"Epic" and "Saga" roleplaying

[Paganini]

-Edit to fix quotes

On at least one occassion, my experience counters the idea that Sim gaming can't be epic. My players described the game as epic, and the story is still told as if it had epic significance.

I don't think GNS modes have any relevance to the epicness of a game. It's the choices and actions taken, together with story/drama/what-have-you, that does so. Gamist works in this regard too.

I agree. The most immediately obvious form of epic sim would be pastiche based on the Eddas.

The real question here is how to support  the epic feel in a game. Since the game is highly unlikely to be culturally significant, and just as unlikely to be written down in poetry or prose, those arguments that define epic can't apply. They may[/m] provide insight into the kinds of issues or events an epic game would need to address, but they don't provide for the feel. For the feel, we have no choice but to turn to things commonly described as epic, and look for the emotions raised there, or the kinds of actions or choices that can be thrust before the players. They're going to be the people deciding whether a game is epic, and it's unlikely that they will of necessity will have backgrounds in lit crit.

I don't agree. It doesn't matter if they have backgrounds in lit or not. Epic is epic. We're still talking about the same source material, even if we don't understand why that source material is part of the package. If someone says he wants his game to feel epic, I'm not going to be looking at the Civil War or Napoleanic France to figure out how to make it work - even if some media head has described them as "epic conflicts" or "epic history," or whatever. I'm gonna be looking at the Eddas, Boewulf, The Silmarilion, Gilgamesh, etc. I'm going to look at Epics to learn how to make a game feel epic.

I know what Epic is.  But if you've got the Moon landing or Bolshivek uprising in mind when you say you want your campaign to feel epic, then we have a communications failure.

That's why this thread keeps getting bogged down. "Epic" as a term, means something. If you try to make the term subjective, then how can anyone know what you mean if you ask for help to make your RPG feel epic? In that case the term is self-referencing. "I want it to feel epic," only means "I want it to make me feel the way other cool things that I call epic make me feel!" The vernacular use of epic that you keep refering to just means "big." King Kong is epic. Titanic is epic. The Burly Brawl frm the Matrix is epic.

And, I agree with what Ralph just said. :)

[John Kim]

Cuchulainn is not limited by the mere laws of gravity and physics when it comes to his ability to drive his chariot.  Those limits are for mere mundane types.  But the obligations of Geas and clan duty limit him far greater than any laws of physics.

All of these epic heroes are defined by their limits but they generally aren't they same limits as apply to normal people.

That's why I don't think traditional RPGs do a good job of providing Epic feel (and I think what Rexfelis was trying to get at just now).  Traditional games are all about defining the limits of normal people.  And that isn't what epic heroes are about at all.  

OK, I don't follow this logic at all.  You seem to be saying that traditional RPGs can handle normal humans, but they aren't able to handle superhuman powers?!?  While traditional RPGs do have problems with scaling, in my opinion they are usually geared more for superhuman PCs than for normal folk.  A given system only works well for a certain range of physical scales, but there's usually fairly little tying characters to realistic human ranges.  For example, I'd say Champions handles superheroes just as well as Pendragon handles exceptional knights.  

I get that you don't like traditional games -- which is a reasonable preference, although different than mine.  But do you really think that they handle human-scale drama okay (i.e. Casablanca, say), and have specific trouble with superhuman epic characters?  Or is this just an opportunity to vent about traditional games in general?

[montag]

@John Kim
the way I understood it, Ralph (Valamir) was talking about the fact that epic heroes are usually not defined by their limits in power, but by other, social, moral, personal constraints.
Most roleplaying games do however focus (mechanically) on the limits of powers (in a general sense) instead of limits arising from the human nature/condition of the hero.
Consequently, a good game for epics would be one, where the heroes have enough power to do virtually anything, but are constrained by social, moral and personal issues. A game designed for epic stories should therefore have no need for ability scores, success at mental or physical tasks should be left entirely to the player, but there should be all kinds of stats for the other constraints the epic hero has to deal with. (Conflict resolution mechanics should also deal reasonably well with this, because – given the understanding that there is no match for the hero in terms of abilities – a failure can be explained as the result of inner constraints (e.g. conscience) or the schemings of others.)

[Valamir]

Markus:  Yes.

John:  Come on now...

