The peripheral community that is a f*cking pox on our hobby

[Settembrini]

Yes.  And why is Sett arguing the classic "Swine" argument that he's raged against for so long?  A game isn't a piece of literature.

Correct. Your memory is like a sieve, it seems...

again:

1) Forgers/SGlers proclaim they are all about STORY NOW!!!
2) to them STORY NOW!!! == moral dillemmata on the level of Superhero comics, Grey´s Anatomy and Star Wars.

Now, there´s NOTHING in the WORLD to say against playing out adventure themes from pop-culture. ADVENTURE.

But being pretentious about your STORY, while re-enacting ultra-hackneyed EXCUSES for STORY is, well, swinish.

Understand?

See, even if there WAS a high falutin´dramatic engine RPG that would yield literary meaningful results, I´d not be interested. But that would at least not be swinery. it would be what it would be. But it doesn´t exist.

Can you be so forgetful as to forget all these things that even droog remembers?

[Settembrini]

Trying to fathom set's logic is like trying to jerk off a blender. You can push buttons all day long, you'll even get it to make appreciative noise, but in the end all you've done is waste some energy.

This is only a direct function of your inability to remember past discussions and explanations.

Most of these actually happened without me, so you can´t blame it on my person.

It´s just you who forgets what has been established and explained time and time again. Please, disagree with the actual argument.

But forgetting what you yourself have been a part of (the well laid out argument of only months ago) is insulting to all of civilization.

[Aos]

WhrrrrWhrrrrrrWrrrrrr.

[jgants]

Right.  I disagree with the assertion that games can only be based on classical literature, and that means I haven't read enough. :rolleyes:

It's pretentious wankery, that's for sure.  

Can anyone really think that stuff like Anna Karenina, Ulysses, Lord Jim, or Great Expectations would be better inspiration for a game than the average airport novel by Micheal Crichton, Tom Clancy, Robin Cook, or Dean Koontz?

[Settembrini]

Depends on what you want to emulate:

Emulate Tom Clancy-style Techno-Thriller action, with lots of military hardware?

--> You are golden.

Take Tom Clancy´s prose and characterization of the human condition as a profound basis for the exploration of the same?

--> Wanker, and an unsuccesful one, too.

[Aos]

Actually Sett I'll blow some time trying to talk to you. It wont have any impact, but what the fuck.
First forgetting an RPG conversation is not an insult to "all of civilization." Get some perspective, or maybe just an occasional piece of ass, will you?
I don't doubt that I was involved in many of the conversations. I bet there were more that I wasn't. I really don't care. They are not so important to me that I commit them to memory. Beyond that, some of us enjoy chatting with one another, and dont mind rehashing some of the same things a few times- because if for no other reason, new people enter the conversation, and previous participants change their minds or offer new insights.  You, however, stand at the edge of every conversation screaming about how we've already had it, or how it's not worth talking about- you contribute nothing, not even links to all the things only you can remember. Not to put fine a point on it, but you are the catpissman of this forum.

[Kyle Aaron]

I dunno, I just know I steal all my characters, situations and cliches from books, movies and tv shows. I just mix them all up so the resulting stew looks original.

[Pseudoephedrine]

Right.  I disagree with the assertion that games can only be based on classical literature, and that means I haven't read enough. :rolleyes:

Well, you certainly haven't read my argument enough, since you don't really get it. I don't think games should be "based on classic literature" or whatever the heck you've dumbed it down to.

I think that the structural elements of complex narratives of the sort that enrich roleplaying games are to be found only in literature (Even then most genre fiction won't contain them), and that people who want to tell complicated stories in their games ought to find models and inspiration in literature rather than relying on models drawn from comic books, movies or TV. If you want a bunch of impoverished models for stories, you're welcome to continue using the plot of the Amazing Spiderman #214 or whatever pastiche of comic book plot elements you can stitch together.

So you're doing your undergrad in English right now, so everyone reads less than you.  Awesome.

Actually, I've been out of university (I was a Philosophy, not an English major, never even took a course on the subject at the university level) and working for years now, and everyone still reads less than me. That's their moral failing though, not mine.

[Blackleaf]

Story Now means you build the story through the gameplay, rather than have it pre-scripted before play (railroading) or created after play (how it normally works for most games). That the stories some people want to focus on are like those in comics, Grey's Anatomy, or Star Wars is incidental to that.  Story Before, Story Now, and Story After have nothing to do with a genre or themes.

