This is a sub-thread off of A wild and an untamed thing - how literature refuses gaming. There have been related discussions On RPGs and Text [LONG] and Revision and interpretation in role-playing, but they don't seem to be tackling the more immediate thrust of the essay by M. John Harrison.

The specific question is: is it acceptable to role-play in a setting created by a literary work? M. John Harrison seems pretty clear that he believes that people should not role-play in his worlds or, for that matter, in other literary worlds. He considers it a negative cultural expression. First of all, does anyone agree with him on this specific point?

His objection was:

M. John Harrison wrote: Given this, another trajectory (reflecting, of course, another invitation to consume) immediately presents itself: the relationship between fantasy and games--medieval re-enactment societies, role-play, and computer games. Games are centred on control. "Re-enactment" is essentially revision, which is essentially reassertion of control, or domestication. (The "defusing sequels" produced by Hollywood have the same effect: as in Alien 2, in which the original insuperable threat is diminished, the paranoid inscape colonised. Life with the alien is difficult, but--thanks to our nukes and our angry motherhood no longer so impossible as it seemed.)

Re: The specific question is: is it acceptable to role-play in a setting created by a literary work?

Answer (maybe): it all depends on how much in control the author wishes to assert. So the answer will vary on who you ask.

I think what irks authors of large works is that they have control over their work, not others. By playing in the world they created, players and other writers muddy the work with their own changes. Then, if this happens, the world is diluted to a point where it no longer is what the author originally intended. The characters may weaken, the focus or original meaning of the story may suffer, etc.

Now there are lots of works where authors have let others write follow up books in the same vein as the original, but with slight changes. Once again, it depends on the author. It's hard to say exactly when an author loses control of his or her work. Their body of work, after all, is the brand by which others see them. Some authors refuse movie adaptations, or only want certain directors or writers involved in the process. In this instance, there would be only a few people with access to the author's world. But in roleplaying, you suddenly have thousands who would be walking through it, messing it up.

So, does the author view someone wanting to roleplaying in his world as a compliment, or a threat.

I don't believe this can be answered with any accuracy.

Gary

GaryTP wrote: Re: The specific question is: is it acceptable to role-play in a setting created by a literary work?

Answer (maybe): it all depends on how much in control the author wishes to assert. So the answer will vary on who you ask.
...
So, does the author view someone wanting to roleplaying in his world as a compliment, or a threat.

I don't believe this can be answered with any accuracy.

Re: Personally, I have no qualms about role-playing in a world even if the author is annoyed by it. Legally, it falls under Fair Use -- but more importantly, morally I don't believe in this sort of control.

I totally agree with you. I was speaking from the point of view of author(s). Some like it, some don't. It's just a fact.

Re: A question -- if someone published a game, would you feel obligated to take their opinion into account about how you should play the game? You're still using their intellectual property.

Personally, I'd take their opinion into account and try it, but if it didn't jive with what I thought it should be, then I'd go off and do my own thing with it. I'd have no problem running about Middle Earth, messing with that which should not be messed with:)

It's funny, had a bit of a discussion like this with someone talking about Unaris. I said something to the effect like "I hope people run with "hacks" and evolve it." He said something like "I'm glad you said that, I was going to try to do it my own way." So in my personal view, people should be free to evolve whatever I create. I just know that most authors can be a bit protective.

Gary

As someone who usually invents his own worlds, I don't find myself facing this--but I think John is on the money. Furthermore, for an author to claim they control the idea-space in which their work exists seems naive at best. If they wanted absolute control over what anyone thinks or says about it they should never have published it.

I imagine these people are really bitter about their critics too.

-Marco

My impression is that Harrison is talking about a type of fantasy in which a central issue at stake is the wildness and uncontrollability of the fantasy itself. Alien 1, for him, is about the impossibility of the situation: there is no dealing with the alien, for it is utterly unlike and incomprehensible. Sort of like the way Lovecraft formulated his awful cosmic horrors: essentially so inhuman as to be desperately alien and frightening.

If you then go and run a game -- or make a sequel, or write one -- in which this unbridgeable gulf is bridged, I think he's saying that you have in effect asserted that this was always the case. We can get along with Cthulhu, we just need to see where he's coming from, you know? Kumbaya, Cthulhu, kumbaya.

