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The effect of Role playing games on modern literature

  
  

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halfcent
17:22 / 13.12.02
I know I may have Jinx myself with this being my first post on Barbelith. However I ask you hear me out and give me a fair answer to my question. Which what is the effect Role playing games on modern literature?
Honestly I personally belive that their has been no to little effect at all. However I do know that role playing game sub culture is about twenty some odd years old. That is quite a long period of time to have no effect to little effect at all . So maybe I'm wrong and their has been some effect. So I'm asking you all in hopes that maybe you can either prove me right or prove me wrong. Thank you in advance for any help you give me .
 
 
iconoplast
18:48 / 13.12.02
I think this may be something of a bitter viewpoint, but...

I think RPGs are deluding scores of would-be literati that they are being creative. Playing an RPG massages the creative lobes, or whatever, just enough to sate that "I need to get this out of my head" thing. However, there's no real standard. There's no waiting period between creation and review, and there's no editorializing.

Playing an RPG is like writing a novel, one line at a time, with each line dissapearing after you've written it. Good for getting over a fear of being creative, but I think RPGs are a warm up exercise that lots of people (me included) get mired in, and forget that the object is something else entirely.
 
 
The Strobe
21:05 / 13.12.02
Role playing game sub culture is about twenty some odd years old

I'll give you that.

However, I think there's one crucial point you're missing in the "effect of RPGs on modern literature". RPGs themselves are, if I dare say it, a form of literature; material in books. Used to create a game. In fact, Role Playing, to use an analogy I shall probably be shot down for, is a bit like writing fan-fiction, where the ruleset is the original fiction.

Anyhow. The big problem we run into is genre. Namely, RPGs set in a particular genre (because, believe me, they're VERY genre-centric) are only going to influence literature of that genre. I'd argue that strongly. And if we look at RPGs... we have an awful lot of fantasy, some better realised than others (various D&D settings, for instance, some quite well-realised (though I'm not going as far to use the term "interesting"), and others... Dragonlance... oh dear), a fair bit of sci-fi, from cyberpunk to hard to the Star Wars RPG (see my fanfic analogy), and then the peculiar horror-stuff.

Now, RPGs might well have affected sci-fi novels, of various subgenres, and probably fantasy novels, etc... but affecting real, proper literature? Not entirely convinced.

Of course, there's now the big "what's literature anywhere?" thing and you ought to define what you call literature. But really, I don't think RPGs have contributed much to the actual writing of literature at all. Maybe some interesting plot devices that author's wouldn't credit... but nothing major.

(Aside: one book I can think of based on a wargame, namely a particular long-running game of Harpoon the author had on the go is Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. It is uniformly terrible.)
 
 
w1rebaby
22:02 / 13.12.02
I think one influence of RPGs on genre fiction is the "all people think just like me and my friends" fallacy. All the characters that you encounter in-game are basically you and your friends, if you're not in a good group. It can then be easy to get the idea that this is an appropriate and accurate way to portray other people - after all, we're all the same underneath.

Quite obvious in a lot of bad fantasy and fanfic.

However, I can't see that anyone who would otherwise have been any good would fall for this. So I wouldn't say that RPGs have increased the amount of bad literature, only, perhaps, changed the exact details of its badness.
 
 
The Strobe
08:17 / 14.12.02
Yes. Fridge is right.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:50 / 14.12.02
It occurs to me that to excoriate RPGs for having had no effect on literature might be rather like excoriating synchronised swimming for having had no effect on crochet.

Or, to put it another way, RPGs involve a lot of adding things up, equations, maths, working out probabilities...why have RPGs had apparently so little effect on pure or applied mathematics?

