Being in the band and second audience

[Callan S.]

The analogy that a RP group is like being in a band is often used and pretty apt. But does it extend even further?

For example, in places like RPG.net and other system specific boards (like the palladium boards), I personally see a lot of push for a vague concept that is almost always named 'story'. In fact the posters are often willing to put this ahead of the RL people who are playing with them. This is my observation.

Now, in a band they come together to create the sort of music that they like. They jam together and enjoy that. Basically they are an audience to their own efforts. But also there's the notion that they will do a gig at some point, something public (or they atleast hope to). The public would be the second audience and would not enjoy the same things the first audience would (well, perhaps they would enjoy some of it, but lets say they don't for contrasts sake).

In RP, is this the push for story? Some perhaps unconcious urge to reach outside the first audience to a second one? I mean, it sounds funny to bring the old 'unconcious urge' card out, but really, roleplayers are often of quite a creative nature. That nature, I believe, tends to want to make something for everyone/a vast number of audience members.

However, it can be an incoherant urge. For example, a horrible amount of railroading to a player/first audience member could produce a product that a second audience member finds rewarding to hear/read about. The second audience doesn't nessersarily care about the 'working conditions' of the first audience/players.

Still, appealing to the second audience is an interesting goal, one I find attractive anyway. The interesting thing is that the players can become part of the second audience after the session (I think its too hard to do in session; playing, being first audience and second audience all at the same time). Thus it can reward them as well. In fact, a good session can nail it on the first and second audience levels. Possibly why some sessions can feel so amazing...your being hit with quality from two different angles at once.

And I have to wonder about some of the best games I've run...they were usually after a break. A break where I wasn't immersed in the RP culture and was possibly designing something that would appeal to second audience, just out of unconcious habit. But when I continued to GM, they'd go down in quality. I think I'd start chasing after the first audience's approval because it hadn't been that great. But the thing was, I'm hypothesising, that they enjoyed it because it had a 1st audience okay/2nd audience good delivery. By focusing on the first audience, the players, I actually reduced the quality of my 2nd audience delivery. I can think of one long series of instances where I was told 'you need X amount of combat', 'you should let us have more power, don't be stingy', 'we don't get what you were doing with X, don't put so much emphasis on it', etc. It was all good advice, really. But looking at it now, it was good advice for doing 1st audience stuff. That with trying to focus on the people at hand, which makes sense to do, I wasn't delivering anything much at the 2nd level (possibly what I'm good at...and yes, I am now writing a book).

Those bands are looking to do a public gig. What about your band of roleplayers...are you looking to do something that would stand up in public? If not, are you sure about that?

[Vaxalon]

Over at ENworld, they call them "Story Hours"

Here, they're called "Actual Play"

The second audience exists, and at least at ENworld, there are people who go to the forum JUST to read them, and ignore the rest.

Is there a correlation between good at-the-time play and good after-the-fact story?  Probably, though I'll bet it's only a moderate one.

[Pagrin]

I'm not sure this is overly relivant to the topic. but from time to time I use a "Video GM" while running freeforms at conventions.
While for myself and the other GMs its fun to watch the tape afterwoulds. I have noted that most people who are watching it for the first time don't get the fun out of it you might otherwise expect.
Pagrin :-)

[Callan S.]

To be clear on what I mean by second audience, they are people who don't roleplay while a super minority of them are roleplayers but aren't in roleplay mode, they are in read a book/watch a movie mode. Let's just think of second audience as people who don't roleplay, to keep it simple.

If your sessions were written up and edited, is there anything one of these people could learn/get from reading it?

Has this been something you've been aiming for as a GM, without realising?
Is it something your players have been aiming for without realising? "You liked the story? Guess what, in so many words, I was there!"

Also, if your doing this, are you clashing with your CA because you don't see any other way of doing it? So your groups gamist or sim but to get here your dragging in narr by the hair, kicking and screaming, while saying the players don't really know what they want, this is for the best? I think I've seen that many times before, buried in RPG.net/palladium board posts.

[Callan S.]

Okay, to enter some simple questions: If yuo think about it, can you identify the urge in yourself and/or others to make a game that would stand up on its own to some degree, after the sessions ended and outside the group that created it?

If so, arn't efforts entirely designed around pleasing the players (and even GM) fruitless?

[Vaxalon]

Loosely defined, improv comedy can be seen as a roleplaying game.

Clearly, at least SOME improv comedy is entertaining to people watching... how much depends on the taste of the viewer, surely, but is not entirely dependent on whether the viewer is himself an improv comedian.

Therefore, it is concievable that under CERTAIN conditions, a roleplaying game CAN be entertaining to non-gaming spectators.

[Doctor Xero]

I used to strive for something in my games which made good stories afterwards.

But I found out early in my gaming career that gaming sessions usually produce funny anecdotes but seldom produce good stories, at least not in the circles I ran with.

At the same time, I found in my story writing that there are some fun things to write about that absolutely no one really wants to read -- but those same things usually entertain everyone in a game.

So now, when I have something that would be fun to read, I write.
When I have something that would be fun only to go through (such as pulpy scenery-devouring gothic horror), I game master it.

Your Mileage May Vary!

Doctor Xero

[timfire]

I've done a little thinking about this, and why other art forms (jazz & improv theater - well, mostly jazz) can seem to get away with creating something through improv that's still interesting to the second audience.

This is what I came up with in regard to jazz. Jazz seems highly improvisational, that it's not really. (I know I'm making generalizations here.) Jazz musicians go into a song with very specific roles. The drummer & bass are going to keep the rhythm. The trumpet's going to play the melody, and the guitar is going to play the harmony (for example). Also, though the musicians are "making up" the music as they go, the structure of the song is already worked out. The band already knows the chord progression, 12-bar blues for example. They also have an idea on how long the song should go. They also practice the piece before hand, so they already know the direction they want the song to go in. In a way, they're really just improvising color.

Obviously, bands do sometimes jam out. In my experience, it either takes the band a significant amount of time to reach that 'groove,' or the results end up being more simplisitic than songs they work out ahead of time.

One other thing I think is worth mentioning is that muscians who actual play concerts get immediate and constant feedback on how they're doing, so they can alter their playing mid-song if something isn't working.

What do I want to say now? I think if a RPG'er wants their games to be interesting to a 2nd audience, they need to purposely pursue that. IMO it's a myth that you can improvise an interesting piece without first laying down some sort of a structure.

[M. J. Young]

But I found out early in my gaming career that gaming sessions usually produce funny anecdotes but seldom produce good stories, at least not in the circles I ran with.

I frequently get good stories from my games, particularly Multiverser, recently Legends of Alyria, although they require a bit of editing to put them into a communicable format to tell.

Several of the adventures in Verse Three, Chapter One are retellings of game events. No one has yet correctly identified which ones are and which are not.

--M. J. Young