Taking Lovecraft as the example, since there is indeed a famous game adaptation, let's get back to your question. Is CoC acceptable, or anything like it, or is it intrinsically unacceptable to appropriate Lovecraft's work for a game in which control is necessarily included to at least some degree?

Depends what you mean by acceptable. I do see where Harrison is coming from. He thinks it's disrespectful to him and his work. I think we have to respect that. That doesn't mean we can't run Viriconium games, but I do think we have to respect the fact that he doesn't want us to, and we need to think seriously about why. Having read his comments, I must say that I would not run a Viriconium game. But I wouldn't think you a great sinner if you did.

As to Lovecraft, who after all is dead lo these almost 70 years. Well, no. I think it's okay. But I do think that CoC isn't Lovecraft, and I think that's unfortunate. I have encountered people who talk glibly about the Cthulhu Mythos and whatnot and who have not, in fact, ever read any of Lovecraft's work. All they have read is CoC or Deities and Demigods or both. If we are going to see CoC as a tribute, at least in part, then I do think it's incumbent upon its writers to encourage players to read the original works. But to be fair, I think Sandy Peterson does that, and if some of his readers are schmucks who can't be bothered to read the originals, I don't think we can fault CoC on that score.

I just don't think this is a radical moral question. My sense is that Harrison is more concerned about an aesthetic issue: if you strip out of Lovecraft the awful yawning abyss between humanity and the unholy insane madness beyond the stars, what's the point in doing Lovecraft at all? But the fact remains that nothing in principle says that RPGs cannot formulate those yawning abysses -- they just can't do it in text, and must use other methods distinctive to the form. And if they find ways to do that, then yes, I'm all in favor of it, just as I don't have a problem with serious attempts at film adaptations of Lovecraft. But just as you can't just slap a Lovecraft story on the screen by putting in a big rubber monster and seriously claim it's Lovecraft at all, you must think very seriously and deeply about what you're doing in the game and why and how.

Interesting thought: by Harrison's quick formulation, is Alien 1 in some sense a film that does what Lovecraft did in print?

John Kim wrote: The specific question is: is it acceptable to role-play in a setting created by a literary work? M. John Harrison seems pretty clear that he believes that people should not role-play in his worlds or, for that matter, in other literary worlds. He considers it a negative cultural expression. First of all, does anyone agree with him on this specific point?

What about other art forms?

I was at a gallery opening and was checking out a photographer's work. I was enjoying it, and it was inspiring a wonderful series of thoughts. I glanced over and the artist had put up a sheet talking about his work and what he was trying to accomplish with it. It was completely different in almost every way from what it was inspiring in me.

Now, if I was to use that inspiration, sparked by the photographer's work, in a creative project of my own, am I guilty of vast corruption of that artist's intent? Is it realistic to say that the photographer has some ownership right over my creative endeavor because their work sparked it originally?

If I got prints of the photos and used them as visual references and mood setter for a rpg, would it be reasonable for the photog to pop up and say "No, No, No- that's not the sort of thing I meant at all! Please, no more using my photos in your game!". Admittedly, I find that hard to imagine in the first place, but please play along. Similarly, should I pop out the ouija board and contact the ghost of Billy Holliday to see how she feels about using her work as background mood music?

For that matter, what would the reverse reaction likely be for a game designer contacted by a writer who was inspired by their rpg to write a novel? I imagine the conversation something like this:

Writer: " Hey, I really enjoyed reading your game. It gave me some great ideas for a deep, meaningful story about these characters based in your setting."

Designer: " Wow. That's great. Be sure to credit my game, I really need to sell some more core books."

I'm not entirely sure I agree with your reading of his point but for interest sake I'll play devil's advocate and present an arguement that it is indeed wrong to set a game in a literary world.

As I see it Harrison's central point was that the best literary worlds are created specifically to make a point, to preach a sermon as he put it. Everything in them is designed to build and create that point and add to the statement being made. By taking the elements that make up the statement and using them in a different context you run several risks for very little gain.

First you can use the elements already used in the literary world and try to keep their meanings intact. The problem with this is that when you try and impart your own meanings and create your own story they may conflict with the original and thus blur your meanings and/or weaken the original sermon.

Second you may take the original elements strip them of their meaning and use them without any attempt to provide a sermon. This leaves a hollow shell, an attempt to literalize as Harrison put's it, that so misses the point of the original that it resembles the supposed source material in only a very superficial manner.

