Why Adventure-Building is Bad

[Wombat]

Originally Posted by D Joseph Bishop
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.

...wow...

I would be so incredibly bored with a book/game like that...

Thankfully, my players want something other than Chutes 'n' Ladders...

 

[Hussar]

He lost his sense of wonder.

Pants FTW.

 

[rounser]

"Oh NOEZ! The time axis is out of alignment! Kill thirty goblin chiropractors and bring me theri shinz!"

"Duz this quest give phat lootz?"

 

[Pants]

Pants FTW.

I try... sometimes

 

[ThirdWizard]

The only plots that should be in D&D are those of land!

 

[Aeric]

The only plots that should be in D&D are those of land!

"Plot" is the noise made when a barbarian smacks you on the head with an oversized warhammer. I learned that from an old cartoon in White Dwarf magazine.

 

[JustinA]

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

Discuss.

D. Joseph Bishop (whoever the heck that is) has given an excellent example of a false dilemma.

 

[eyebeams]

Yes, I know we were all terribly upset about something somebody said about something that isn't even about RPGs that, of we were to imagine he was, would offend us because we drew lots of maps once. We get it. Check.

The problem that Harrison is referring to comes from the fact that in literature, the setting is subordinate to the story. Raising the setting in an altar and dissecting it is not a substitute for telling a compelling story. This is even true for Tolkien, whose work was largely a way to create consistency in a myth cycle. There is little doubt that the myth cycle, not the maps, are the heart of Middle Earth. Post-Tolkien fantasy has often wallowed in the world without providing anything interesting happening to the people in it.

Gaming is not literature. In a traditional RPG, everything is subordinate to character decisions. Characters (really players), like stories, need some consistent basis by which to make decisions and some sense of investment in the setting. GMs need to be able to dynamically create sources of conflict, whose resolution by the characters create the plot. A fairly detailed setting is a very useful tool for this, though again, details which are not relevant to the characters don't really have a purpose beyond pleasing the GM when he/she builds a setting.

Finally, plots in RPGs are not quite like literary plots. It takes some skill (and sometimes a bit of railroading) to follow a traditional plot structure in a game. But episodic strings of conflicts are *also* plots and can be a lot of fun, even if they don't fit the idea of intro/rising tension/denoument in literary plots. After all, that model isn't even an absolute -- it's just tradition.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The problem that Harrison is referring to comes from the fact that in literature, the setting is subordinate to the story.

Who the hell is Harrison, and what does setting have to do with adventure building? My adventures take place in an empty white expanse.