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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?
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<blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 7617981" data-attributes="member: 6786839"><p>First, thanks for a direct answer, to a question about an example! Positions explained in reference to examples are more helpful to me, than positions argued in reference to dictionary definitions, which is why I included Maxperson's carved staff in version #1.</p><p></p><p>That said: I mean #1 and #2 as points on a spectrum, not as the endpoints of the spectrum. Aldarc evaluated #1 as "Your description here honestly seems incredibly conversational." Would you prefer *more* florid text than #1? Always, or situationally, or never? Should the narration foreshadow the wielding of Checkov's Intricately Carved Feywood Staff?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I was at first baffled at the thread's emphasis on GM narration and apparent disregard of player narration. Either one can be literary. The emphasis makes sense only insofar as the GM has a task, informing player agency and resolving action declarations, which the GM can *neglect* if the GM excessively allocates limited resources towards florid narration.</p><p></p><p>I thought of the game ZORK from the 1980s, and similar games. The narration ranges from spare to florid, from "You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door", to the description of the grue as a "sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth". The game's interactive parser can only understand simple, spare player action declarations, such as (GO) NORTH, SEARCH MAILBOX or HIT TROLL WITH SWORD.</p><p></p><p>When humans sit at a table with each other, I prefer a player whose responses include "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead!", over a player whose responses are limited to the spareness of GO NORTH or HIT TROLL WITH SWORD. Going out on a limb: when the literary aspect of a TRPG session reaches excellence, player contributions are often - always? - part of that excellence..</p><p></p><p>Though not *only* with florid language, since florid vocabulary is not the *only* literary device, it's just an easy device for us to vary in this thread for the purpose of quickly demonstrating different points on the spectrum of literary versus conversational.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Riley37, post: 7617981, member: 6786839"] First, thanks for a direct answer, to a question about an example! Positions explained in reference to examples are more helpful to me, than positions argued in reference to dictionary definitions, which is why I included Maxperson's carved staff in version #1. That said: I mean #1 and #2 as points on a spectrum, not as the endpoints of the spectrum. Aldarc evaluated #1 as "Your description here honestly seems incredibly conversational." Would you prefer *more* florid text than #1? Always, or situationally, or never? Should the narration foreshadow the wielding of Checkov's Intricately Carved Feywood Staff? I was at first baffled at the thread's emphasis on GM narration and apparent disregard of player narration. Either one can be literary. The emphasis makes sense only insofar as the GM has a task, informing player agency and resolving action declarations, which the GM can *neglect* if the GM excessively allocates limited resources towards florid narration. I thought of the game ZORK from the 1980s, and similar games. The narration ranges from spare to florid, from "You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door", to the description of the grue as a "sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth". The game's interactive parser can only understand simple, spare player action declarations, such as (GO) NORTH, SEARCH MAILBOX or HIT TROLL WITH SWORD. When humans sit at a table with each other, I prefer a player whose responses include "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead!", over a player whose responses are limited to the spareness of GO NORTH or HIT TROLL WITH SWORD. Going out on a limb: when the literary aspect of a TRPG session reaches excellence, player contributions are often - always? - part of that excellence.. Though not *only* with florid language, since florid vocabulary is not the *only* literary device, it's just an easy device for us to vary in this thread for the purpose of quickly demonstrating different points on the spectrum of literary versus conversational. [/QUOTE]
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