Quote from: Black Vulmea;971923

So you're likening yourself to the incompetent comic sidekick in a bowdlerized Disney movie.

Seems fitting.

Quote from: daniel_ream;971979So you're likening yourself to the incompetent comic sidekick in a bowdlerized Disney movie.

There should be a 'captain' in there somewhere.

Quote from: daniel_ream;971979Seems fitting.

More than you can ever know.

Quote from: daniel_ream;971979So you're likening yourself to the incompetent comic sidekick in a bowdlerized Disney movie.

How can the original version be a Bowdlerization of itself? :confused: There was no prior Pirates of the Caribbean film or Jack Sparrow character to water down...

Quote from: Dumarest;971994How can the original version be a Bowdlerization of itself? :confused: There was no prior Pirates of the Caribbean film or Jack Sparrow character to water down...

Isn't Jack Sparrow a bowdlerized Guybrush Threapwood?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;971999Isn't Jack Sparrow a bowdlerized Guybrush Threapwood?

 I just Googled that name. I don't play video games so I wouldn't know.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;971999Isn't Jack Sparrow a bowdlerized Guybrush Threapwood?

As silly as Monkey Island was I'd have to say that if anything it was anti-bowdlerized...

(Is there an antonym for bowdlerized?)

Quote from: daniel_ream;971978This.  Whether created in isolation or done at the table, events in the game are all just made-up. Someone who writes a backstory making their PC King of the World is no different from someone who plays Chaotic Crazy at the table - they're both suborning a group activity to their need to be the center of attention.

The problem is, it's a total fallacy to say that just because it's all made up that it's all "fiction" in the sense of an authored literary story.  Writing a backstory might be very close to writing a story, but playing through a prelude or going through a Lifepath with IC choices can be a completely different mental process.

Yeah but that's not the sense that was meant. The term fiction means more than a prose story. It also simply means something that is untrue. It's almost all role-playing fiction in this sense?

Oxford defintion

Fiction:

 Something that is invented or untrue.
'they were supposed to be keeping up the fiction that they were happily married'

Quote from: Voros;972080Yeah but that's not the sense that was meant. The term fiction means more than a prose story. It also simply means something that is untrue. It's almost all role-playing fiction in this sense?

Oxford defintion

Fiction:

 Something that is invented or untrue.
they were supposed to be keeping up the fiction that they were happily married

The problem is, narrative roleplayers always trot out that definition to conveniently place all roleplaying under the Fiction Umbrella, when you have a significant selection of designers who treat Roleplaying as a literal act of artistic creation.

There are people who roleplay to create stories.
There are people who do not create stories when they roleplay.

It's not a coincidence that the people who roleplay to create stories or always have that narrative frame of mind want to define all roleplaying as doing what they do while those who actually don't do that try to remind them that Um, no, we actually don't do that, feel free to just speak for yourself, thanks.

Here's some concrete examples.
I do write short stories, very small amount of poetry, one story long enough to be a novella.  I enjoy it.

When I am roleplaying, let's say Cormac the warrior, I'm trying as much as possible to think like Cormac, do what he would do, and say what he would say.  Is there some crossover there in coming up with a literary character's actions and dialogue, perhaps, but in actually WRITING fiction I am thinking about composition, plot, syntax, all the things that go into literary creation.  When I am roleplaying, I am LIVING fiction and I think of none of that.  I simply react as Cormac.

Later, still roleplaying, Cormac is telling of his deeds to another clan.  At that point I am creating a story, as Cormac.  I'm deciding, as Cormac, how much to tell, how much to leave out, what to embellish, etc.  At that point, the artistic creation begins.  There was no artistic creation and no story prior to that.  None. There were simply events and facts that occurred. Fictional events and facts, yes, but not the same type of fiction as the later story.

I write creatively.
I GM all the time.
When I roleplay, I want what I can't get from those other activities, and see no need to blend or mix them because I do all three.  Doing all three frequently, I know exactly what I get out of them and how I think when I do them.

They are three different things.

Quote from: CRKrueger;972119The problem is, narrative roleplayers always trot out that definition to conveniently place all roleplaying under the Fiction Umbrella, when you have a significant selection of designers who treat Roleplaying as a literal act of artistic creation.

There are people who roleplay to create stories.
There are people who do not create stories when they roleplay.

It's not a coincidence that the people who roleplay to create stories or always have that narrative frame of mind want to define all roleplaying as doing what they do while those who actually don't do that try to remind them that Um, no, we actually don't do that, feel free to just speak for yourself, thanks.

I think this is where a lot of the debate comes down to. I am fine with narrative mechanics and with people wanting story. Where it gets annoying to me is when people use story as the starting point for all RPGs (and not leaving room for games that simply don't care about that ). And often it comes down to equivocation on the word fiction. There is a big difference in meaning between "fiction=novel" and "fiction=something that isn't true". It can be difficult to have a good discussion about the role of story in RPGs when that meaning is blurred.

Quote from: CRKrueger;972130They are three different things.

Good post.  I approach writing and roleplaying from much the same perspective, and for the same reasons.  The one exception is that sometimes when I'm writing GM materials, I'll do it stream of consciousness style in the rough draft.  At those times, I'm almost in a roleplaying mode, albeit for NPCs, deities, and other movers and shakers in the setting.  Later, I'll go back into more of a writing mode to clean that up.  No one ever sees that stream of consciousness stuff but me, and very little of it survives unchanged into, say, a setting document that the players get.  

I've also done a little teaching of basic technical writing.  It's interesting because most technical people can be taught a good technical process to follow for getting at least coherent drafts out.  Every now and then you get a person that so separates the act of writing into their creative side, they have a difficult time applying their technical mindset to it.  I wonder if their is a similar dynamic in place when arguing over this topic.

Quote from: CRKrueger;972119want to define all roleplaying as doing what they do while those who actually don't do that try to remind them that Um, no, we actually don't do that, feel free to just speak for yourself, thanks.

That's a good shorthand (/description in a nutshell) for all the internet drama surrounding TTRPGs (at least the games themselves)--some person wants to group this other thing that someone cares deeply about in with what they care deeply about (and is offended at resistance there-to), and then define what those things mutually 'are about?' Storygamer wants to include themselves and other TTRPGs under the same umbrella and say that they are about creating a narrative. Videogamer or miniatures gamer wants to include their hobby and RPGs under one banner, since 'it's all just gaming.' 4e D&D fan is upset that 4e-nonfan says that 4e doesn't feel 'like D&D.' Reams of digital pages and barrels of digital ink are spent dissecting whether a game or product is 'OSR' and what that means. And so on and so forth.

What is the definition of 'story' being used here? In relation to rpgs, when II  say story I mean 'what happens in the game' but its apparent that is not what other people mean. I like what 'what happens in the game' to resemble the genre the game is meant to emulate so there is some literature structure to it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;972054The problem is, it's a total fallacy to say that just because it's all made up that it's all "fiction"

I never used the word "fiction".  I said "events in game".

Now, personally I have no problem using the perfectly serviceable word "fiction" to mean "the events that happen in the imaginary game world, like Strongdor the Barbarian issuing a mighty challenge to the Ice Drake afore cleaving it in twain" so as to distinguish them from the events that happen around the table, like Dave rolling really well on his Boast check and getting a +1 to damage.

But some OSR fatbeards shriek like autistic frogs when you do that, so I avoid the word.  Clunky as the alternatives tend to be.