And should this be moved to "Books", where a discussion of "Dragons of Amber Nectar" might be more profitably explored?
 
 
eye landed
04:59 / 15.12.02
RPGs aren't supposed to be literature, they are supposed to be storytelling. They have more in common with sitting around the camp fire with the elder or shaman (or dungeon master) than with the pretty much self-contained illusion that is literature. Don't get me wrong, I love literature, but RPGs are primal where literature is academic. They influence each other, but generally only in the bad areas where they cross. Good RPGs and good literature are pretty well separated.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:02 / 15.12.02
Ah....care to expand a bit on the "primal" bit there? Because ti strikes me that a game in which a group of people use dice, charts, or other representative mechanisms to navigate from one end to the other of a theoretically open-ended story that is affected by each participant's actions has little more in common with most examples of tribal storytelling I can think of offhand than the circular seating, the act of speech and the Cheetos. Don't you think it's a little romantic to describe a process invented in the 1970s and honed into a mechanism for selling products as "primal"?
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
12:34 / 15.12.02
Well, role-playing wasn't invented in the 1970s. The (by now mechanised and institutionalised) process that you describe was invented around then, but really, the only people who actually play RPG in such a manner are either a) playing RPG in the same manner as they'd play a computer RPG, or Risk, or The Game Of Life, in which case it's an escapist diversion that has no real resemblance to anything creative, or b) they're relatively numbnutted, and probably need to live in a house made entirely of wool in order to avoid hurting themselves.

Role-playing, done with a group of like-minded people, can be a powerful tool for self-expression, mental discipline and more complex social ordering than 'Who's bringing the nachos next week?'. The thing is, awareness of role-playing is layered with a sense that it's inherently geeky, and most people who know little about it, but enough to think they've formed an informed opinion, are prejudiced accordingly.

Intelligent role-players are as different from the kind Haus refers to as accomplished writers of slash are different from inveterate writers of Mary Sue fanfic. Live with it.

As to the question behind the thread - gimme a while to ponder it...
 
 
The resistable rise of Reidcourchie
12:47 / 15.12.02
I'm going to come back to this when I've had a bit more of a think.

As for actual effects on literature, the Magician by Raymond Feist was based on an RPG campaign the author ran (make of that what you will, I thought it was a pretty average book).

There's a couple of things in the Naked God by Peter F Hamilton which makes me think he may be a role player or perhaps even a re-enactor but no real proof or anything.

As for primal, LRP's felt extremely primal when you're being chased round woods at night scared out of your wits. But I assume we're largely talking about tabletop LRP.
 
 
The resistable rise of Reidcourchie
12:49 / 15.12.02
Neal Stephenson also mentions it in the Cryptonomicon but that's from the math perspective, I've always wanted as few rules in my game as possible. Some of my current playes like role master which apparently requires spreadsheets to play. I've said no, the odd thing is they're actuallly very good role players, oh well.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:31 / 15.12.02
Jack - but we're talking about role-playing *games*, not role-playing in general. and I assume that we can trace the first role-playing games from "Dungeons and Dragons". In fact, by using these systems for creating scenarios with characters with personalities, the users of these games were subverting brilliantly a set of systems devised for small-unit tactical combat in fantasy settings. However, in doing so they were presuably taking their cue *from* fantasy literature, which makes me question the primal element.

And, honestly, I think you're being defensive of the status of "intelligent role-players", tothe extent that you're defending yurself against criticisms that aren't there. I described role-playing gaming as a game in which a group of people use dice, charts, or other representative mechanisms to navigate from one end to the other of a theoretically open-ended story that is affected by each participant's actions. What exactly is the problem with this description? It doesn't preclude self-expression, mental discipline and more complex social ordering than 'Who's bringing the nachos next week?', does it? Merely draws attention to a particular element of it - the rules-based negotiation through scenarios. Scenarios, incidentally, that depend generally on language for their structure and arguably literature for their topoi. Of course, a car repair manual also depends on language, but not literature, but I suspect that the average Role-Playing Game scenario is more influenced by literature than the average act of car repair. And that's before we even get onto games like Call of Cthulhu...
 
 
some guy
14:39 / 15.12.02
However, in doing so they were presuably taking their cue *from* fantasy literature, which makes me question the primal element.

RPGs are just the "adult" version of the playing all children do on the playground, or with action figures. The only difference is that the youthful freeform play has been codified.

So yeah, there's a pretty good argument for a "primal" reading.
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
14:40 / 15.12.02
I described role-playing gaming as a game in which a group of people use dice, charts, or other representative mechanisms...

