My New RPGnet Column

[Jonathan Walton]

Hey folks,

Just wanted to plug my new RPGnet column, which is pretty heavily theory-based.  There was this misunderstanding earlier where draft versions of my articles got published over the holidays (while I was completely offline and unaware), but we've got it all straightened out now.

The column is called "The Fine Art of Roleplaying" and addresses some of recent discussions, most noteably "Games" issue  
& the thread that inspired it, When can we stop making "games?"
.

The first two columns are linked below:
#1 - What is Roleplaying?
#2 - This is the Remix

The first one is probably old news to most Forge denizens, but the new one, which addresses roleplaying and rap as two Post-Modern art forms, is stuff that we haven't really addressed before.

Feel free to come and take me to task in the comments section.  I'd really like to get some discussion going over there, both to take up the time between articles (since they only post things 2 weeks apart) and to see if we can't recruit more of the world's brightest roleplaying minds to come hang out on the Forge.

[clehrich]

Jonathan,

Yes, that is neat.  Wish the discussion were happening here, frankly.

Incidentally, the article to which John referred is currently under review for inclusion here at the Forge, so maybe if your column doesn't start anything, we can try again when that appears.

A nice piece of work!

Chris Lehrich

[Jonathan Walton]

Wish the discussion were happening here, frankly.

I'm sure we'll be bringing it back home eventually, but the whole point of getting a column there, actually, was to try to bring the theory closer to the masses.  Our ivory tower here at the Forge, unless it translates into Actual Play or Game Design (which it often does), doesn't do much for the cause of roleplaying outside of our own heads.

Heck, I was pretty ignorant of some pretty basic facets of roleplaying, until I started hanging out on the Forge.  At some point, educational outreach is required.  Not everyone is going to sift through thousands of posts to find what they want and, honestly, Ron's essays can be very intimidating to read, much less understand.  Took me two years of Forging, and I barely feel like I finally get it.

Thanks for the nice comments, though.  I'm going to try to keep things fresh, interesting, and relevant.

[Umberhulk]

Jonathan,

Rap music is just one cultural area that has similarities to roleplaying.  You mention the internet, but completely leave out the software industry and its almost parallel development.  The open source phenomenon that started with computer programming has directly influenced much of what goes on here.

-Brodie

[Jonathan Walton]

Total agreement, Brodie.  In a more general article, I'd love to tackle the aesthetics of programming and software design too, but I figured rap was something that would stand out more.  Enough roleplayers already do the information technology thing, either professionally or as a hobby (and this is posted on a website), so I figured the parallels to Open Source would be pretty evident, especially with the OGL and things.

A good thought, though.  Perhaps there'll be room in a future article...

[neelk]

Just wanted to plug my new RPGnet column, which is pretty heavily theory-based.  There was this misunderstanding earlier where draft versions of my articles got published over the holidays (while I was completely offline and unaware), but we've got it all straightened out now.

I'm really interested in seeing what you have to say about gender in gaming. A lot of the media forms that gaming draws from -- fantasy, comics, science fiction, action movies, Japanese animation -- and it's surprisingly easy to put together tropes in creepy ways. (See the website "Women in Refrigerators" for a lot of examples of this dynamic in superhero comics. Particularly interesting are the author reactions to the list.)

[Jonathan Walton]

Hey Neel,

I just included a quote from "WiR" in my article and credited you for pointing it out to me.  Thanks.  It fits right in, next to excerpts from Catherine Clement's book, Opera, or the Undoing of Women.

I'm planning on finishing the article today, which means it should be up on RPGnet by this coming Friday.

[neelk]

Hey Neel,

I just included a quote from "WiR" in my article and credited you for pointing it out to me.  Thanks.  It fits right in, next to excerpts from Catherine Clement's book, Opera, or the Undoing of Women. I'm planning on finishing the article today, which means it should be up on RPGnet by this coming Friday.

I'll look forward to reading it. I'm reminded of a bit I read in Keith Johnstone's Impro, where he talked about the generally low quality of "progressive" plays. He noted that most such plays had a subtext directly opposed to their intended meaning: for example, a play intended to criticize biases against homosexuality might have a plot in which prejudice destroys a pair of gay lovers. While the author's intent was to criticize society, what actually happens in the play is that a gay romance doesn't work out and leads to misery and suffering for the lovers. A genuinely subversive play would need gay lovers who find joy and love and at end the play are happy and successful.

This was a big "ah-ha!" moment for me, since it directly led me to figuring out HOW to create heroic characters who are genuinely heroic. (Cue stories of operationally fascist paladins in D&D.) Make sure the subtext says what you meant it to say!

[pete_darby]

This was a big "ah-ha!" moment for me, since it directly led me to figuring out HOW to create heroic characters who are genuinely heroic. (Cue stories of operationally fascist paladins in D&D.) Make sure the subtext says what you meant it to say!

*ick!* I thought Johnstone said not to worry about the subtext... tell the story you want to tell first, worry about what it says about you later...

Anyway, I'm not too keen on that part of Johnstone, because it compeleley destroys the idea of a tragic hero...