[Rexfelis]

Consequently, a good game for epics would be one, where the heroes have enough power to do virtually anything, but are constrained by social, moral and personal issues. A game designed for epic stories should therefore have no need for ability scores, success at mental or physical tasks should be left entirely to the player, but there should be all kinds of stats for the other constraints the epic hero has to deal with.

This seems too extreme. Not all epic heroes succeed all the time, nor are they equally good at everything. In the Odyssey, for example, Odysseus fails his "Will" save vs. the sirens. Similarly, in the Iliad, we know from the beginning that Achilles has the highest Fighting score of anyone there. In a strictly karma-based battle, Achilles will beat Hector every time. The heroes of Troy and Hellas can also be ranked in terms of raw strength, athletic ability, beauty, leadership, etc.  

It's true that an epic rpg would want to avoid the whiff factor in its resolution mechanic. But, perhaps karma should play a large role in conflict resolution. It seems like, in the literature, "skill tells" and "destiny/fate tells," while chance/fortune plays little role.

Rexfelis

[John Kim]

This seems too extreme. Not all epic heroes succeed all the time, nor are they equally good at everything. In the Odyssey, for example, Odysseus fails his "Will" save vs. the sirens. Similarly, in the Iliad, we know from the beginning that Achilles has the highest Fighting score of anyone there. In a strictly karma-based battle, Achilles will beat Hector every time. The heroes of Troy and Hellas can also be ranked in terms of raw strength, athletic ability, beauty, leadership, etc.  

I'd go further than this.  The Odyssey is constant frustration, where the protagonist just wants to get home and is continually prevented from doing so.  Similarly, in the Iliad, the heroes are locked in back and forth conflict for ages, and ultimately are unable to take Troy by force of arms.  So I completely disagree with the thesis that epic heroes should be generally able to succeed physically but held back by their social, moral, and personal constraints.  

It's true that epic heroes are defined in dramatic terms by their personality and beliefs -- but the same is true for non-superpowered human characters.  I don't see how Odysseus' longing for home is any different than Rick's love in Casablanca.  Now, I understand that some people prefer to have such things as mechanical stats for their characters, such as making Humanity or Self-Loathing rolls and whatnot.  But that's a matter of personal preference, not an absolute.  In particular, I'm thinking of my Vinland game which uses RuneQuest rules.  So the mechanics are about capabilities and skills.  But that doesn't mean that the game is focussed on that as its drama, any more than having costumes and sets means that a play is dramatically about those things.

[MPOSullivan]

It's true that epic heroes are defined in dramatic terms by their personality and beliefs -- but the same is true for non-superpowered human characters.  I don't see how Odysseus' longing for home is any different than Rick's love in Casablanca.  

It is my belief that the bullet-points of an epic character only work within an epic setting and an epic approach to storytelling.  Sure, you could take a character based on Achilles and work him into a modern day setting.  He would have the rebellious attitude, the desire for glory (and as an extension, immortality), all the other fun of the character.  But, without the setting being as huge as he is, it doesn't work.  He simply comes off as a guy with a lot of determination and is kinda self-absorbed.  

Lets say that our modern day Achilles is a pilot in the navy, a fairly modern corollary to his old job in the Hellenistic army, i guess.  He actually works out to be a lot like Maverick in Top Gun.  Rebellious attitude?  Check.  Believed superiority?  Check.  Desire for glory?  Check.  But, is Top Gun epic?  (I'm not trying to be facetious here, seriously ;-))  Not really, though it is a fun movie that supports the morals of the culture of origin and has some battle sequences that does call into play the use of these morals.  But, the world isn't as "big" as it is in an epic.  The stakes aren't as high.  The characters are not as "large".

A character in an Epic, as a personality, is a collection of very damned strong morals and ideals, normally representative of the culture that the Epic came from.  I would say then that an epic story, and by extension an epic game, must challenge the ideas that the character stands for if it is to be, at least in part, Epic.  

It is for this reason that, while characters in these stories can have quantifiable "attributes" (using the actual word, not the RPG generic term), such as being incredibly strong, fast, resilient, beautiful, frightful, intelligent, etc., it really isn't as important as what the character believes in.  The beliefs of the character will carry him, whether it is to the pinnacle or to the grave.  

