[RPG Theory] RPGs Are Writing, Not Reading

[stevekenson]

It occurs to me that, in many regards, the lauded goal of “creating stories” in RPG play often leads to the mistaken belief that playing a good RPG should be like reading a good story of the same genre, whether fantasy, four-color comic book, cosmic horror, or whatnot.

However, in my experience, the “story” part of an RPG actually comes after the game is over, when you and your friends are recounting the cool story of what happened to each other or to someone else (”Hey remember that time we saved the world from the Overshadow?”). Playing the game is actually more akin to writing a story, including all the missteps, edits, typos, mistakes, unexpected turns, and revisions that go along with that process. It’s when GMs and players expect the game to play like reading a novel or watching a show—where the author (GM) has done all the work in advance—that things become railroady, frustrating, and disappointing.

Comments

[wordwill.livejournal.com]

Hell. Yes.

I've been writing about this extensively in various areas, if you feel like reading some half-formed ideas:

http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/thirsty (http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/thirsty) is my essay on the subject from Second Person.

http://gameplaywright.net/?cat=31 (http://gameplaywright.net/?cat=31") has links to my posts exploring the idea a bit further at Gameplaywright.

[zoatebix.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's almost exactly what I've been trying to communicate in conversations with my friends and in posts like this one (http://maliszew.livejournal.com/454198.html?thread=3285814#t3285814). Maybe "create" is too broad of a word for what I mean.

[zoatebix.livejournal.com]

And I'm with viktor_haag: "create" is too broad and "write" is too narrow.

[mearls.livejournal.com]

I think that issue speaks to the root of a lot of discontent in gaming.

I've been the GM who wants the game to go in direction X, because it seems really cool, despite what the players want. In my Mutants & Masterminds campaign, I had this idea of the PCs slowly learning that an alternate Earth was slowly invading their world, killing off and replacing their Earth's heroes with alternate Earth analogs.

Instead, the players simply wanted to fight hordes of robots, punch villains clear to the other side of the city, and fight epic, world-spanning battles. It took me a few sessions to figure that out and adjust ("Let's replace this villain's clue-riddled monologue with his throwing a switch as he dies that activates more DeathBots!"), but any earlier in my GMing career the game would've fallen apart under the weight of my frustration.

The stuff that happens between laying out the GM's screen and picking up the dice at the end of the night trumps everything outside of it. That stuff is why we game.

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

Bingo.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I would completely agree with you, Steve, except where you use the word "writing", I would use the words telling or sharing. Why? Because, to me, writing is a solitary activity that only admits contribution from others at very restricted points. When you tell to or share a story with a group of people verbally, it's a lot more like what I actually experience during play. People interject; they amplify or kibbitz, and all that meta-information becomes part of the sharing experience, if not the narrative that's being formed itself.

To a large extent, I see roleplaying as a really fun night out over beers, telling stories, only with some rules structure to help you determine "what really happened" when that distinction becomes important.

[kosmic.livejournal.com]

I've always described RPGing as collaborative fiction with dice.

[saxon-pagan.livejournal.com]

That's pretty good. I hope you don't mind if I borrow the description.

[kosmic.livejournal.com]

Not at all. In my heyday of gaming, that's essentially what it was. There was about 4-5 of us in the group, with 3 of us alternating as GM, once in a while during the same sessions. When the synergy was really happening, we often would forget about the rules altogether and just toss dice when the appropriate randomness was needed. I think more than combat itself, we made a lot of use an old school D&D reaction table that used 2d6, and several subtables that boiled down to Attack/Leave/Friendly that we freely interpereted and added modifiers to.

[saxon-pagan.livejournal.com]

LOL, I remember that reaction table! I'm a big fan of the classic (pre-AD&D) Dungeons & Dragons game. My group is currently using the d20/3.5 system, but I stayed with the original game into the late 1990's.

[jcstarbrand.livejournal.com]

Yep, and to say it once again, no prep work survives first contact with the players anyway. It's getting back on the preplanned track that feels like-- no, wait-- IS railroading. But every so often they do what you are somewhat ready for, and sometimes that makes you look good. :)

Generally if things work at all, they work out better than I planned, but of course nothing like the story I envisioned. So I never get my heart set on anything as a GM and it's all good.

[eytan-bernstein.livejournal.com]

That's a really cool way of putting it. I've often felt what you're saying, but was never able to put it into words. Thanks!

[jedisoth.livejournal.com]

I guess that's why my campaign journals often sounded more exciting than I remember the game being, especially when we were having a bad day.

[rob-donoghue.livejournal.com]

I worry about the comparison to writing, but the idea that story in gaming really means "no-shit-there-I-was" is a point I've been considering carving into a baseball bat. :)