So, there's a bunch of computer games guys writing what they call "New Games Journalism."

Here's an example.

It's a reference to the "New Journalism" of Hunter S. Thompson et al. in the 60's and 70's, which was a movement to emphasize description, narration, and character development, often with the journalist writing from their own perspective about their own personal interactions with news events. The objective was to bring readers closer to the human element of the story.

The New Games Journalists believe their writing does a better job of reflecting how people experience games than traditional games journalism.

And so I'm thinking. Our Actual Play tradition is very much a "this is what we did" thing. Is there value in a "this is the experience I had" thing?

Paul

Hi Paul,

I can definitely see value in recording the personal experience, although I think a lot of folks fall into describing the SIS events instead of stepping back and honestly looking at their personal experience with play. I think elements of "the experience I had" come through for our actual play posts, but nothing so focused on it. I guess for me, the value would be in seeing both the personal experience AND the logistics of how it came about.

Chris

Paul Czege wrote:
And so I'm thinking. Our Actual Play tradition is very much a "this is what we did" thing. Is there value in a "this is the experience I had" thing?

BTW, Damn cool of you to bring up this topic, Paul. This has really inspired me. Damn if I'm not gonna try writing a topic or two like this to the Actual Play forum in the next few months. I'd love to see what others can do, too.

Now, I'd not post something unless I actually left wiggle room for discussion: That's the kind of person I am, and adding that wiggle room may be the dividing line between "Maybe my experience has something to offer you" and "Look at me!"

Most of these kinds of articles begin with these deeply personal kinds of experiences, and ends (or adds in the middle) generalizations, bits of report-journalism, etc.

Great idea. I know of very few RPG articles that used that type of journalism. Which may incidentally be why I find most RPG reporting/articles so tediously dry and boring, even when about games I like...

-Andy

The "New Journalism" is forty years old. The personal, casual style is now de rigeur for magazine feature writing.

With a computer game, with a celebrity, with a UFO-worshipping cult of neo-Nazis, the key is discovery: the writer is finding out something about a topic they--and the reader--don't know very well. With a computer game, it's the gameplay, yes; but it's also the engine behind the game, the rules of the world.

With an RPG, the rules are right there. Chances are, you're playing with people familiar enough to have already bred contempt.

In order to pull off a feature article, it'd have to have a serious twist. Playing My Life with Master (or on the other end of the spectrum, Synnabar) with William Gibson or something like that. The craziness of cons lends itself to feature-style writing, but not ye olde gaming group.

I could write an anecdote about how fantasy author Steven Brust based one of his characters on a player in a D&D game. Had I been in a different hotel room at one con back home, I could've described how the quiet wife of a former head of an OTO splinter group won a game of Illuminati, among whose players was the game's designer, Steve Jackson. That's all that comes easily to mind from 24 years of gaming.

There's got to be a hook. Bringing the unfamiliar to the readership is good enough, but RPG audiences can get familiar with a game by reading it, and want or intend to make their own interesting, creative experiences, not read about those of others.

I agree with a lot of what's been said so far. I also think that people ought to approach Actual Play threads in this style with considerable caution.

I don't know a damn thing more about how Jedi Wars Outcast works from that (admittedly quite entertaining) article, except that if you meet an asshole online and get pissed off it can ramp up the emotional intensity of play.

I think if you really showed how a game's rules or structure contributed to a certain kind of experience you could do an unbelievably awesome AP post in this style. The PTA posts seem to lean in this direction sometimes. Branching out a little bit, you could even extend that to certain techniques or social contract innovations, whatever. The point I'm trying to make though is that what you have to say should be generalizable in some way and should reflect light on where your experience came from and how other people might manufacture it for themselves. If it's the 7 natural twenties in a row, you can't exactly call that game-driven facilitation, even if the story by itself might be a thing of beauty.

Dave Panchyk wrote: With an RPG, the rules are right there. Chances are, you're playing with people familiar enough to have already bred contempt.

...

There's got to be a hook. Bringing the unfamiliar to the readership is good enough, but RPG audiences can get familiar with a game by reading it, and want or intend to make their own interesting, creative experiences, not read about those of others.

I'd love to see some more writing in this vein for RPGs. I think there's room for a lot more writing about gaming in general. Not in the Actual Play forum maybe - it has a specific diagnostic purpose. But so many gamers are writers or want to be writers - so where is all the writing about gaming?

Not writing about the content of the games, not game rules writing, not even game theory: I mean this kind of first person memoir style writing about the experience of play, about how gaming fits into one's life, etc.

See also my post on this subject at The 20x20 Room.

Sean wrote: The point I'm trying to make though is that what you have to say should be generalizable in some way and should reflect light on where your experience came from and how other people might manufacture it for themselves. If it's the 7 natural twenties in a row, you can't exactly call that game-driven facilitation, even if the story by itself might be a thing of beauty.

That is the difference between "Actual Play Journalism" and "Look at Me!".

I completely agree. The trick will be elevating your journalism to the social and mechanical context that produced the experience. Probably we should scrutinize new actual play journalism from that perspective.

Paul