And, continuing from that thought, the setting and the story must be large enough that they can accommodate such characters.  As in my example above, the movie Top Gun isn't an epic simply because the world doesn't "open up" enough for the characters to act in an epic manner.  

All of this also hinges upon the argument that the ideas and tenants of Epic storytelling can be applied to multiple genres and settings.  Without that argument, this whole thread simply wouldn't be worth posting in, as the only RPGs that could be made Epic would be ones based upon the works of Homer, the Beowulf Saga, etc.  

I believe that, for this thread and the ideas presented here to be of any worth, the Epic framework can be applied to any storytelling or narrative, but only these things.  Actual, real history cannot be Epic, though one can say that an event was of Epic scope, drawing a connection between the "size" of the two.  An event becomes truly Epic only when it is told in story form and, as such, transformed from a more real, non-fiction view of the outplay of the events into a fantastic tale of morals and beliefs.  It is this telling that is Epic though, not the original events that inspired them.  

As such, the Napoleonic Wars themselves were not epic, nor the Civil War or even the Trojan War.  Not originally, that is.  When a piece of history is told, and as such subjective, it changes.  It becomes more about the ideas and beliefs of the cultures at hand.  When these become the foremost reasons to tell the story, then you're getting close to becoming an epic.  Besides this, the epic, in my opinion, must have the same attributes that i described above in one of my previous posts.

But, how can this apply to RPGs?  Because an epic isn't always about events that have actually happened.  The Tales of Beowulf, for instance, are more fairy tales than historical retellings.  They are stories that have been handed down generationally that stand to tell the importance of the moral pillars of the region (that is, be strong, might sometimes does make right, work well for your people, have no fear, etc).  When you are dealing in pure fiction, you kinda skip over a step and can immediately go into the telling of tales with high moralistic value and cultural representation rather than transforming events so that they tell the tale appropriately.

finally, and bringing it back to gaming, i think that, while it may be possible to have an epic-feeling game using Gamist or Simulationist game structures, you would really only get the full exploration value of an epic game without a Narrativist system.  Hell, i've played DnD and Changeling  games that felt really damned epic, but we had to work around the system in order to accomplish that feel, rather than the system working with us.  and isn't that the point of all of this talk, to figure out what kind of system would best support Epic gameplay, not least get in the way?

then again, i could be wrong.

[John Kim]

It's true that epic heroes are defined in dramatic terms by their personality and beliefs -- but the same is true for non-superpowered human characters.  I don't see how Odysseus' longing for home is any different than Rick's love in Casablanca.  

...
It is for this reason that, while characters in these stories can have quantifiable "attributes" (using the actual word, not the RPG generic term), such as being incredibly strong, fast, resilient, beautiful, frightful, intelligent, etc., it really isn't as important as what the character believes in.  The beliefs of the character will carry him, whether it is to the pinnacle or to the grave.  

You're totally misreading me here -- what with your whole "Top Gun" example.  I wasn't trying to say that Casablanca is an example of an epic.  What I am saying is beliefs are central for both an epic and a more down-to-earth human drama.  i.e. This is just stating a general truism about drama, not something specific to epics.  In other words, it's not like the important attributes about Rick are how strong he is or his marksmanship.  What matters about him for the story is his love and his beliefs.  

I think basically everyone has agreed to a more narrow definition of epic which basically limits it to the classical examples (i.e. the Iliad et al).  Aiden thought that a broader definition is still meaningful, but agreed to drop it earlier in the thread.  We've already agreed not to include the American Civil War or Top Gun or Casablanca in our definition of epic.  

finally, and bringing it back to gaming, i think that, while it may be possible to have an epic-feeling game using Gamist or Simulationist game structures, you would really only get the full exploration value of an epic game without a Narrativist system.  Hell, i've played DnD and Changeling  games that felt really damned epic, but we had to work around the system in order to accomplish that feel, rather than the system working with us.  and isn't that the point of all of this talk, to figure out what kind of system would best support Epic gameplay, not least get in the way?  

I agree that is the topic.  But I don't feel this way personally.  For example, if I wanted to run an epic game, I might well choose Pendragon rather than The Pool.  Then again, this could be a difference over how I classify games GNS-wise than Ron does; rather than a disagreement that Narrativism as a mode is more suited for epic play.  For example, I'm pretty satisfied with my RuneQuest variant, and I think it supports the play of my campaign which I would call Narrativist.