If you wish to use Tolkien as inspiration for your fantasy game pick on some of his themes, through together some funny name and a plot to highlight the themes you've chosen and bam you have your own world where you can make your own sermon without treading on J.R.R's toes.

Surely that devils advocate only works if I care about keeping the authors meaning intact. If I'm interested in keeping the meaning I got from it, there's no problem.

I mean, if I see a battle in real life and draw some meaning from it, that's what I draw fromit. If a novel depicts a battle or some conflict, why's the authors message the one I must grasp? Like real life, why isn't his just another reading of the events?

Of course, there are good authors who will show you their meaning and you will think 'Ah, I get that'. But if you get it, it's not going to be lost in your derivitive works developed from that.

clehrich wrote: But I do think that CoC isn't Lovecraft, and I think that's unfortunate. I have encountered people who talk glibly about the Cthulhu Mythos and whatnot and who have not, in fact, ever read any of Lovecraft's work. All they have read is CoC or Deities and Demigods or both. If we are going to see CoC as a tribute, at least in part, then I do think it's incumbent upon its writers to encourage players to read the original works.

clehrich wrote: If you strip out of Lovecraft the awful yawning abyss between humanity and the unholy insane madness beyond the stars, what's the point in doing Lovecraft at all? But the fact remains that nothing in principle says that RPGs cannot formulate those yawning abysses -- they just can't do it in text, and must use other methods distinctive to the form. And if they find ways to do that, then yes, I'm all in favor of it, just as I don't have a problem with serious attempts at film adaptations of Lovecraft. But just as you can't just slap a Lovecraft story on the screen by putting in a big rubber monster and seriously claim it's Lovecraft at all, you must think very seriously and deeply about what you're doing in the game and why and how.

John Kim wrote: As I see it, CoC should not be Lovecraft. If it were, there would be no reason for it to exist. And while I have some emotional feeling similar to you about the sacredness of the original text -- I realize that this is an anti-myth sentiment generated by the dominance of mass media. In a mass media world, the re-telling is a poor substitute which should aspire to the mass-produced version. There is a sacred text which must be held as canon. However, in a world of living myth, the re-telling is what is valued.

However, many modern people despise oral tradition and re-telling. They sneer at people who have just "heard of" Odysseus via some adapted version of the story rather than reading Homer's text. Myth is acceptable and even respected if it happens among, say, some tribesmen in Africa -- but it is wrong to do in the civilized world.

Now, someone could rightly say that original series Star Trek is not itself without the moralizing and idealism. To put in political bickering and dissent within the Federation is counter to the essence of the original. And I don't disagree with them. That violation, that taming (as M. John Harrison put it) is the point of gaming.

clehrich wrote: I think maybe there are two approaches to gaming in an author's world. There's what you did with Star Trek, where you use the world to tell a different kind of story, or better to challenge and think about the same sorts of issues as the original author did but on different grounds. And there's what I'm talking about with Lovecraft, where you're trying to produce a true adaptation into a radically different medium.

clehrich wrote: If you're aiming for an adaptation, you have to use the medium to render the original on different terms. A literal filming of a novel is often not really an adaptation at all; because some elements of a novel cannot be filmed because of differences in medium, and because the adaptation is literalist and thus attempts to add nothing to the novel treated as a script, you end up with a film that is less rich than the novel. An adaptation considers seriously what is necessarily dropped from the novel and asks the question, "What can I do in my medium that would in some sense be functionally analogous to what I have had to drop?" A wonderful example is the film of The Wizard of Oz, which certainly adds things and restructures and whatnot, but I think is in many respects deeply faithful to the novel. What is added has to do with the shift of medium, of what you can do in film that you cannot do in prose and vice-versa.

clehrich wrote:

John Kim wrote: Now, someone could rightly say that original series Star Trek is not itself without the moralizing and idealism. To put in political bickering and dissent within the Federation is counter to the essence of the original. And I don't disagree with them. That violation, that taming (as M. John Harrison put it) is the point of gaming.

Yes, I think that's correct, except that I'd make it a point of gaming. It is an effect of the gaming medium that probably cannot be overcome, and so rather than pretend to do so we should celebrate it and take it seriously, as you do. But I do think that Harrison has some right to be bothered by the colonization of his world, don't you?

