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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Is RPGing a *literary* endeavour?
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<blockquote data-quote="uzirath" data-source="post: 7619269" data-attributes="member: 8495"><p>I agree with this in terms of writing or public speaking. (I have often worked with students who somehow think that the good idea buried in their grammarless "paragraph" should exonerate them from a low grade.) </p><p></p><p>With gaming, however, I am more forgiving. This ties into the concept of a game being collaborative, more like a conversation than a speech or a piece of writing. In conversations, people are also more forgiving about poor word choice and other delivery flaws. If you've ever suffered the peculiar torture of having to type up recordings of conversations, it's immediately apparent that live conversations are a bloody mess. Grammar is shoddy; vocabulary is used incorrectly; there are awkward pauses and unnecessary repetitions; people are cutting each other off; etc. The participants in those conversations, however, may not even notice these rhetorical flaws, especially if they are deeply engaged with the content being discussed.</p><p></p><p>RPGs are, I think, closer to a conversation in this regard. Once people are engaged, together, with the fiction, they're not as hung up on rhetorical quality. Some tables may apply a more formal aesthetic to portions of their games. I'm thinking of tables where the GM tends to deliver longer narrations, or where players deliver big in-character speeches. But even then, much of the back-and-forth outside of those elements is far less formal and structured. A few pages back, I <a href="https://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?658728-Is-RPGing-a-*literary*-endeavour&p=7618244&viewfull=1#post7618244" target="_blank">posted</a> about a game with a bunch of English teachers who like to create speeches and literary tidbits for their characters. In that game, when the cleric reads his latest bit of liturgy, we are apt to clap if it is especially good. Clearly, word choice and literary quality matter in that context. But, even in that game (which is fairly unusual in my experience), the majority of our time is spent in informal conversation where the quality of delivery is far less important than the fictional situation. The quality of that situation, in terms of player engagement, does not, in my experience, depend primarily on the rhetorical quality of the GM's delivery.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="uzirath, post: 7619269, member: 8495"] I agree with this in terms of writing or public speaking. (I have often worked with students who somehow think that the good idea buried in their grammarless "paragraph" should exonerate them from a low grade.) With gaming, however, I am more forgiving. This ties into the concept of a game being collaborative, more like a conversation than a speech or a piece of writing. In conversations, people are also more forgiving about poor word choice and other delivery flaws. If you've ever suffered the peculiar torture of having to type up recordings of conversations, it's immediately apparent that live conversations are a bloody mess. Grammar is shoddy; vocabulary is used incorrectly; there are awkward pauses and unnecessary repetitions; people are cutting each other off; etc. The participants in those conversations, however, may not even notice these rhetorical flaws, especially if they are deeply engaged with the content being discussed. RPGs are, I think, closer to a conversation in this regard. Once people are engaged, together, with the fiction, they're not as hung up on rhetorical quality. Some tables may apply a more formal aesthetic to portions of their games. I'm thinking of tables where the GM tends to deliver longer narrations, or where players deliver big in-character speeches. But even then, much of the back-and-forth outside of those elements is far less formal and structured. A few pages back, I [URL="https://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?658728-Is-RPGing-a-*literary*-endeavour&p=7618244&viewfull=1#post7618244"]posted[/URL] about a game with a bunch of English teachers who like to create speeches and literary tidbits for their characters. In that game, when the cleric reads his latest bit of liturgy, we are apt to clap if it is especially good. Clearly, word choice and literary quality matter in that context. But, even in that game (which is fairly unusual in my experience), the majority of our time is spent in informal conversation where the quality of delivery is far less important than the fictional situation. The quality of that situation, in terms of player engagement, does not, in my experience, depend primarily on the rhetorical quality of the GM's delivery. [/QUOTE]
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