[montag]

John, pardon my insolence, but it sounds as if everyone here is simply saying "system does matter" and you keep going "but, but, but my game is ...".
It would be a pity if that were the case, since no-one here is saying you can't get an epic campaign using DnD (or Paranoia for that matter), we're just saying that you'd have to work a little harder if you want to do that and that _in general_ these games are not too well suited for epic campaigns. But, of course, you can do it, and your campaign certainly isn't any less epic because you're using RuneQuest.
Now, if you generally disagree with "System does matter", I'd be interested in hearing your arguments. If you think that "system doesn't matter for the epic-ness of a game" I'd ask you to rephrase your arguments, since I apparently didn't really get them. If you're saying that any game can in principle be used for epic campaigns, then I'd like to hear the people speak up, who think that there are games which under no circumstances can produce epic campaigns.
If it's none of the above, what are we arguing about?

[Rexfelis]

Re. the "bigness" of epics: I wonder if "bigness" is a relative affair. That is, perhaps all epics do have the "feel" of bigness, but the actual scale of events varies considerably. The Iliad takes place in the midst of a major war; perhaps it represents a sort of limit case (though, from a larger perspective, this is still a regional conflict involving coalitions from two sides of the Aegean Sea). The Odyssey is one man's struggle to get home. Yet, Odysseus is a noble, a big man, and his exploits are all quite grand/glamorous. Well, lower on the scale we have Watership Down. Now, perhaps some of you won't consider this an epic, but if any work of modern literature fits the genre, it certainly does. For the rabbits involved, the events are taking place on an epic scale, but it's basically a feud between a couple of rabbit holes, if memory serves.  

So, I'd like to submit that the events in an epic don't have to be world-shattering; they can occur on a very small scale and still have an epic feel to them. Perhaps this point was never really contested by anyone, but I thought it would at least be worthwhile to articulate it, because this realization could affect the design of an epic-emulation rpg.

I think the "feel" or "tone" of an epic is more important than the scale, all things considered.

The same is true, only moreso, of "sagas." Now, perhaps we really shouldn't try to cover both epics and sagas in the same thread, because they are different genres (though apparently related). But, for sagas, it seems even more obvious that they are not always on a world-shattering scale. Oftentimes, the events of a saga are more Hattfields vs. McCoys than Cosmic Order vs. Cosmic Darkness.

Rexfelis

[Rexfelis]

Should we try to construct a list of "canonical epics"? The purpose of all this would be to have a concrete basis for discussion, and to help the process of differentiating epics from myths, legends, folk tales, fairy tales, et al.

I'm not going to be able to be of too much help here, since what I don't know about literature could fit into a 4-year bachelor's degree program. Let me reiterate a few of the works that have already been mentioned, and add a couple of obvious entries:

The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Iliad & The Odyssey
The Aeneid
Beowulf
The Nibelungenlied/Volsunga Saga
The Song of Roland
The Divine Comedy [it's in the epic form (right?), but is it an "epic"?]
The Faerie Queene [again, it's in the form, but is this a "real" epic?]
Paradise Lost

Mahabharata
Ramayana

If we do work on a list of canonical epics upon which to base our discussion of the characteristics of an epic, we should probably not aim to be comprehensive, but rather simply representative.

Rexfelis

[John Kim]

John, pardon my insolence, but it sounds as if everyone here is simply saying "system does matter" and you keep going "but, but, but my game is ...".
It would be a pity if that were the case, since no-one here is saying you can't get an epic campaign using DnD (or Paranoia for that matter), we're just saying that you'd have to work a little harder if you want to do that and that _in general_ these games are not too well suited for epic campaigns.   But, of course, you can do it, and your campaign certainly isn't any less epic because you're using RuneQuest.
Now, if you generally disagree with "System does matter", I'd be interested in hearing your arguments.  

OK, I can see your thinking that.  But I completely agree that system does matter.  System is something I ponder a fair degree, and get concerned over.  Where we differ, I think, is in exactly what different systems promote.  For my campaign, I deliberately chose RuneQuest because I felt that (with modifications) it supported the historical saga feel that I wanted better than, for example, Hero Wars. And I still feel pretty good about that choice.  It is absolutely not the case that I chose RQ because I was ignorant of other possibilities and struggled to work in spite of the system.  I'm perfectly willing to argue that at length, though it should probably be in a different thread.  