John Kim wrote:

clehrich wrote: If you're aiming for an adaptation, you have to use the medium to render the original on different terms. A literal filming of a novel is often not really an adaptation at all; because some elements of a novel cannot be filmed because of differences in medium, and because the adaptation is literalist and thus attempts to add nothing to the novel treated as a script, you end up with a film that is less rich than the novel. An adaptation considers seriously what is necessarily dropped from the novel and asks the question, "What can I do in my medium that would in some sense be functionally analogous to what I have had to drop?" A wonderful example is the film of The Wizard of Oz, which certainly adds things and restructures and whatnot, but I think is in many respects deeply faithful to the novel. What is added has to do with the shift of medium, of what you can do in film that you cannot do in prose and vice-versa.

I couldn't disagree more. ....

Sorry Chris,

I think you're screwed on this one.

For example, I think the LotR movies are a terrific cinematic adaptation of the books.

You and I could go around and around on the forever. Why?

First, what we got from the books, what we focus and care about will be different.

And then, once we process that through what you and I care about in cinema, we've got a whole new set of negotiations to make.

Just off the top of my head, I'm assuming you and I have very different priorities, agendas and passions about film. Your "win" condition for a good film adaptation would probably be miles from mine -- if only because you'd weight the win closer to the book, and I'd be thinking, "Given the material, how do we shape it into the best movie movie we can make."

Again, I think Jackson did a phenominal job shaping that merial into a beautiful set of movies. And I could break down for you clearly why his choices worked so well as movies. And you would break down for me why they didn't work. (We'd also have ideas that would meet and we'd go, "Oh, that would have been cool.)

The agenda of lit (langauage based, thoughtful, delighted in minutia), has ltitle to do with cinema (extroverted, image based, moving, always, onto the next beat with little time for reflection). The forms themselves reveal a different temperament toward life itself. To move one series of narrative events into a completely different form -- an alien form -- and be successful in the new form is to translate the meaning of the tale. By definition.

And there we go...

How could someone who loves both literature and movies will be able to help here? Such a person would have to throw up his hands here (with a laugh) and say "The forms are so different, the needs for success are so different, there's no way a good movie is going to come from an honest adaptation of the book."

(And I'll reiterate, what people take from the book is already going to screw up the chance of getting people to agree on what the adaption should be like anyway.)

Best,
Christopher

PS. I look forward to someone offering up the excellent example of what you're looking for. Such a movie/book would clearly teach a lot.

PPS it is common wisdom in Hollywood that the best movies are always those from an original screenplay. Why? Becaused they meet the needs of cinema first and foremost and all the way through to their bones. The best adaptations are those the that say, "But, remember, we're doing a movie first and foremost."

John Kim wrote: I would deny that it is inherently revision. It is rather commentary, or dialogue. Someone who role-plays in Middle Earth can still be aware of Tolkien's works as distinct from their role-playing game. He is creating his own work which has its own distinct expression. This can and will be different than Tolkien's vision. This is the same with any other adaptation or extension. i.e. The film version of The Wizard of Oz was distinct from the book, but it was an interesting artistic work in its own right.

Anyhow, this is a bit moot unless someone actually agrees that role-playing in a literary world is bad.

John Kim wrote: The specific question is: is it acceptable to role-play in a setting created by a literary work? M. John Harrison seems pretty clear that he believes that people should not role-play in his worlds or, for that matter, in other literary worlds. He considers it a negative cultural expression. First of all, does anyone agree with him on this specific point?

John Kim wrote: In the movie, the story is quite different. Dorothy deep down wants to go away from home and has to be taught a lesson to stay there (via her dream). Throughout the movie, changes are made to reinforce authority. Glinda watches over her from the beginning, and saves her from the poppies. Glinda could have sent her back at any time, but held off because Dorothy had to learn her lesson. The film constantly undercuts the populist sentiments of the original. For example, the munchkins are rewritten from being simple farmers into, well, freaks.

When we roleplay, we all roleplay in a world of some kind (barring any weird hypothetical games in which there isn't a world). Whether we created the world ourselves or someone else created it for us, it's there. And, if someone else created it, what does it matter what medium it was originally created in? Greyhawk and the World of Darkness were created for roleplaying games, Middle Earth and Harry Potter were literary, and The Matrix and Star Wars were films. And people game in all of those, whether they have a legal license and/or official rules for doing so or not.