Erm...not necessarily, Haus. I'd define it as nothing more than a form of entertainment in which participants assume fictional roles. The whole dice & charts thing is - or, perhaps was - true in some cases, but not all. I've done a fair bit of roleplay in my time, and, with only a few exceptions, none of it has used dice, charts, or other paraphernalia. The reason? For the story, obviously.

On which note, I'd have to say that whilst I don't necessarily agree completely with substatique, I can see the logic in what's being said. Like it or not, at their core role-playing games are about narration, not calculation, and so of course they share certain similarities with oral traditions.

As to literature, I don't honestly think that the relationship – if there is one - is any more complex than role-play games stimulating that same creative area of the brain as writing fiction. I used to roleplay because I love storytelling, not because I got any pleasure out of rolling dice and consulting obscure charts.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:01 / 15.12.02
I'd define it as nothing more than a form of entertainment in which participants assume fictional roles.

So, how is it distinct from theatre, or Botticelli, or Postman's knock?

I've done a fair bit of roleplay in my time, and, with only a few exceptions, none of it has used dice, charts, or other paraphernalia. The reason? For the story, obviously.

Ok...so how can you tell that you were playing a role-playing game, rather than just role-playing? If you weren't using rules system contained within a role-playing game book, in what sense was it a role-playing game? I'm looking at the relationship of imagination and consumption, here. If your experience involved no consumption, and no source information, what were the parameters involved?

Now, Lawrence and Substatique have both used the term, primal, but I'm not sure I understand how "a codified version of children playing with action figures", say, is primal. Nostalgic or childlike or retro or several other things, but primal? How are we using the term, here? Substatique seems to be sasying that "primal" means not childlike, but like a preliterate stage of human history. That seems to be a rather different definition...
 
 
dj kali_ma
15:23 / 15.12.02
Another very personal viewpoint/idea that might draw some flame: I personally believe that RPGs influence on modern literature is the same as RPGs influence on everything else: it's evil. The whole pseudo-creative aspects, the impending sense that you're just wasting time (which is a feeling that I'm very uncomfortable with), the promotion of rules-lawyering and nitpickiness of agreed-upon reality, the distracting idea of sitting around pretending to have an exciting life rather than attempting to go and get one... that, and it takes old exciting ideas about the way the universe might work and turns these dynamic ideas into the most banal, tedious human transactions.

In short, I believe that RPGs, in their not-so-subtle way, probably promote mediocrity. Perhaps it's because I've been to enough parties where I've been cornered by heavy-breathing persons who seem very excited to talk about their gaming exploits. (I suppose it's just as bad as people talking about their shitty relationships or sports, though.)

Moral of the story: EVERYTHING IZ B0R1NG!!!11111!!!11

*snicker*

::a::
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:50 / 15.12.02
The whole pseudo-creative aspects, the impending sense that you're just wasting time (which is a feeling that I'm very uncomfortable with), the promotion of rules-lawyering and nitpickiness of agreed-upon reality, the distracting idea of sitting around pretending to have an exciting life rather than attempting to go and get one...

Uh....welcome to Barbelith. With its pseudo-creative aspects, time-wasting, nitpickiness, and sitting around pretending to be hanging out with really cool people rather than actually going out and finding some...

I don't see what any of these things have to do with the influence of role-playing on literature, and I don't see the point in just launching attacks on role-players. Jack and Tez have both said that there are far greater possibilities to it than the behaviours you describe above. Assuming they are right, then to attack role-playing because of certain role-players is as unprofitable as attacking all fiction because of the existence of Harlequin romances.
 
 
w1rebaby
16:16 / 15.12.02
so how can you tell that you were playing a role-playing game, rather than just role-playing? If you weren't using rules system contained within a role-playing game book, in what sense was it a role-playing game?

The existence of rules to constrain/guide the storyline and actions of the players is important, but I'm not sure it's what defines a "game". I'd say that was rather the intention of the players that made it that. For example, a training exercise that involved role-playing in a specific situation under the guidance of certain rules (an arbitrator, "you have a clipboard and a pen and you can't beat the guy up" etc) could have a set-up very similar to a freeform RPG, but is not a game. Except in the "everything is a game" sense. Or, take role-playing used in psychiatry or marriage therapy.

