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Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7617735" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Popper has a (controversial) theory of what makes a claim, or perhaps a collection of claims, scientific.</p><p></p><p>I'm not making a scientific claim. I'm making an aesthetic claim. So Popperian falsifiability has nothing to do with it.</p><p></p><p>My claim is about the point of RPGing, what makes it a distinctive and worthwhile creative endeavour. Not far upthread [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] has given a pretty good account of my claim, so I'll add a few glosses to that.</p><p></p><p>I am saying that <em>entertainment in virtue of quality narration and performance</em> is not what makes RPGing a distinctive and worthwhile creative endeavour. Rather, it's <em>situation and resulting inhabitation and protagonism</em>.</p><p></p><p>I've said why I think this: because <em>quality narration and performance</em> are the weakest elements of the typical RPG experience (given the ready availability to most RPGers of genuinely quality narrations and performances), whereas <em>protagonism in the context of engaging situation</em> is the distinct thing that RPGs offer.</p><p></p><p>When [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] say that they would quit games with ordinary-language descriptions because they'd find them too boring, my thought in response is that those games must have weak situations, or GMs who don't facilitiate protagonism. After all, both experience and reading lead me to think there's plenty of that going around.</p><p></p><p>To elaborate on that last point:</p><p></p><p> [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has tended to equate <em>situation</em> with <em>content</em> referring eg to boring content. But as I've indicated in and since the OP, good situation isn't about non-boring content. It's about the <em>call to action</em>, the <em>invitation to protagonism</em>. As far as I can tell those sorts of notions play little or no role in Hussar's conception of RPGing - if they do, he hasn't said anything about them in this thread as best I can recall.</p><p></p><p> [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], too, has quite recently posted that a GM should use language to make situation "more interesting", and has said that "situation is always going to be there no matter what". But this second claim isn't true if by <em>situation</em> one means what I've been talking about since the OP. I've played in, and witnessed, and read reports of episodes of RPGing in which there is no call to action, no meaningful framing, no genuine action and consequence. My contention that that is a failure of RPGing regardless of the literary quality of the narration and the evocative nature of the performances.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7617735, member: 42582"] Popper has a (controversial) theory of what makes a claim, or perhaps a collection of claims, scientific. I'm not making a scientific claim. I'm making an aesthetic claim. So Popperian falsifiability has nothing to do with it. My claim is about the point of RPGing, what makes it a distinctive and worthwhile creative endeavour. Not far upthread [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] has given a pretty good account of my claim, so I'll add a few glosses to that. I am saying that [I]entertainment in virtue of quality narration and performance[/I] is not what makes RPGing a distinctive and worthwhile creative endeavour. Rather, it's [i]situation and resulting inhabitation and protagonism[/I]. I've said why I think this: because [I]quality narration and performance[/I] are the weakest elements of the typical RPG experience (given the ready availability to most RPGers of genuinely quality narrations and performances), whereas [I]protagonism in the context of engaging situation[/I] is the distinct thing that RPGs offer. When [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] say that they would quit games with ordinary-language descriptions because they'd find them too boring, my thought in response is that those games must have weak situations, or GMs who don't facilitiate protagonism. After all, both experience and reading lead me to think there's plenty of that going around. To elaborate on that last point: [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has tended to equate [I]situation[/I] with [i]content[/I] referring eg to boring content. But as I've indicated in and since the OP, good situation isn't about non-boring content. It's about the [I]call to action[/I], the [I]invitation to protagonism[/I]. As far as I can tell those sorts of notions play little or no role in Hussar's conception of RPGing - if they do, he hasn't said anything about them in this thread as best I can recall. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], too, has quite recently posted that a GM should use language to make situation "more interesting", and has said that "situation is always going to be there no matter what". But this second claim isn't true if by [I]situation[/I] one means what I've been talking about since the OP. I've played in, and witnessed, and read reports of episodes of RPGing in which there is no call to action, no meaningful framing, no genuine action and consequence. My contention that that is a failure of RPGing regardless of the literary quality of the narration and the evocative nature of the performances. [/QUOTE]
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