There are certainly moral and legal considerations for publishing games based in someone else's world, but I really don't see what the difference is where actual play is concerned.

Christopher Kubasik wrote: For example, I think the LotR movies are a terrific cinematic adaptation of the books.

Your "win" condition for a good film adaptation would probably be miles from mine -- if only because you'd weight the win closer to the book, and I'd be thinking, "Given the material, how do we shape it into the best movie movie we can make."

The agenda of lit (langauage based, thoughtful, delighted in minutia), has ltitle to do with cinema (extroverted, image based, moving, always, onto the next beat with little time for reflection). The forms themselves reveal a different temperament toward life itself. To move one series of narrative events into a completely different form -- an alien form -- and be successful in the new form is to translate the meaning of the tale. By definition.

How could someone who loves both literature and movies will be able to help here? Such a person would have to throw up his hands here (with a laugh) and say "The forms are so different, the needs for success are so different, there's no way a good movie is going to come from an honest adaptation of the book."

clehrich wrote:

Christopher Kubasik wrote:
How could someone who loves both literature and movies will be able to help here? Such a person would have to throw up his hands here (with a laugh) and say "The forms are so different, the needs for success are so different, there's no way a good movie is going to come from an honest adaptation of the book."

Do you really believe that? That there is no such animal as a really good film adaptation (or translation)? I don't. I'm surprised that you do.

clehrich wrote:
Here are some possible examples:

Blade Runner
A Clockwork Orange
Black Rain (the Japanese film, not the Michael Douglas thing)
The Big Sleep (been a long time since I've seen it, though)

Okay, well Christopher has made a fair point here, even though I don't like it. Which is that there's probably no single film/novel combination that everyone can more or less agree on where the film is an elegant adaptation of the novel.

So let me put my argument differently.

Even if we disagree about particular examples, can we at least agree that such a transposition is, in principle, possible? And that it would be worth doing? Because I see John's argument as saying that while it might be possible it would not be worth doing.

John?

P.S. I'm holding out on Black Rain, though.

clehrich wrote:

Christopher Kubasik wrote: How could someone who loves both literature and movies will be able to help here? Such a person would have to throw up his hands here (with a laugh) and say "The forms are so different, the needs for success are so different, there's no way a good movie is going to come from an honest adaptation of the book."

Do you really believe that? That there is no such animal as a really good film adaptation (or translation)? I don't. I'm surprised that you do.

Here are some possible examples:

Blade Runner
A Clockwork Orange
Black Rain (the Japanese film, not the Michael Douglas thing)
The Big Sleep (been a long time since I've seen it, though)

On a very weird note, Yojimbo (adaptation of Red Harvest)

John Kim wrote: First of all, I would say that even if such a translation is hypothetically possible, it serves little or no artistic purpose. If you're not trying to say anything new, why produce something which aspires to only say what the original said? It would be a technical exercise rather than an artistic one.

clehrich wrote: (addressed to Christopher Kubasik) Do you really believe that? That there is no such animal as a really good film adaptation (or translation)? I don't. I'm surprised that you do.

Here are some possible examples:

Blade Runner
A Clockwork Orange
Black Rain (the Japanese film, not the Michael Douglas thing)
The Big Sleep (been a long time since I've seen it, though)

On a very weird note, Yojimbo (adaptation of Red Harvest)

On another note, I read the the Princess Bride having loved the movie. Reading the book was like sitting in a waiting room, watching a silenced movie while people file by in front of you. The movie is interesting, but where is the sound? The people are kinda' interesting, but you're watching a movie.

Admitting, I loved the movie, but even when I was young and watching the movie, I did not like the story of the child and his story-teller father. When I was reading the book and the story was in it too, I kept hoping perhaps it was Fred Savage's portrayal that I did not like, or just the movie script. No, it was the story and in the book it wrestled for control of center stage.

As for the fantasy story, it was much more entertaining on screen. This was the only book I have read where I like the movie better. (Actually, I have tried reading Les Misérables, but I have yet to learn the pleasure of extensive tangents, yet I love the movie and like the musical. Then again I don't know French and it could be partly the translations.)

Princess Bride is an odd example as the author of the book is the author of the screenplay and if I remember correctly the author had every intention of writing a book and a screenplay. I could see a fun RPG based upon the movie.