I think the "D&D as the first RPG" cut-off might be deceptive since it was actually derived from existing wargames, which have a longer history. Early D&D was very wargamey, but way the game was set up allowed people who were so inclined to move from controlling a single warrior instead of an army, to identifying with that warrior. I've heard it said that D&D first became an RPG when someone turned round and said "but my paladin wouldn't do that".

Just thought of an addition to my previous post - the wargaming aspect of RPGs, which still persists to greater or lesser degree, also leads you to viewing situations from a "resource management" aspect. You make choices based on constraints - your magic user doesn't not carry a sword because it would imply she can't cast spells, she doesn't carry a sword because the rules say so, and if it was allowed she'd carry a sword because it's a better weapon than a dagger. (In the hands of bad roleplayers.)

Now, I can see this leading to an assumption that people in any situation will similarly act rationally in making such choices. They not only think like us, but they make choices like we would in a game.

Basically it comes down to

- playing a character badly, or only creating bland characters so you don't have to think too hard
- creating characters in your books that are like your RPG characters and behave like they would if you were playing them

It's the character link, see. You play through the book in your mind and then write it down. If you think that all that's important in literature is writing down what people do anyway, no matter how good a roleplayer you are there's going to be something missing....
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
16:19 / 15.12.02
Ok, firstly, aphonia's post is pretty neatly answered by Jack The Bodiless' earlier statement, "The thing is, awareness of role-playing is layered with a sense that it's inherently geeky, and most people who know little about it, but enough to think they've formed an informed opinion, are prejudiced accordingly".

So, how is it distinct from theatre, or Botticelli, or Postman's knock?

In a way, I don't think it is. Isn’t roleplay – regardless of whether or not you have a rule system - a kind of freeform theatre? And...um...there are rules to Postman's Knock (a game for which my original definition of a form of entertainment in which participants assume fictional roles still stands. I think).

Ok...so how can you tell that you were playing a role-playing game, rather than just role-playing? If you weren't using rules system contained within a role-playing game book, in what sense was it a role-playing game?

I see the distinction you're making, but I think that we're in danger of getting into an argument over semantics here. I personally consider the ‘game’ part of roleplay game to mean an activity providing entertainment, the whole being an activity providing entertainment by the assuming of roles. It honestly cannot see that an activity – in order to qualify as a roleplay game – must adhere to a set checklist of rules, charts, etc. I say adhere because I know, from direct and indirect experience, that roleplay games – almost without exception – state that their particular game has no set of rules, and that all details given within the various books, charts, etc. are guidelines only. To my mind, this versatility just highlights that the storytelling aspect of these games are the most important aspect, rather than simply playing characters within a rigidly constructed and maintained world.

Again, and in response to the topic abstract, I don’t think the act of creating a world in which to roleplay is really any different from creating a world in which to set your protagonists when writing fiction.
 
 
Lurid Archive
17:43 / 15.12.02
I personally consider the ‘game’ part of roleplay game to mean an activity providing entertainment, the whole being an activity providing entertainment by the assuming of roles

Interesting. But wouldn't that then include cinema and theatre? I put it to you that thinking on the two questions

what is the effect of role playing games on mordern literature?

what is the effect of cinema on mordern literature?

that you wouldn't think of the latter as a subquestion to the former.
 
 
w1rebaby
17:55 / 15.12.02
I think there has to be an element of challenge, an objective, in a game. I don't think a situation where people came round to your house and just pretended to be other people doing normal stuff would really be a game. Like Sim City is only a game if you set your own goals for yourself, build the richest city in 100 years etc.
 
 
iconoplast
18:35 / 15.12.02
I want to chime in with aphoria, here.

Telling a story to your friends is creative. That's your primal shamanic campfire what-have-you.
But, in a brilliant marketing scheme, White Wolf took that equality and appended to it "Playing Role Playing Games is just like telling stories to your friends." But it's not.

The medium - the rule set, the emphasis on character advancement, the serial nature of the narratives - changes what you're doing from telling a story to your friends to reading your friends a choose your own adventure story.

Except, even worse, it brings in obsessive escapist tendencies, the illusion that you are creating something, and other such things that don't really impact on literature.

What is the effect of Role Playing Games on literature?

