinding to a halt". That is an extreme situation. They also mean controlling the flow of encounters, controlling the rate at which the players make it through the adventure, providing a steady course of entertainment in the right proportions over the evening. A disastrous issue like the game grinding to a halt, would obviously be a concern, but that is clearly an edge case and being worried with that a lone isn't sufficient to say a GM is particularly worried about pacing. These other elements I just listed, I genuinely don't care about. If the players figure out they can win the adventure by shooting the messenger who delivers the hook in the first ten seconds, then I give them that victory. i don't worry about how it impacts pacing of the adventure or the session. If the adventure ends without a climactic fight, that is fine with me. I treat each session as a game, where I don't know what is going to happen, when or how. And I make a point of not considering literary things that would me to interfere with that. Now that doesn't mean you can't find examples of it. </p><p></p><p>I think the danger here when we talk about literary techniques is failing to see this is a different medium with different needs. I hate to sound like a broken record on this subject but so often I see people start with this idea that there is a similarity between RPGs and novels, and therefore a good RPG session/system/adventure should play out like a novel or feature the essential things that a novel has. And you see that in this discussion where it is simply assumed by some posters that a GM should sound like an author writing book in their descriptions. I am not saying RPGs can't have these things. But clearly there are posters in this thread who feel there are other ways to think about RPGs and that thinking about RPGs in the ways we talk about is much more fitting for what we are after. If you want literary techniques in your game Umbran, I am fine with it. And if you have a cool way of bringing literary techniques into the realm of RPGs, I am even more interested in what you have to say than if you are just porting them in whole. But we've all come about this from different paths. I developed my style of GMing largely asa result of my extreme dissatisfaction with what was prevalent at the height of the d20 boom and based on the lessons I learned as a GM during the height of GM as storyteller in the 90s. I learned that a lot of the things I didn't like in gaming, not all, but a lot, were a product of forcing aspects of other mediums into RPGs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bedrockgames, post: 7610875, member: 85555"] I understand that, but the thread has mainly been focused on narrative and literary style descriptions by the GM. I think part of the reason the conversation is so hard to have is because, as you point out, it can be about other things. I've just been trying to stay focused on the description since that is what seems to be the subject. I think my approach to a campaign is a bit different here. There isn't the sense in my campaigns that the players have to get to the end of an adventure. They can lose an adventure by not making progress. Things still happen of course. And many of those things are interesting and even dramatic. But I don't think it makes them literary if you are just trying to solve the problem of the game grinding to a halt. I mean, that is a problem that can arise in the medium of roleplaying games. You can use literary techniques to get around it, but you can also use techniques designed for the medium itself (like wandering monsters). You use these yourself as an example. I don't see wandering monster tables as a literary technique. I certainly wouldn't want books written using encounter tables. Like another poster pointed out, this is not unique to literature and it isn't something I actively worry about controlling. When people talk about pacing, they don't just mean "keep the game from grinding to a halt". That is an extreme situation. They also mean controlling the flow of encounters, controlling the rate at which the players make it through the adventure, providing a steady course of entertainment in the right proportions over the evening. A disastrous issue like the game grinding to a halt, would obviously be a concern, but that is clearly an edge case and being worried with that a lone isn't sufficient to say a GM is particularly worried about pacing. These other elements I just listed, I genuinely don't care about. If the players figure out they can win the adventure by shooting the messenger who delivers the hook in the first ten seconds, then I give them that victory. i don't worry about how it impacts pacing of the adventure or the session. If the adventure ends without a climactic fight, that is fine with me. I treat each session as a game, where I don't know what is going to happen, when or how. And I make a point of not considering literary things that would me to interfere with that. Now that doesn't mean you can't find examples of it. I think the danger here when we talk about literary techniques is failing to see this is a different medium with different needs. I hate to sound like a broken record on this subject but so often I see people start with this idea that there is a similarity between RPGs and novels, and therefore a good RPG session/system/adventure should play out like a novel or feature the essential things that a novel has. And you see that in this discussion where it is simply assumed by some posters that a GM should sound like an author writing book in their descriptions. I am not saying RPGs can't have these things. But clearly there are posters in this thread who feel there are other ways to think about RPGs and that thinking about RPGs in the ways we talk about is much more fitting for what we are after. If you want literary techniques in your game Umbran, I am fine with it. And if you have a cool way of bringing literary techniques into the realm of RPGs, I am even more interested in what you have to say than if you are just porting them in whole. But we've all come about this from different paths. I developed my style of GMing largely asa result of my extreme dissatisfaction with what was prevalent at the height of the d20 boom and based on the lessons I learned as a GM during the height of GM as storyteller in the 90s. I learned that a lot of the things I didn't like in gaming, not all, but a lot, were a product of forcing aspects of other mediums into RPGs. [/QUOTE]
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