What I do not understand about objections to RPG adaptations is, is not every RPG session itself an adaptation?

Noon wrote: Surely that devils advocate only works if I care about keeping the authors meaning intact. If I'm interested in keeping the meaning I got from it, there's no problem.

clehrich wrote: To my mind, once such a transposition has occurred, the two artistic products are different, and should be judged on their own terms. At the same time, the one that claims to be an adaptation also invites examination in terms of the work it adapts. But the two works are, or can be, legitimate artistic products in their own right.

Out of interest, what do you think of translation, I mean from language to language? There's no question that one cannot express in one language the same things as in another language by the same means. So one has to choose other means, means available in the language of translation. By your logic, doesn't that mean that a translation can only be successful in technical terms, and cannot be an artistic product?

Caldis wrote: The question then is why use all his trappings, the tools he used to create his sermon, for your own means? He's given them specific meanings to create the story he was after, if you are trying to tell a different story why hold on to his names and places if you are using them for different meanings?

Someone mentioned the movie Brazil as being a work derivative of 1984 and that it may be but it never claims to be the same world as that of 1984. It takes inspiration from the source material and uses it to create it's own message without needing to tag on to the bootlaces of the original to give it credibility.

If I'm creating a game exploring poverty and the underworld of a fantasy medieval city, why would I choose to name the city Gondor?

John Kim wrote: First of all, I would say that even if such a translation is hypothetically possible, it serves little or no artistic purpose. If you're not trying to say anything new, why produce something which aspires to only say what the original said? It would be a technical exercise rather than an artistic one.

Well, I confess I'm stumped. It seems to me completely obvious that translation from one medium or language to another can be evaluated according to a couple of different criteria.

First, how well it remains faithful to the artistic vision of the original piece, however that might be interpreted or understood by the person doing the translation.

Second, how well it uses the new medium or language to render that vision.

The end-result should be a legitimate and valuable work of art in its own right, but at the same time it is entirely valid as a translation.

By this logic, one can argue that a poem, which is in some sense about its own medium (language), is only translatable in an extremely non-literal sense; the new poem produced is likely quite radically different in most surface senses from the original. Conversely, a piece of instrumental music is extremely translatable to another instrumentation; it's a matter of working out the technical qualities and nature of the new instrumentation with respect to the original. Thus Mahler's adaptation of Death and the Maiden as an orchestral work is fully successful and very obviously cognate with Schubert's original string quartet.

I am really very startled to hear that most people here think that translation is not a valid goal in itself. I give up. I can't imagine where you're coming from, so I'm going to drop it. The point, for me, was to make a point about transpositions of media, to and from RPGs with respect to literary works, but it seems we don't have enough common ground to discuss the matter.

Odd. Well, I'll continue following with interest, albeit largely as an anthropologist studying the Other. :-)

Caldis wrote:
The question then is why use all his trappings, the tools he used to create his sermon, for your own means? He's given them specific meanings to create the story he was after, if you are trying to tell a different story why hold on to his names and places if you are using them for different meanings?

...

If I'm creating a game exploring poverty and the underworld of a fantasy medieval city, why would I choose to name the city Gondor?

Well this has all become quite sprawling.

I also thought of BladeRunner, and I am in the camp that sees a distinct relationship between Do Androids Dream and the film. But then again I've always thought the action elements of BR were rather beside the point, and that implicit questions about what constitutes humanity, even biology, were much more at issue. These questions are not as rare in SF as they are in film. Witness the controversy, external to the film, about whether Deckard was a replicant. In that regard I feel that the movie was a completely different story, which nevertheless captured much of the essence, of the written short story.

Another I'd like to propose, which I know people also disagree about, is Starship Troopers. There were necessary differences caused by the medium, but there were also unnecessary changes, but (IMO) rather more as expression of this creative artists interpretation, vision. IMO it weas a valid interpretation and captured the original perfectly.

It is definitely the case in my experience that simply translating a statement into different languages can significantly change its implications, even if the raw text reads in a similar way. This is very significant in poetry, I think, which is a medium totally defined by the words it employs. There are jokes, too, that simply don't make sense when translated to other languages. I think taking a haiku, say, and rendering it from Japanese to English is a truly awsome artistic practice, because it requires technical and idiomatic proficiency in two languages, an the sheer insight to grasp the implied in the original and construct similar implication into the translation.

