Why Adventure-Building is Bad

[Raven Crowking]

Sci-fi and fantasy writer D Joseph Bishop tells you why you don't need to spend hours crafting your adventures:

Every moment of a science fiction or fantasy story must represent the triumph of theme over plot.

Plot is dull. Plot literalises the urge to direct. Plot gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Plot numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, plot is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey an action that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with an action that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but a library of action divorced from meaning and context ever built, a wretched place without dedication or emotional impact. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the plot builder & the plot builder’s victim, & makes us very afraid.

Discuss.

 

[FireLance]

Truth. That's why DMs need to focus more on challenges instead of silly things like plot and world-building. Challenges focus the attention of the players and turn their PCs into active participants instead of passive observers.

Every adventure can be broken down into a series of challenges. More complicated adventures can consist of meta-challenges made up of several nested sub-challenges.

Plot is what you get when the challenges are overcome (or not). World-building (if the players demand it in the first place) is just window dressing. Challenges are the meat of the D&D experience.

 

[hong]

 

[WayneLigon]

First, why is the quote an almost exact duplicate of the one about worldbuilding, and second, who the hell is 'D Joseph Bishop'?

Plot is necessary, just like characterization, dialog, worldbuilding, and all the other tools a writer (or game designer) has at his disposal. Some form of narrative flow is needed for events to make sense.

'Plot-driven', no; that's railroading.

 

[pawsplay]

My literature geekness says, "How is theme possible without plot?"

I think he is meaning Plot, not simply plot, the great idol to whom formulaic writers pray. I would agree that a story should not happen simply because it is logically necessary, but because it is poetrically necessary. I don't think platitudes on the subject are useful, any more than "Create believable characters" is really useful advice.

 

[Psion]

What a tool.

 

[Psion]

Truth. That's why DMs need to focus more on challenges instead of silly things like plot and world-building. Challenges focus the attention of the players and turn their PCs into active participants instead of passive observers.

Eh. I think challenges need structure and context or it's just a wargame.

I don't see plot in RPGs as being the sequence of events that the GM dictates will occurs. I see it as the connecting logic behind the events of the game that are outside of the PCs' direct control.

 

[Raven Crowking]

What a tool.

No kidding. Not only is the guy actually just paraphrasing Harrison, but he's a total hack. I've read some of his stuff. I know. He just tends to think he's funny. Really, he's just amusing himself.

 

[pawsplay]

To me, RPGs don't have a plot, they have a trajectory... that is, the likely outcome if the PCs do nearly nothing.

 

[Deset Gled]

Color me amazed that both this and the world-building thread have developed so much interest.

Anything-building in any gaming scenario is what defines your game. You can game with as much or as little as you want. Trying to say it's good or bad is like trying to say lead is good or bad; there are times when it kills you and times when it saves your life. It's not good or bad, it just is.