10-15-2018, 05:01 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Nashville, TN
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
Quote:
__________________
I didn't realize who I was until I stopped being who I wasn't. Formerly known as Bookman- forum name changed 1/3/2018. |
|
10-15-2018, 05:27 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
Quote:
For example, I lately had the players in Tapestry roll dice to determine how well their characters did on their long trade voyage to unknown shores. I had decided what the expected return was (a return equal to 10x their investment), and how much effect their rolls would have (10% adjustment per point of success or failure), and I had decided on more extreme effects for a critical success or failure. But a critical failure was not going to result in one of them losing a limb, or in a demon showing up and attacking their home port, or in their suddenly forgetting everything they had done for the previous eighteen months. None of those was remotely plausible in the context of "How much did we make from our voyage?" And conversely, if one of them got into a fight, and made a critical failure, they might throw their weapon away, or trip and fall down, but they wouldn't suddenly discover that two-thirds of their money had vanished from their purse. It's just not random in the way you suggest.
__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
|
10-15-2018, 05:41 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
They don't? If the GM wants to have a contrast between doing a task on a busy street as opposed to on an empty one, they do.
|
10-15-2018, 05:42 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
So, basic question here: why do you want to call RPGs storytelling?
Classifying RPGs a storytelling vs something else is basically a semantic dispute, but it's semantics with consequences. Specifically, it usually has one or more of the following purposes:
|
10-15-2018, 05:48 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
Quote:
I've already said a lot of what I have to say about this in GURPS Adaptations, at more length than I can take here.
__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
|
10-15-2018, 05:54 PM | #16 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
Quote:
Of course the GM CAN roll dice purely at random, and have random stuff happen. But most GMs don't do that most of the time. Rolling the dice is a tool of running the session, not an arbitrary disruption of its flow of events.
__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
|
10-15-2018, 06:00 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
Quote:
|
|
10-15-2018, 06:09 PM | #18 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Nashville, TN
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
Quote:
It seems to me that some of the basic elements of a story are part of the essential framework of RPGs and couldn't be removed even if you wanted to: characters, setting, and conflict are certainly there. There also tends to be resolution, at least in terms of the end of a campaign or adventure, (and in my view most sessions should also have some kind of narrative resolution even if the session is part of a larger narrative structure. So I'm wondering if what you're really talking about is plot. In terms of plot, stories and RPGs are very different. Stories are constructed around their plot, which is known in advance of telling the story. The way I see it, the "plot" of an RPG is revealed in the telling. We don't know what it is going in, but looking back on what happened we can see what it was. I think that the narrative that emerges could be called a plot, but I would understand if you or anyone else didn't want to use that word for it. It's not plot in the same sense as a story. As Mark alluded to earlier, as GMs we have the luxury of looking back on what happened in the moment and attaching significance to it that wasn't thought of or intended in the moment. Done poorly, this is retconning. Done well, it looks like foreshadowing -- another element of stories. I will grant that some elements common to many stories are difficult to imagine being a part of an RPG. I seem to recall that Bill and I talked on one occasion about "theme". I like to have themes for my campaigns in mind because it helps me write; he said, if I recall correctly, that his games don't have anything in them that could be called a theme. And even though I use them to help me write, they really aren't part of the sessions and I doubt that my players even notice. Symbolism is another story element that seems hard to me to include. I'm sure there are others. So, for me at least, it's not about "wanting to call it storytelling" for some personal reason. It's just that I think that's what the hobby essentially is.
__________________
I didn't realize who I was until I stopped being who I wasn't. Formerly known as Bookman- forum name changed 1/3/2018. |
|
10-15-2018, 06:23 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
Quote:
And to a large degree this reflects your estimate of what's important for your purposes. I mean, for example, when Maxwell came up with the theory of electromagnetic radiation, a lot of physicists went too far in comparing it with acoustic radiation, or water waves, or other mechanical processes, and thought that there had to be a medium (the luminiferous ether) and that it was possible to go faster than light just as it was possible to go faster than sound and various other ideas that proved prolematic or misleading. But if physicists instead had outright rejected all analogies, the investigation of electromagnetism would have been seriously slowed, or maybe stalled. The use of analogies is fundamental to theoretical innovation; if you want to get the payoff you have to take some risks.
__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
|
10-15-2018, 06:27 PM | #20 | ||
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Drama, dice-rolls and Plot
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|