RPGs have created niche markets, made Drizzt Do'Urden a best selling character, have furthered the careers of lots and lots of mediocre writers, and have given just as many would-be-authors the sense that they're being creative, without said would-be-authors actually having to produce any kind of creation.

That's what I blame them for. Role Playing Games make people think they're being creative. When they're not. You'd be more creative writing a new rule set for projectile damage in high wind conditions under the influence of extraplaneraty gravitation than you would be playing a character under those conditions.
 
 
w1rebaby
18:44 / 15.12.02
Look, White Wolf (who did admittedly go way over the top in pretension with their "We Sell Storytelling Aids Not Games", but they were selling to a market) is not the sum of what RPGs can be, or are. Buying a linear scenario pack from the shop and playing through it with your friends all pretending to be Anne Rice characters with even less personality, is not it either.

There are people out there creating their own scenarios and storylines, then interacting with other people who've created strong characters and producing a collaborative narrative. And that is creativity. Really, this sort of ill-informed prejudice gets on my nerves. Presumably, all comics are biff-pow spandex odysseys and all music is Britney, as well.
 
 
iconoplast
18:59 / 15.12.02
"...this sort of ill-informed prejudice gets on my nerves..."

I have to object to both accusations - my opinions on RPGs isn't ill-informed, and it's not prejudice. It's, if anything, overinformed postjudice.

"There are people out there creating their own scenarios and storylines, then interacting with other people who've created strong characters and producing a collaborative narrative. And that is creativity."

Yes. And that's my problem with Role Playing Games. That is creativity, but they're not creating anything. A transcript of the game would be, at best, a readably mediocre novel. Or a watchably bad sitcom. Role Playing Games facilitate empty creativity. And it's an instantaneous reward system. You write a cool one liner, you describe something well, you think of an interesting plot twist, and your audience imediately, reacts.

It's... I don't know. In defense of Role Playing, I suppose it's a lot like improv comedy, which I don't have the same visceral revulsion towards. Unknown Armies, in their little 'what is an RPG' essay, likens Role Playing to Improv Radio Theater.

And, I suppose, you don't listen to Improv Radio Theater expecting Chekov.

But I can't help but feel like all these bright minds are just spinning in circles and devoting all this time and energy to empty-calorie-creativity, and I'm being robbed of the fruits of their potential labor, you know? Every obsessive geek who writes his own game world and game rules, writes an intricate history for the cities, and who Dungeon Masters, or Game Masters, or Storytells, for his friends... each one of them feels, to me, like a novelist lost to the dark side.
 
 
w1rebaby
19:25 / 15.12.02
I really don't get your point here. An RPG session or campaign (telling word, historically) is not permanently recorded. So what? Nothing is permanently recorded. A lost novel, or a story made up in my head, can't be viewed by anyone either, but the activity is still creative. There is a thing that is created, and is destroyed.

Impermanence doesn't change the quality of the work, either. We don't get improv radio theatre like Chekov mostly because we don't get Chekov working in improv radio theatre, but also because the two forms are different. Why would you expect a transcript of an RPG session to be like a novel? It's not a collective novel-writing activity.

I can appreciate a beautifully-designed scenario or world that's expressed in terms of a sourcebook as much as I can appreciate one that's expressed in terms of a novel. Lots of people buy RPG books to appreciate the ideas behind them, not because they ever plan on playing them.
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
20:31 / 15.12.02
But wouldn't that then include cinema and theatre?

Of course not. Both cinema and theatre are enjoyed by - and produced for - non-participants. Roleplay games are not. But then that's not really the point of our discussion here.

Yes, I think a large part of roleplay is about storytelling, and yes, of course that storytelling - as fridge has pointed out - is an act of creation. But has roleplay had an effect on modern literature? No, I don't think so.
 
 
some guy
01:12 / 16.12.02
And that's my problem with Role Playing Games. That is creativity, but they're not creating anything. A transcript of the game would be, at best, a readably mediocre novel.

This is a pointless value judgment, that creativity is only valid or worthwhile if it's recorded in some fashion (and further only if you personally are interested in it).

