Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormcrow
Suppose I go to the store, witness a robbery, and trip the robber as he leaves the store. He bashes his head against the door and is knocked out. The police arrive and arrest him. The end.
While those event were happening, was I engaging in storytelling? There were characters, there was action, there was a resolution. But I wasn't creating a story. I was able to take what happened and turn it into a story, but it's not storytelling until I impose a narrative structure on it. Until then, it was just life.
Now suppose my RPG character goes to the store, witnesses a robbery, trips the robber as he leaves the store so that he bashes his head against the door and is knocked out. Then the police arrive and arrest him. End of session.
Why is this storytelling? While I'm sitting at the RPG table I'm just directing my character's life. It doesn't become storytelling until I tell you about it later and I impose a narrative structure on it.
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It's storytelling because, unlike the situation with you in the real world, the actions of your RPG character exist only insofar as you describe them. That descriptive is narrative, and your character exists only within the narrative, unlike you. You can't play an RPG without narrating.
And the RPG as such has a narrative structure. It's divided up into sessions, just as a book is divided up into chapters or a play into acts. It has a narrative sequence, where one event is described at a time, even if they're taking place simultaneously; that's imposed by the nature of literature, and primarily by its being in the medium of language, which is unavoidably linear. There are also formal elements in the play of RPGs; for example, the calling of the players' attention at the start of the session, and the summing up at the end, and the taking out of dice in scenes where the PCs have something at stake. These are almost a form of ritual, one that creates a kind of sacred space marked off from the surrounding world and the conduct of everyday life in that world. (I think this could be said of games in general; baseball or poker or go, you have a ritual aspect.) It's not that different from Homer starting out "Sing of wrath, Goddess!" or Shakespeare ending "So good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends."
I'd also say that RPGs almost always have themes. A theme is a principle of selection that determines what content is appropriate to a novel, or a painting, or a film; and such principles operate in RPGs, even if they're as simple as "gaining wealth and power by confronting natural and supernatural peril in mysterious places" or "the struggle of personified good against personified evil." These need not be sophisticated themes, but concepts such as theme and conflict and dialogue aren't confined to high literature, or to the academic analysis of high literature. We spend a lot of time here talking about them, even if we don't always use the academic words for them; for example, when we caution someone that players often respond poorly to "bait and switch," that's about theme and why it's important.