An example I have been familiar with since age eight is the different versions of the old south african national anthem, Dies Stem, or, The Voice:

In Afrikaans:
Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee

In English:
Ringing out from our blue heavens
From our deep seas breaking round
Over everlasting mountains
Where the echoing crags resound

Lines 2 and 4 have been significantly changed in order to make them rhyme; the strict translation of line 2 in English should read "from the depths of our seas" and line 4 should read "where the crags give answer" or perhaps "give voice". Both have been altered in terms of their actual content to convey the correct idiom and achieve proper rhyme.

I do think that a good translation can be a desirable goal in its own right, not purely a derivative work, nor necessarily a new expression by the translator. The whole point of trying to capture the original idiom is to avoid exactly that, for otherwise it would cease to be valid as a translation.

But that does not IMO detract from the case that, for example, a cover version can be an excellent piece of work even if its not strictly original. Simply re-performing the original is not the same as a different artist taking the piece and expressing their own interpretation, and it is this degree of personal investment and talent that can make it almost a new work in its own right.

--

Now back to RPG's and their relationship with worlds created by others. I fully agree that in most fiction, the entirety of the setting is constructed with a view toward the books premise, or similar. And furthermore, I have myself frequenctly criticised this aspect of FRPG in that the underlying metaphysics of most worlds are studiously ignored. Middle Earth is not just geography, after all. In most fiction, a world is designed for a specific effect, and further stories set in persistent worlds are the exception rather than the rule. In this regard viriconium might be seen as something of a super-set in which one ontologically dubious setting can be used for multiple stories byt tweaking the setting detauils available in this story. although I speak from a position of ignorance reagarding this world.

I do think that the mere adoption of worlds designed for literary purpose is full of dangers for the RPG conversion, and perhaps rather more like MJH's position than I expected, I agree that using Gondor just to do dungeon crawls is pretty pointless. Why bother calling the setting Gondor or Middle Earth if nothing that is special or specific to these constructs is present in the game? And, can a dungeon-crawl type game possibly aspire to incorporating these elements at all? I doubt it.

But that said I don't think this is a blanket proscription, in that in the lines of the Underbelly concept already discussed in regards existing works of canonical fiction, there are IMO ways to do something that is in accord with Tolkien's Gondor. I would be interested to see what MJH's view on gaming in Viriconium might be if he we exposed to such conceptual games as My Life With Master. Thats a serious suggestion, Steve GB, if you are still reading. Something like MLWM might be be very, um, sympathetic to the kind of things that MJH seems to want to do with his world, in that it is not just the concretisation of geography and local physics.

I don't think it is Wrong to simply desire to Explore these attractive, romantic worlds just for its own sake, but I do kinda see MJH's point that this defeats the initial purpose for which they were created. I just don't care about that very much - AFAIAC he can put it down to being a victim of his own success in creating a world that is inherently 'grabby' all by itself.

contracycle wrote: But that said I don't think this is a blanket proscription, in that in the lines of the Underbelly concept already discussed in regards existing works of canonical fiction, there are IMO ways to do something that is in accord with Tolkien's Gondor. I would be interested to see what MJH's view on gaming in Viriconium might be if he we exposed to such conceptual games as My Life With Master. Thats a serious suggestion, Steve GB, if you are still reading. Something like MLWM might be be very, um, sympathetic to the kind of things that MJH seems to want to do with his world, in that it is not just the concretisation of geography and local physics.

Hello,

Am I to understand that we have hit three pages of discussion on a question which is essentially asking for value judgments? This is a rhetorical question.

John, in your initial post, "acceptable" is undefined. That's why this thread has sprawled.

Please provide a meaning for "acceptable" to be held as a gold standard for this discussion.

Everyone, restrain yourselves from typing until that happens.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: John, in your initial post, "acceptable" is undefined. That's why this thread has sprawled.

Please provide a meaning for "acceptable" to be held as a gold standard for this discussion.

Hiya,

Opinion polling isn't going to happen, or let's say, not going to happen further. "Would you play in it" is a little too close to an opinion poll as well.

I suggest we close this one, and all be happy with what it did produce, but if anyone (John, me, whoever) wants to raise a similar topic with a more concrete shared benchmark, that's cool too.

Best,
Ron