What I particularly disagree with is arguments like "Well, unless you've got 'Angst +5'" on your character sheet, then your character is just a soulless collection of numbers"  or the bizarre (IMO) suggestion that traditional systems can't handle superhuman powers because they're "all about the limits of normal people".  

NOTE:  If we want to keep discussing, I suspect this thread should probably be split soon, but I'm not quite sure how.  Definitely "saga" should be separated, but I don't know about what else.

[Valamir]

or the bizarre (IMO) suggestion that traditional systems can't handle superhuman powers because they're "all about the limits of normal people".

I keep struggling with how to better describe this.  The idea of the thread was to capture the Epic "feel" in play...and "feel" is such a hard thing to put into words...especially when people get different "feels" from the same text.

The point I was trying to get across is not that a traditional system can't handle a superhuman power.  Its that when it does...that is infact all you get...is a superhuman.

Normal human has strength of 10 or 11.  Hercules...Strength 22.

Sure, the system "handled" Hercules' great strength.  But it handled it by simply putting it on the same scale with every one else.

A bigger number does not an Epic Hero make...yet in a traditional game that is all the game will allow mechanically...is simply to define the Epic Heroes using bigger numbers than every one else.

What you wind up with is super powered characters sure...but not characters who feel epic.  They feel like comic book heroes (where fans will obsess over how many tons the Hulk can lift vs. Thor)...not heroes of legend.

This probably ties in for me to other threads where we've discussed the difficulty of maintaining wonder in a game where everything gets quantitatively defined.

Hercules is more than a character with a really high strength score.
Achilles is more than a character with a really high natural armor class.
Odysseus is more than a character with a really high Wisdom.

But in a traditional game, if you created a character sheet for these guys...that's what they'd all boil down to.

[Matt Wilson]

Hercules is more than a character with a really high strength score.
Achilles is more than a character with a really high natural armor class.
Odysseus is more than a character with a really high Wisdom.

Plus, the exciting parts of an epic aren't often about whether Herc is strong enough, etc.

From Ralph's point I get this: STR, DEX and so on are not traits that describe "epicness."

[montag]

I think I can solve the problem : )
Ralph, I believe you're paying too much attention to the numbers. See, if the normal human range is e.g. 1- 10, and Odysseus has a wisdom of e.g. 15, that's an epic scale by most means. IMHO very few people will be concerned, that such a character has a 1% chance of being outsmarted by someone with a wisdom of 10 (or whatever else that probability is in a particular system).
Come to think of it, that's something I've seen happening in a couple of games running for a long time, where it simply becomes a given, that a character is "the best" in his or her particular field. Provided of course, the rules provide at least moderate support for this notion in terms of "probability of success", that is, there is a reasonable mechanical difference between "the best" and "slightly above average". In such cases, I've found, that the effect of being "the best" in terms of the story being told are more or less independent of the actual numerical value assigned to being "the best". Every other character comes to think of character X as "the best in X", not as "someone with a value of Y in X". NPCs treat the character as "the best" and the stuff the character struggles with no longer is concerned with that particular ability, because, well, the character simply is "the best". That doesn't mean his expertise won't be required once in a while, but _challenges_ to the character shouldn't come from his area of expertise.
So, yes, you can model Achilles as a 20th level fighter, but if you continue to set up challenges for the character in terms of fights you probably won't get an epic feel.
Which in turn means, that all your stats which make the character that 20th level fighter are pretty much useless for most purposes, since he's going to win all but a tiny, tiny fraction of fights anyway. In addition, the system may be sending the wrong messages, as in e.g. the recent thread on rpg.net, which dealt with the question of how many lvl 1 fighters a lvl 20 fighter can kill. Turns out, he can take on an army on his own, which - to me – seems stupid and may make it harder to set up some non-combat challenges, since the character can essentially start and win a war on his own. However, given the understanding that an epic campaign is being played, most decent roleplayers could handle that, so it isn't really a concern.
Still, the pointless scores on the character sheet may distract the player and lead her or him to think about his character in terms of "can do Z amount of damage per round" instead of "best knight all around, but can't keep his hands off the kings wife".



That said, I still think the "representative of a certain culture" angle is a lot more relevant to the epic feel than the question of whether you're using hit points or not.