The Forge Archives

I have a thought, or half a thought. It's forming as I write this. I'll start at the begining.

On the DVD audio commentary for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I believe it's Michael Palin who states that one of the beauties of the Holy Grail legend is that everyone knows about it but few people know what actually happen in it, which gives you a lot of leeway when making a movie, (especially a spoof in their case)

side note: This bit of wisdom has helped me put to rest some of the problems I've had with certain film versions of things in the past, like First Knight (Python was closer to the original!) and Spider-Man (What happened to the web shooters??)

Now, this is an interesting perspective, and I have been trying to think of how to apply this to RPGs. The problem with RPGs, in a sense, is that they are a closed set. The players are the audience and that's it. You will not have the broadly shared experience that a bunch of people who have read the same book or watched the same movie or tv show will have. Or can you?

First, I think it is worth asking why this should be considered. Why have this broadly shared experience? I believe the answer is simple, so people can talk about their gaming.

Have you ever talked to anyone about their gaming experience? I don't know about you, but I tune out the peole I play with sometimes. It's the ultimate "you had to be there" situation. But, if other people had been there too, they may be willing to talk and discuss it. Like actors who had performed in the same play, yet different productions or people who had vactioned are the same places, yet seen different sites. In this way, everyone would know about the RPG but no one really knows what's in it and thus there's a lot of leeway for interpretation.

Does this make sense?

This is definitely a topic worth checking out.  Mainstream-ism isn't just stuff that's popular to the mainstream, but is also usually influenced by some form of shared experience via mass-media.  

As far as rpgs go, we have mass media by the coffeetable game, but not a mass experience by actual play.  This is part of the reason that some people  just don't "get it" or fear that rpgs are weird and full of (nerds, geeks, cultists, whatever).  You can't actually see what folks are imagining, so there's no way to really film it and convey it in an entertaining/exciting manner.

On the other hand, you'll find that its easier to work with players in a pre-established setting that has set itself up as a mass media experience.  When you say, "let's play Star Wars" people get it right away.  Enough people have seen the movies enough times to instantly get the setting and concepts.  Original settings have to work in order to convey their color, history, and concepts, and of course, whoever wants to play it has to "sell" it the rest of the folks who haven't heard of it.

As far as sharing the rpg experience, I've found it usually only works in two ways:

-An excellent storyteller, who can pull the exciting bits of rpg'ing and do some "retro-pacing" to intrigue the audience
-The ideas presented, either written, artwork, or spoken, get the audience curious enough to check out gaming

Chris

Quote from: Jack Spencer JrHave you ever talked to anyone about their gaming experience? I don't know about you, but I tune out the peole I play with sometimes.
...
Does this make sense?

Note that it's not just gaming experience that this applies to. I've had similar experiences when the conversation turns to sporting events, or fishing or hunting expeditions. It takes a good story teller to make these work so they interest the hearer. :) For example, Barry Crump in New Zealand, with his many books on hunting.

Hello,

Developing the art of discussing role-playing, up to and including "wowing" people who (a) were not there and (b) are not themselves active role-players, is one of the most important tasks I can imagine from a Social Context point of view.

I ask everyone to put aside their notions, if present, that it cannot be done. Any ideas on how it might?

My first suggestion is that GNS-perspectives, without verbalizing the jargon, would be absolutely necessary.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron Edwards...be done. Any ideas on how it might?

I'd suggest finding out what interests the listener, and making sure that the content of the experience is closely related to that. Otherwise, the listener will be "turned off" by the related experience.

Quote from: Ron EdwardsDeveloping the art of discussing role-playing, up to and including "wowing" people who (a) were not there and (b) are not themselves active role-players, is one of the most important tasks I can imagine from a Social Context point of view.

... Any ideas on how it might?

Hmmm.. First of all, it definately needs to be as jargon-free as possible. Jargon is a great way to turn people off. I recently got a job in a large retail chain store, and let me tell you, there is idiotic jargon flying all over the place that must be there simply to comfuse the new employees. It can't possibly serve any other purpose, at least from where I sit.

I think that a Gamist* player who plays with a Gamist group has no business trying to recuit a potential player who is Narrativist by nature. He won't enjoy the game and the others will find him disruptive in some way. I believe this is what Ron is talking about when he suggest having a decent handle on GNS perspectives, because in this way, like players can find themselves and not cause disfunctionality.

This might be better in a new thread, but let me ask a new question to shed some more light on the subject:
How do you talk to people about stuff?
What I'm looking for is anecdotal evidence where you talked to someone else about something that you did not already know they were interested in and/or they did not have any previous interest in before. I'm not just talking about entertainment stuff here, either. Any old thing will do.


* omitting clunky phrasing like "a player who typically makes gamist decisions in play" and the like for brievity

I just tell game stories the same way I recount a movie I've seen, or a book I've read, or a personal anecdote of the real adventures I had in my younger days.

Part of being able to recount such stories is understanding what it is about them that makes them interesting and exciting to you. That is, why is this worth telling? If you understand what it is about the story that makes it worth telling, you can then organize the story in a way that puts the important parts forward in an orderly and interesting manner. It's got to let the listener know up front what it was about the story that makes it worth hearing, but retain the climax as something toward which it builds. This is true whether it's a joke or an adventure or a tragedy.

So in that sense you have to learn how to tell a story in a way that gives enough information but not too much as it progresses.

--M. J. Young

Quote from: M. J. YoungIPart of being able to recount such stories is understanding what it is about them that makes them interesting and exciting to you.

This is an interesting statement, and this is probably old-hat to some (probably old hat to me now that I think about it) but, it seems to me that many gamers think this way, in that, this has to be done because a game contains many uninteresting features that "have to be there" and must be edited out in retelling.

What if you think of those elements that are exciting or interesting, and that was all there was to the game?

I would like to see someone who knows how to edit video tape or whatever put together a little fan flick homage to the film Dungeons & Dragons.  At key moments in the film cut to shots of a group of people gathered around a game table.  Sitting on a battlemat are miniatures done up as the characters in the film.  When Jeremy Irons cackles like a cheesy master villain cut to the DM cackling like a cheesy master villain.  When one of the characters in the film makes a lame and unnecessary Star Wars reference, cut to the guy in the Star Wars t-shirt hamming it up.  Show that the dashing hero and lovely mage are being played by a couple.  Stuff like that.