It's also worth reminding you that you have an alternate definition for Story from what most people who speak English would expect it to mean.  You're being very pretentious any time you talk about Settembrini-Story and how all TV, Movies, Comics etc. don't meet your standards.  In spoken english people say "Story" in a very general way.  "What's the story with Settembrini?  Oh him, he's just a bit confused.  He's still learning English, so cut him some slack."  The word you probably want is "Literature" to distinguish it as a more elevated art form from just a common story.

Nobody (except maybe you) is talking about Literature Now! or even Literature Before or Literature After.

[Pseudoephedrine]

What he said.

Trying to make an RPG game follow the structure and motifs of the Iliad is like trying to make a tennis match into the Nutcracker.

Actually, the Iliad is one of the easiest pieces of great literature to draw models from, which is why I mention it all the time. It's the story of a group of violently-inclined fellows in search of loot who participate in a series of loosely linked escapades in a persisting setting that provides various challenges for them to overcome. The motif is the fragility of human life and the glory of facing that fragility boldly. Both are elements that are easily incorporated into roleplaying games.

[Settembrini]

No, sweetheart. Don´t blame it on me. Pretty please check out what STORY NOW! actually means.

It´s the "addressing of premises". That´s the definition.

It´s nice and cozy that YOU use story in a colloquial way. So do I. But when the Forgers talk, it´s totally NOT like that.

STORY = addressation of premise == "how low can you go?"-style dillemmata challenging petit-bourgeious North American morality.

Buffy-style. At best.
At the very best.

You think that´sfucked up? So do I. But go, blame the Forgers.

[jgants]

I dunno, I just know I steal all my characters, situations and cliches from books, movies and tv shows. I just mix them all up so the resulting stew looks original.

That's what I do, too.

I think that the structural elements of complex narratives of the sort that enrich roleplaying games are to be found only in literature (Even then most genre fiction won't contain them), and that people who want to tell complicated stories in their games ought to find models and inspiration in literature rather than relying on models drawn from comic books, movies or TV. If you want a bunch of impoverished models for stories, you're welcome to continue using the plot of the Amazing Spiderman #214 or whatever pastiche of comic book plot elements you can stitch together.

Who in their right mind wants to tell complex narrative stories as part of a RPG?  I certainly don't.

I want my RPGs to be like a good action movie or horror movie - an interesting backstory with plenty of action.  The purpose of the backstory is to provide a reason and emotional attachment to the action parts, with a little bit of comedy mixed in for fun.  [This would be opposed to bad action / horror movies, where there is little to no backstory and you get all action with no emotional investment]

Actually, I've been out of university (I was a Philosophy, not an English major, never even took a course on the subject at the university level) and working for years now, and everyone still reads less than me. That's their moral failing though, not mine.

Moral failing?  Please.  :rolleyes:

[Grimjack]

I dunno, I just know I steal all my characters, situations and cliches from books, movies and tv shows. I just mix them all up so the resulting stew looks original.

I do that as well.  In fairness though I think most TV plots these days are actually stolen from old Gunsmoke and Bonanza episodes so the people who are "creating" this stuff use the same system of "plot reuse".  Whether it is classic literature or a comic book it can all make for a very good game if the DM is talented enough (IMHO).  That to me is the value of collecting, I ran a Shadowrun adventure through Chaosium's Hall of Risk for the Stormbringer game system once and it kicked ass (mostly player ass).  

Oh, and not to be a nitpicking wanker, but are we talking about the Iliad or the Odyssey?  I think the Iliad would be hard to use for plot but I agree the Odyssey pretty much was an RPG adventure minus the dice.

[Grimjack]

That's what I do, too.



Who in their right mind wants to tell complex narrative stories as part of a RPG?  I certainly don't.

I've been in games with complex narrative stories and they always felt a bit like railroading to me.  I agree that giving the players a decent backstory and then turning them loose makes for a more engaging game but YMMV.

[Pseudoephedrine]

Who in their right mind wants to tell complex narrative stories as part of a RPG?  I certainly don't.

I want my RPGs to be like a good action movie or horror movie - an interesting backstory with plenty of action.  The purpose of the backstory is to provide a reason and emotional attachment to the action parts, with a little bit of comedy mixed in for fun.  [This would be opposed to bad action / horror movies, where there is little to no backstory and you get all action with no emotional investment]

Where is it that you learn to weave a compelling backstory or to develop emotional tension so that certain scenes are gripping for the audience (the other players)?

Is your answer "Television's hit series Grey's Anatomy!"? I'm willing to give you enough credit to say that it's probably not, but if it's not, you should investigate where those abilities actually come from. It probably isn't from horror movies, which use images and ambient sounds to do those things, since you're presumably using good old language like the rest of the roleplaying hobby. So where do you think you learnt to describe things in language in compelling and interesting ways?