I find RPGs boring in the extreme, but it doesn't mean they're any more or less valid a means of passing time than composing a symphony or farting in the bath.
 
 
iconoplast
01:51 / 16.12.02
Okay, I think I haven't been clear about my problem with role playing games as they relate to literature. It's not that they're bad, in the sense of bad literature. They're not books, just like they're not engine blocks.

But, I think Role Playing Games feel like writing, and that the production of this feeling of 'having-written' without the actual output normally associated with 'having written' allows people to get the 'must-write' monkey off their backs without writing.

And I want to read what they would have written.
 
 
The Monkey
03:13 / 16.12.02
To deal first with the topic statement, I'd tend to go along with the others who've said that there really isn't a large interconnection between RPG manuals and novels. The RPG industry has appropriated the novel format as a commercial item but haven't really expanded the reach of the medium. While the pounding out of serialized novels centering on chronic munchkin characters has proved to be a successful fiscal venture, the form of the novel (or short story, etc.) has not really been changed by the activity. In a few cases one experiences/locates a fiction-writer whose work self-consciously references roleplaying - Neal Stephenson begin the clearest example - the two never really meet proper. RPG is about social collectivity and group creativity (or at very least, parallel play)while the composition of a novel, or even the reading thereof, is about individual expression.

iconplast, you're entitled to your opinion of RPG and I won't flame it for being a position I wouldn't take. I would, however, claim that story-writing and playing-designing RPG are very different creative activities, and that a RPG player/game master is *not* a novelist lost. The difference between the two being the relative social aspect to the creative process. A role-playing group are creating a consensual dynamic of interaction; in a way, playing with their established interrelationships...but I don't feel like chasing the tail of that extrapolation right now. The point is not the flow of the "plot" constructed by the GM or whatever, but the interaction between participants as they jump in and out of character. Imagined adventures, shared, generate collective meaning and emotional experiences. It's a matter of sharing shocks and laughs in the moment rather than ingesting and distilling words. A group of people watching a TV show or a sporting match experience much the same sort of emotional and social stimulation and sense of bonding, but there is less of a sense of *play* with these contexts - in the latter cases the interfacing experience is immutable, passive-view only. The point is not as simple as the expression of an internal vision of *something* to be captured in words and presented to others: the story of an RPG is given rudimentary structure, then given further form as it is passed back and forth between willling hands. Of course, like many things created by committee, the end-product is *ahem* a litte crooked and probably won't stand on its own. But the point isn't to be I.M. Pei; it's to have a laugh and be at ease.

I'm not qualified to really speak on the construction of a novel by comparison, but I've always had the impression that the activity leading up to the completion of the project was more private than jocularity in a living room (although the editing and publication process postnatally, so to speak, and undergoing second-order changes of meaning by being read, are all social aspects of one's construction). A novel is a very rarified form of the personal creative that is time-consuming and requires lots of mental energy, even as it is a delightful project to pursue...which is partially why they have such a marked and powerful standing in our view of expressional media...the crystallizaiton of the self, the ortgeist, the zeitgeist.
 
 
iconoplast
05:41 / 16.12.02
Yeah, TM, I suppose.

I can't shake my feeling that something is being wasted, but I think you're right. About the "play" aspect and the social setting.

I mean, hell, if we didn't have RPGs, star trek (or whatever) drinking games would probably just be more popular.
 
 
Catjerome
14:40 / 16.12.02
Jumping in a bit ... I used to enjoy RPGs as "fun with a purpose" - a reason to see my friends every week, a shared experience that we could all refer to later on, that kind of thing. But it gave me such a sense of frustrated creativity that I couldn't do it anymore. I'd spend ages writing backstory and characterization in my head only to have none of it addressed in the game. My character would be shoehorned into someone else's stories. I wanted to be able to exercise ideas or just write my own story for the character (in the context of the game) but wouldn't get the chance.

I think it might depend on the group. If you have an experienced GM and willing players, games can turn out your own personal shared epics. On the other hand, if you don't have a good group, you can end up pandering plotwise to the mediocre middleground/lowest common denominator ("Bob has a combat character, so I guess we need to put a fight in there") and having your character inserted Mad Lib-style into some completely irrelevant story. (e.g., my closeted telepathic lawyer character, who ended up having to ... fight giant robots. yeah...). Sometimes it felt like a bad fanfiction story, the kind where characters and plot are developed independently and then are stapled together at the end, badly (along the lines of "Obi-Wan is transported to the present and has to fight Picard and Riker").

