RPGs and gaming...

[deborahjross]

Paul Weimer's article on SF Signal on RPGs and sf/f writers got me thinking, so I put up a blog post on Book View Cafe and seem to have gotten a bunch of people rather irritated with me. Or at least, holding strong opinions. I think this is a good thing, and invite you all to jump in with your own experiences and viewpoints!

BVC blog here: http://blog.bookviewcafe.com/2011/04/26/why-you-wont-catch-me-at-the-dice/#more-15449

Paul's article here: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/04/roll-perception-plus-awareness-an-introduction/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Sfsignal+%28SFSignal%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Comments

[manawolf.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* You've probably figured this out, but I think your post betrays ignorance regarding modern RPGs. They've come a long way since being unable to kiss the grue, which was a function of the limits of computer technology, not the genre of roleplaying/RPGs. Honestly, Zork is not really an RPG, it's a text-based dungeon-crawler with story enhancement.

Games train both their creators and their players to think in certain highly structured ways.

Wanna bet? A good GM will encourage players to look for non-standard solutions; even when I was dice-gaming, with character stats laid out on a sheet, this was true.

When running Elegante - which was freeform, with no dice and no stats - we were constantly presented with dilemmas where the players would do something we hadn't expected and for which we had no plan. Conversely, they would overlook hints we thought were obvious, which would tell us that we had to define our breadcrumb trail a little more so that people could pick up on it. There were rules where we had to put our foot down and say "no, X isn't possible," but there were always either in-game reasons or a logistical issue.

You could have kissed the grue in our game, but it'd probably have bitten you. Then again, maybe it would've transformed into a red box with candy inside.

once that action is accomplished for either good or ill, the game returns to a sort of ground-state of tension.

Only if it's designed that way. And I might point out that books do this too, if they are set up to be a franchise series.

There’s no sense of one crisis leading inexorably and by intricate, previously-foreshadowed means to an even greater crisis. The world is not changed forever.

I'm sorry mom, but I have to laugh at this. The structure of our game was designed PRECISELY this way. We paced, we built tension, and character actions had consequences that affected the universe - most often, irrevocably. There was more foreshadowing than you could shake a stick at. Things happened in the first few months of the game opening that hinted at things that would occur 2 years down the line during the climax of the story.

A game can never be as carefully crafted as a book, because one person doesn't control every element of the story. But games can and do integrate all of the elements you decry as missing.

It's been a long time since Zork, and not all GMs are dogmatic about numbers and universe rules.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Aha, I have been Taken To Task by mine daughter. Some of these points were raised in comments in the BVC post. I concede that it's been a long time since I even looked over Rose's shoulder as she played on the Playstation. If what you (and Marie Brennan) say is true, and I have no grounds whatsoever for doubting you, then I am happy that gaming is maturing and getting not only more creative but more rewarding.

[manawolf.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, games of all sorts have come very far. With video games, you are limited to the physics and storyline that's been laid out - if an action isn't allowed for in programming, there's unfortunately no way for the system to account for it (i.e. kissing things), but you CAN run around and break game physics which is also fun. As far as dice go, flexibility and structure are completely up to the GM - how good of a storyteller are they, and how flexible are they going to be with the rule set-up?

And then there's our genre, roleplaying as a creative writing exercise - which is honestly a trial by fire if you're trying to do a plot-driven game rather than the static world setup. Most of the time, it's just scene-by-scene interactions, working out how characters behave and indulging in appealing scenarios. But sometimes you do wind up with a plot out of nowhere and it turns into a grand epic worthy of re-reading. It would take re-drafting and editing to be publishable material, of course - it's completely a first draft, un-paced and unedited. (Pacing, by the way, is pretty important when you're running in-game events.) But the characters can and do take you in book-worthy directions that permanently affect their characters and their world.

Marie Brennan's pretty on-target, at first all I was going to say was "what she said!" But this is better. *g*

I think it's best summed up, though, in what we always used to tell players: "Writer, hone thy craft."

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

This is what comes of putting up a discussion in 3 different places!