D&D General Mark Finn: All Gaming is Pastiche

[overgeeked]

Mark Finn is an expert on Robert E. Howard and a life-long gamer.

I thought this was a great article on how games were played back-in-the-day, it's certainly how we played, and a great peek into a different style of play for a lot of modern gamers. The long and short of it is: set up obstacles for your players, steal widely, don't script or force "story" on the game, and follow the players wherever they go. Those are the games the players remember decades later.

All Gaming is Pastiche

Playing games in the 1980s, we were largely left to our own devices. Sure, AD&D was out, and TSR was publishing official AD&D modules, and Judges Guild was publishing “approved for use with…

northtexasapocalypsebunker.com

 

[DrunkonDuty]

PASTICHE!?!?

How dare you. My games are all bespoke creations with emotional depth and true artistic merit. And many, many bum jokes.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

That was a nice read. Thank you.

I've always tried to use tropes in my games because I find that We, as players or the game both Player and Dungeonmaster, know intuitively how to play as those stereotypes. We know how to react to monsters and what to do when we are confronted with a set of steps that defend into the ground.

Recently as a Player my party and I were met with some troglodytes in a dungeon. Things went south and we ended up killing them. Afterward the Dungeonmaster scolded us for being such murder hobos. Now I know that troglodytes are friends not food. So, from now, at the beginning of any encounter on I ask the Dungeonmaster, "what does my character think about these 'monsters' before us?"

For instance, we encountered an ogre in the same dungeon so I was imagining a slavering monster ready to eat our heads off. But I asked my question and now I see an ogre dressed in overalls, who may or may not have a donkey for a best friend.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Everything is a remix. Creativity is recycling. There is nothing truly new under the sun. IP is a prison holding back the creativity of generations. Etc.

 

[Voadam]

D&D has been pastiche stealing from the start.

Potions of Growth and Reduction from Alice in Wonderland. Ring of Djinni summoning from Arabian Nights. Ring of Invisibility from the Hobbit. Ioun Stones from Vance. Hammer of Thunderbolts is Mjolnir. Javelin of Lightning is Zeus's signature weapon.

Monsters from Greek (Minotaur, Medusa, Nymphs, Chimerae, Manticore) and Norse Mythology (Fire Giants, Frost Giants) and Arabian Nights (Djinni and Efreeti), Dracula (Vampire) and Frankenstein (Flesh Golem), and Lord of the Rings (Ent, Wight, Spectre, Orc, Giant Spider). Devils are out of Dante's Inferno.

Player races include Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, and later even Half-Orcs and Half-Elves.

Three Hearts and Three Lions gave D&D Law versus Chaos, paladins, dwarves with specific racial abilities, and Trolls.

A number of cleric spells take inspiration from biblical miracle stories from flame strike to part water.

Clerical turning undead is gamifying Van Helsing using a cross to repel Dracula.

 

[Voadam]

I joined in a long running AD&D campaign in the 90s that had Elric, Vlad Tepes, and Kane as NPCs in the world, I interacted with two of them and my merchant prince was there being diplomatic with Elric when Stormbringer in Elric's hand killed his wife, which was a real bad scene.

At one point later we were dealing with psionic techno culture Sith.

I didn't immediately put it together but the world's Seven-Walled city was Minas Tirith.

There was also a bunch of Lankhmar and Norse and Japanese deities in the setting out of Deities and demigods.

 

[Voadam]

In my Carrion Crown campaign I had major NPCs specifically be celebrity cameos, and I invited the party to make their own PC inspirations based on the Indiana Jones vibe I was starting with.

PCs included a bard young archaeology professor with crackpot theories about aliens and Ancient Osirian culture (inspired by Daniel Jackson in Stargate), a cleric archaeologist former girlfriend of the late professor inspired by Elsa in Last Crusade, and a rogue rival archaeologist inspired by Beloc in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

NPCs included the deceased archaelogist professor Lorrimor Jones, his orphaned daughter Jessica Jones, crazy homeless Robin Williams from the Kingfisher, creepy noble patron Christopher Walken from the second Batman Movie, sneering necro-doctor Jack Nicholson, cackling Chelaxian diabolic bishop Tom Cruise, town sheriff Carol Connor from in the Heat of the Night, Elven bard murderer ghost David Bowie, Dwarven murderer ghost Danny Devito, axe murderer ghost Jared Leto Joker, steampunkology doctor of everything Jodie Whittaker, Judge RGB Diarmuid, handsome but useless defense attorney Hugh Grant, alchemical professor Lewis with a nut allergy, and I was going to have alchemical drug dealer Johnny Depp.

Going with these kinds of hooks was a lot of fun and gave instant roleplay cues and conveyed some themes quickly.

 

[MichaelSomething]

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Everything is a remix. Creativity is recycling. There is nothing truly new under the sun. IP is a prison holding back the creativity of generations. Etc.

I think Salvador Dali said something like this.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

While I agree with at least the general premise--"gaming draws on all other forms of media" is kind of a truism, but there's still important wisdom to draw from that--the author draws some conclusions that seem to reflect an inexperience with Apocalypse World and other "Story Now" games. I'm not sure if he actually lacks experience with them (I can't find anything he's personally said that ever references any PbtA stuff or similar things like DitV, the best I can come up with is him retweeting a thing that mentioned PbtA stuff), or if he's just choosing to ignore them. But this passage stood out to me as making sweeping pronouncements that don't hold true in my experience:

The notion of pastichery extends to the game itself. People love to talk about “the story” of the adventure, the “narrative” of the game, but it’s not that, not really. As much as we want to call role-playing games “storytelling,” what we’re really trying to do when we sit down is give the feeling of storytelling, and if it’s a style of storytelling we all like and agree on (like sword and sorcery, for instance), then everything we say and do in-game ideally should be in support of that. We want our games to have that epic feel of a cool TV show, a movie spectacular, an epic book series.

The whole point of striving toward "Story Now," and of the PbtA system (and similar), is that it is story, it is narrative. It's narrative we build together live, yes, but the point of play IS to put values and beliefs and commitments to the test and find out what happens. That's why I call this game-(design-)purpose "Values & Issues." The players articulate a character's Values, the things they care about and which motivate them, the things they are already embarked about or invested into; the things they aspire to do or be (whether or not they fall short in practice). And then those things get put to the test with Issues, that must be resolved one way or another--often by putting something under threat or forcing a choice between things.

These are not discrete narratives, in the sense that they have a strict beginning, middle, and end, which is what I think the author means by "the story"/"narrative." Instead, they are ongoing narratives, serialized if you will. And the author brings up things like a cool TV show or a book series, which shows that he knows that it's the ongoing nature that is particularly gripping here. But he's still applying a standard of one-and-done narratives, which isn't really accurate or relevant to the games that are about being "narrative."