cuthalion wrote:On the one hand I agree--yes, who would want the pressure of playing out an entire game in character? Or even, in an in-person game, of coming up with Tolkien-like prose and dialogue on the spot? I'm not clear that this was what the previous discussion had been about.
The topic veered into how suspension of disbelief affects play-style. "Suspension of disbelief" is usually a literary topic, so I wanted to contrast literature and role-playing games.
For my part, I was talking about being able to inhabit a character and make decisions realistically, according to the character's circumstances/knowledge/the current story, rather than meta-gaming and goal--reward gaming. Talking about empathy, not acting ability. Maybe you were just being rhetorical?
I wasn't accusing anyone of being a hack, if that's what you mean. I'm saying that the skills and processes involved in gaming are different than the skills and processes involved in storytelling. Using the tools of analysis for the one is not necessarily useful for the other.
On the other hand I don't think you can separate the source material that the game and the players are clearly evoking from the game itself. Different 'Arts' they may be, but it's clear that you couldn't have a 'successful' game of TOR that was irreverent towards the canon--it would literally be game breaking.
No, that's not what I was suggesting.
and at its heart, yes, I do think roleplaying games are a form of storytelling. At least, I think those that set out to be highly narrative based, like TOR, are!
I disagree with this. Storytelling is what happens
after you play. You relate the tale of your characters' adventure. Here''s a short bit from the example of play in the
One Ring rule book:
Nick (the Loremaster): Okay, at the end of the last session you had arrived in Dale with the message of warning that King Thranduil demanded you deliver to King Bard. You emerge from the Traders’ Gate into the Merchants’ Quarter. Large warehouses line the street ahead of you, and carts laden with goods are heading in both directions. From a gap between warehouses to the right, you can see a large boat tied to the jetty on the river – you can hear its timbers creak as it heaves on its moorings. Which way are you going to head?
Jennifer (playing Lifstan, a Barding): Lifstan grew up in Dale, so he’d know where we should go, wouldn’t he?
Nick: Yes, he would know that King Bard’s Royal Palace is near the centre of the town – straight ahead to the market
square then off to the left a bit.
Jennifer (as Lifstan): “Follow me; I’ll take us to Bard’s palace.”
Stuart (as Trotter): “Lead the way.”
Jennifer: I lead everyone up the street towards the palace.
Claire (playing The Bride): I’m following.
A perfectly serviceable sample of a role-playing game, and it is not storytelling. If the players had not spoken when the characters were not speaking, that is still not storytelling. If, later, Jennifer relates how she brought the company to the palace,
that's storytelling.
Jennifer employed no art in asking about Lifstan's knowledge of Dale or in speaking to the other characters. Nick used no art in describing Dale. Nick's art comes in deciding what's going on, in improvising encounters and events he hadn't planned for, in speaking as non-player characters—in selling the players on the idea that they stepped inside Middle-earth and are taking actions there. Both role-play gaming and storytelling involve secondary belief, but the art and end result are very different.
I also think you might thoroughly offend people that do play in the style you're talking about, who tend to the more fan-fiction end of play-by-post etc. Not really sure this kind of judgement is ever warranted. Let's keep this to a discussion.
I wasn't talking about a particular play-style. Whether you never break character and speak in thees and thous, or you spend the whole evening laughing, scarfing pizza, and hacking orcs, this is role-play gaming, not storytelling.