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Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?
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<blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7617740" data-attributes="member: 5142"><p>I would also like to repudiate the fallacy of equating vocabulary size with conversational or non-literary narration because this seems to be surfacing in various forms over the past few pages. </p><p></p><p>This is because we can see literary quality, attention to stylistic features of word composition, and word-sculpting within the framework of a smaller than average English vocabulary, particularly in children's literature. If we look at the written work of Dr. Seuss, for example, people often talk of how it is written in what is referred to as Seussian meter (e.g., anapestic tetrameter). The diction and meter are incredibly important for reading Dr. Seuss, but the vocabulary itself is quite simplistic. But we can also recognize quite readily that despite the smaller vocabulary size that the Seussian canon exhibits that the style of writing deviates from conversational norms. We don't naturally talk in the fashion that Dr. Seuss writes. It has a performative quality. This often also true for a number of other children's literature books, even if we compared them to both adult and children speech patterns. </p><p></p><p>That's why it feels like a bit of a discursive distraction to frame this discussion in terms of comparable vocabulary size. Just because someone has a larger-than-average vocabulary style does not mean that they naturally speak in a more literary style just because they may include bigger words outside of that typical vocabulary set. That's not really what is being expressed by discussing literary vs. conversational/natural style. The point is to speak naturally and communicate <em>as best you can</em> the nature of the scene in a way that helps the players understand the scene such that they can engage the scene's fiction as players. IMHO, the compositional quality of GM narration is only as strong as the player's ability to understand what is going on and whether their responses reflect what was communicated. </p><p></p><p>I have been watching a lot of Matthew Colville's videos where he talks as a GM about the previous game session of the campaign he runs and hints at future sessions. He likes to do this a lot, so you can find a number of his session retrospectives for various campaigns on YouTube. He likes to have a certain thespian quality to his games. He likes to roleplay the NPCs. He does like to interject a literary feel to some of his dialogue, though he also is incredibly improvisational. But in a number of his session retrospectives, most of his GMing regrets seem to pertain to how well he actually communicate the stakes to the players or what was actually happening in a scene. Because sometimes the GM as actor got in the way of the GM's intent to frame a scene for the players to understand the scenario.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Aldarc, post: 7617740, member: 5142"] I would also like to repudiate the fallacy of equating vocabulary size with conversational or non-literary narration because this seems to be surfacing in various forms over the past few pages. This is because we can see literary quality, attention to stylistic features of word composition, and word-sculpting within the framework of a smaller than average English vocabulary, particularly in children's literature. If we look at the written work of Dr. Seuss, for example, people often talk of how it is written in what is referred to as Seussian meter (e.g., anapestic tetrameter). The diction and meter are incredibly important for reading Dr. Seuss, but the vocabulary itself is quite simplistic. But we can also recognize quite readily that despite the smaller vocabulary size that the Seussian canon exhibits that the style of writing deviates from conversational norms. We don't naturally talk in the fashion that Dr. Seuss writes. It has a performative quality. This often also true for a number of other children's literature books, even if we compared them to both adult and children speech patterns. That's why it feels like a bit of a discursive distraction to frame this discussion in terms of comparable vocabulary size. Just because someone has a larger-than-average vocabulary style does not mean that they naturally speak in a more literary style just because they may include bigger words outside of that typical vocabulary set. That's not really what is being expressed by discussing literary vs. conversational/natural style. The point is to speak naturally and communicate [I]as best you can[/I] the nature of the scene in a way that helps the players understand the scene such that they can engage the scene's fiction as players. IMHO, the compositional quality of GM narration is only as strong as the player's ability to understand what is going on and whether their responses reflect what was communicated. I have been watching a lot of Matthew Colville's videos where he talks as a GM about the previous game session of the campaign he runs and hints at future sessions. He likes to do this a lot, so you can find a number of his session retrospectives for various campaigns on YouTube. He likes to have a certain thespian quality to his games. He likes to roleplay the NPCs. He does like to interject a literary feel to some of his dialogue, though he also is incredibly improvisational. But in a number of his session retrospectives, most of his GMing regrets seem to pertain to how well he actually communicate the stakes to the players or what was actually happening in a scene. Because sometimes the GM as actor got in the way of the GM's intent to frame a scene for the players to understand the scenario. [/QUOTE]
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