Literature effects: Similarly, I think that there's a range - amazingly-amazing through not-even-trying. The ones that annoy me are novels like the Ravenloft series, stories that pretty much just rip from existing ideas and novels (Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc.) and think that it'll seem original because they swap in fantasy names, kingdoms, and feudal titles. Bah.
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
16:18 / 16.12.02
But it gave me such a sense of frustrated creativity that I couldn't do it anymore. I'd spend ages writing backstory and characterization in my head only to have none of it addressed in the game

I feel exactly the same way, which is largely why I stopped roleplaying and started writing.
 
 
w1rebaby
17:17 / 16.12.02
I know what you mean. Unless you publish it, only a fraction is ever going to be appreciated. But I think if you're the sort of person that likes to do that, you may be better off expressing that creativity in another form.

The most successful GMs, IMO, are the ones who can have a basic storyline and riff on that and what the players do, in such a way that it's coherent but is also dynamic.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
20:47 / 16.12.02
Haus - wasn't being defensive, was attempting to shortcut a possible decline of the thread into "yes, but since RPG is, well a bit shit, shouldn't we talk about it somewhere else?", which we aren't doing for the most part, so yay everyone...

OK. Yes, RPG has had an effect on modern literature. Whether you think it's a good or a bad effect depends entirely on a value judgement, which is best left for the Books forum.

Yeah, Raymond Feist was/is a gamer. The original Dragonlance books, whatever we might think of them, are also based on a campaign played around that particular AD&D expansion world. Books like this, along with the Pratchett publishing phenomenon and others, are, I think, largely responsible for the boom in fantasy publishing which helped other writers get published and so reach an audience. You could also potentially argue that the fantasy boom of the late eighties and early nineties helped keep awareness of and interest in Tolkien's work, which inspired so much of it. Again, whether you think that's a good or bad thing is a value judgement best left to another debate, but you can't deny it's an effect.

Bottom line is you need a like-minded group for any RPG, whether you're a hack n' slash fanatic desperate to get your elven mage to fifteenth level, or attempting to use the form to express shuttered facets of subconscious workings - socially, magickally, whatever.

Really, try imagining playing a character who's more intelligent than you believe yourself to be. Try imagining playing a character with a different moral compass - not just the standard psychotic-with-a-sword you might see in a kids game of D&D, but, for example, a pro-life fundamentalist when you're a pro-choice atheist. And try playing them like you mean it, without descending into cliche and stereotype. Try GMing a session based partly on a previous session of lucid dreaming.

Any aspect of fiction can be transformed and used - both creatively and socially - by the act of role-playing, and the continued interest and entertainment of the respective gamers within that session is what makes it a 'game'. There's not necessarily any emphasis on advancement, unless it be a natural change in characters undergoing - at times - intense and radically changing experiences.

RPG games systems only really work cohesively as role-playing games when they're used as guidelines, rules adapted for the session, the characters, and the players involved. I don't like playing with dice, but sometimes a random element is useful to prevent creative stagnation. In one game I played briefly recently, we used Tarot cards. Doesn't matter, whatever chalks your cue.

RPG can run the gamut, from a piece of foolishness designed to get you through a rainy lunchtime at school, to a revelatory and wholly collaborative aspect of magickal ritual.
 
 
Foust is SO authentic
03:38 / 18.12.02
Sorry if this is broadening the topic too much, but it's closely related enough that I don't think it deserves its own thread.

I just finished playing the Medal of Honour: Allied Assault D-Day mission. From a gaming perspective, I think it's perhaps the greatest sequence in any PC game I've ever played. More than that, however, I believe this video game has created a portrayal of D-Day that can stand proudly with anything in film or literature, ie Saving Private Ryan.

The gunfire, the shouts of soldiers, the desperate runs across open ground, covering the advance of friendlies only to watch them cut down - is this not a story?

Video games, as they progress technologically, will become story telling platforms.
 
  

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