[neelk]

This was a big "ah-ha!" moment for me, since it directly led me to figuring out HOW to create heroic characters who are genuinely heroic. (Cue stories of operationally fascist paladins in D&D.) Make sure the subtext says what you meant it to say!

*ick!* I thought Johnstone said not to worry about the subtext... tell the story you want to tell first, worry about what it says about you later...

True, but then, he's a long-haired hippy freak. :)

Seriously, in Impro he seemed to be focused on this deeply emotional, organic mask play, and that's not always what I'm interested in at the gaming table. Often, I want to design a character or game to investigate a particular theme, and making sure I hit those notes is a prerequisite for finding out how it sounds, if you follow the analogy.

I don't think his view destroys the idea of tragic heroism, though -- I think it offers a slick way of thinking about it. Eg, Oedipus's commitment to justice led to his destruction, which casts doubt on the desirability (or even the coherence) of the notion of justice. So a tragic gay-rights story would need for the oppressors themselves to harm themselves due to their bigotry. Maybe you could base one such story on those news reports from a few months back about the US Army firing Arabic translators who had come out.

[pete_darby]

Well, that and Johnston's of the idea that "eveything that happens in the impro space is okay with everyone in it...", with a little handwaving in the way of saying you can refuse to say something, as long as you acknowledge your refusal.

Game sessions are, generally, not like that... with corss reference to Ron's post on learnign the interface, Johnstone is happiest when testing the interface...

[Doctor Xero]

neelk wrote on Sun Feb 01, 2004 9:33 pm:
> I'm reminded of a bit I read in Keith Johnstone's Impro, where he talked about
> the generally low quality of "progressive" plays.  He noted that most such plays
> had a subtext directly opposed to their intended meaning: for example, a play
> intended to criticize biases against homosexuality might have a plot in which
> prejudice destroys a pair of gay lovers.  While the author's intent was to criticize
> society, what actually happens in the play is that a gay romance doesn't work out
> and leads to misery and suffering for the lovers.  A genuinely subversive play would
> need gay lovers who find joy and love and at end the play are happy and successful.

Johnstone's comments remind me of Orson Scott Card's comments about writing
a character who is a victim -- yes, the author gains the reader's sympathies,
but at the cost of making the character appear weak.  Card points out that sometimes
the cost isn't always worth it.  For example, a number of early feminist writings
depicted victimized women to criticize male oppression, and while these early stories
succeeded at making oppressive males look like brutes, they also "succeeded"
at making all women look weak and helpless -- and in need of strong males to protect
them in their weakness and helplessness from oppressive males.  When Walt Disney
attempted to ensure audience sympathy for his fairy tale heroines, he evoked
"male protectiveness" of the day but at the cost of denuding his heroines of their
original power and courage and fortitude.

I'd suggest that the difference between a tragic hero and a tragic victim is that a
tragic hero is proactive, even aggressive, rather than reactive and silently suffering
or whimpering.  None of Shakespeare's tragic heroes were helpless victims (except
perhaps of their own tragic flaws).

In gaming, this is important when it comes to the presentation of NPCs.  It's too
easy to attempt to evoke player sympathy with an NPC who is weak and helpless --
but that sympathy may include a loss of respect.

Doctor Xero

[Jonathan Walton]

Hey guys.  Nice discussion.  By the way, the new column's up, but won't be annouced until Thursday, I don't think.  If you want first dibs, you can check it out here:

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/collists/fineart.html

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I'll look forward to reading it. I'm reminded of a bit I read in Keith Johnstone's Impro, where he talked about the generally low quality of "progressive" plays. He noted that most such plays had a subtext directly opposed to their intended meaning: for example, a play intended to criticize biases against homosexuality might have a plot in which prejudice destroys a pair of gay lovers. While the author's intent was to criticize society, what actually happens in the play is that a gay romance doesn't work out and leads to misery and suffering for the lovers. A genuinely subversive play would need gay lovers who find joy and love and at end the play are happy and successful.

Really? How horrid.

I don't see it that way at all. The play opens wioth the gay lovers quite happy, but then shows how society drives them apart. That seems pretty subversive to me. Especially if it's apparent that society is to blame for their misery. Figuring out how to do that without being preachy is the playwright's problem, of course.

[pete_darby]

I can see Johnstone's point, but he really does go for a very "surface" reading of plays. I'd also say "If you want to send a message, use Western Union." A story will say what it says, and people will think it says what they want it to say. Obviously, even I have my tolerances on this (see old RPG.net threads on reading LotR as specifically anti-Indian, which is about as batshit theory as I've ever seen someone try to seriously pass off).

But if you write, in the words of Neil Gaiman, to

"Tell a story you care about about people you care about, and make the reader care what happens to the people in the story."

then you'll pretty much acheive the second part of his advice:

"Let your message come second to your story."

It's a pretty good formula for Nar play, at that...

And as for what messages people take away: so much of it is in the delivery, not the text itself, that you have to look at the execution of any story to see what premise underlies it.