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Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?
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<blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 7618003" data-attributes="member: 6786839"><p>Indeed. A narration which fails to anticipate and address obvious questions, is (in general) a narration which fails to establish situation as an opportunity for player agency and PC initiative. (Aldarc used a more precise formula, which I cannot recall verbatim, but please take my phrasing as an approximation of his.)</p><p></p><p>A narration could fail at this task by excessive spareness, as with my example. The original says "exits", without clarifying whether those exits are passages, doors, or some other exit. (There's actually one passage and one door. Perhaps as a veteran DM you *habitually* improve on such a spare description.) I almost quoted _Thy Dungeonman_: "Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS."</p><p></p><p>The narration of Orc and Pie can fail, if it merely establishes the presence of an orc and a pie; the orc is *guarding* the pie, rather than, say, baking the pie, or actively looking for a customer so that the orc can sell the pie. (A player might *initiate* an attempt to purchase the pie, but the GM should leave that to the player.)</p><p></p><p>Could a narration also fail at this task by excessively florid or otherwise ambitious language? Could literary pretensions, poorly executed, leave the players without a clear prompt, needing to ask clarifying questions before they can proceed with action declarations? I can imagine important details getting lost in the shuffle, if the DM is going into Lovecraftian style regarding the exits, without corresponding emphasis on the unspeakably eldritch runes carved onto the staff ("you find yourself wondering: carved by human hands, or by some intelligence more ancient than mankind?").</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Riley37, post: 7618003, member: 6786839"] Indeed. A narration which fails to anticipate and address obvious questions, is (in general) a narration which fails to establish situation as an opportunity for player agency and PC initiative. (Aldarc used a more precise formula, which I cannot recall verbatim, but please take my phrasing as an approximation of his.) A narration could fail at this task by excessive spareness, as with my example. The original says "exits", without clarifying whether those exits are passages, doors, or some other exit. (There's actually one passage and one door. Perhaps as a veteran DM you *habitually* improve on such a spare description.) I almost quoted _Thy Dungeonman_: "Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS." The narration of Orc and Pie can fail, if it merely establishes the presence of an orc and a pie; the orc is *guarding* the pie, rather than, say, baking the pie, or actively looking for a customer so that the orc can sell the pie. (A player might *initiate* an attempt to purchase the pie, but the GM should leave that to the player.) Could a narration also fail at this task by excessively florid or otherwise ambitious language? Could literary pretensions, poorly executed, leave the players without a clear prompt, needing to ask clarifying questions before they can proceed with action declarations? I can imagine important details getting lost in the shuffle, if the DM is going into Lovecraftian style regarding the exits, without corresponding emphasis on the unspeakably eldritch runes carved onto the staff ("you find yourself wondering: carved by human hands, or by some intelligence more ancient than mankind?"). [/QUOTE]
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