RPGs are not made of "chapters".
Or "scenes". Or "story arcs". Or "plots".
What are these terms?
Chapter - a smaller section of a larger series of events
Scenes - Several characters having an event in a certain place
Story Arc - A series of smaller stories connected by a central theme, conflict, or plot
Plot - Series of events
Do your games really not feature any of these? I can't possibly imagine how that works. You can feel free to call them "encounters" and "Adventures", but they're still chapters and scenes.
I think that RPGs are just that: Role Playing Games.
Comparing RPGs to something else some people might better understand to get them to play a game? Seems only natural.
I tell people its a mix of improvisational theatre and double entry accounting. Prove me wrong, I dare you.
Anything beyond that just seems to bring more and more noise to the hobby, muddies the waters, and ultimately, changes role playing games into what they never were, should not be, and must not become.
Please, tell me more about the right way to play RPGs. I'm eager to learn.
I think we have a problem as gamers, and as designers too, in that we just can't help but compare RPGs to other things which are not RPGs, and can't help but modify RPGs to better fit the expecations of this or that other medium. And in the end? RPGs just remain bastard products, not a medium of their own.
If we want to change this, we need to treat role playing games as such. We need to stop endlessly comparing them to other things and try to shape them into something, anything, that they ultimately are not. This has been done time and time again, sometimes with pleasant results, and sometimes with not so pleasant ones. Regardless of these results, I think we need to get beyond this stage, somehow, and let RPGs be RPGs, and evolve as such.
This is not a question vocabulary, structures and design only. It's a problem of mindset and culture.
I don't know if we ever will. I sure wish we would, though.
Discuss.
I'd discovered long ago, that by focusing on things that make a good story - pacing, character development, and story arcs, I can make really fun RPG games. I know my way is fun. Your way might be fun too, I'd love to hear about it. Like any good GM, I shamelessly steal anything I can find.
