tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post2030622061055764101..comments2024-03-28T22:00:35.840-07:00Comments on Playing D&D With Porn Stars: Chaosless Theory (GNS, Narrativism, and the Morality of Stories)Zak Sabbathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-13515054164410930672018-06-05T19:15:56.773-07:002018-06-05T19:15:56.773-07:00@kabo Thanks!@kabo Thanks!Zak Sabbathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-73486060415764373982018-06-03T10:45:40.541-07:002018-06-03T10:45:40.541-07:00Dear Zak,
I'd just like to congratulate you o...Dear Zak,<br /><br />I'd just like to congratulate you on a very good and clarifying set of essays. Except for the sociological and psychological observations towards the end, which I can't really speak to, it all struck me as more or less true, and as managing to put the finger on many of my own issues with the whole GNS structure, which I've been carrying with me for years without ever taking the time to articulate for myself the way you've done.<br /><br />It has struck me that much of the indie rhetoric suggests a failure to see that a trad system is, in an important sense, <i>not the game</i>; and correlatively, that the GM is <i>not a player</i>. The GM is the game designer, the game is what she brings to the table, and she <i>uses</i> the system as a set of tools with which to design the game. Many indie designs are clearly geared toward identifying the game with the system, and reducing the role of the GM to that of co-player (or removing the GM role altogether); which is a valid design choice, of course, but clearly not the only way to view the GM/system/game relationship. Many enigmatic assertions about "adversarial GM" and the GM being "empowered to powergame" make sense in light of that assumption. <br /><br />In other news: There's a weird bug in Blogger that makes it impossible for me to get past the "content warning" dialog on your posts without opening the link in a private browsing window. The problem could be on my end, but I've had the same problem on several devices. Thought I'd let you know.Kabohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09730850886901461607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-88151971683459874992018-04-14T13:01:50.602-07:002018-04-14T13:01:50.602-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Patrick Mallahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04906639025904535922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-91690626123491662612018-03-27T23:34:50.793-07:002018-03-27T23:34:50.793-07:00i wanna read the one about how like sometimes, whe...i wanna read the one about how like sometimes, when youre a chaotic neutral thief, you have to totally play it straight. be all upright and well behaved. why yes fauntelroy, i'll take two lumps. why yes i did here mrs weatherby's cat has gone missing. it's a rare moment but we must remain vigilant if we feel like it.joshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04839488102808252443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-79184171599285882132018-03-26T06:21:22.298-07:002018-03-26T06:21:22.298-07:00Thx!Thx!Ghasthousehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07401924351959645260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-20392405874477914062018-03-25T01:46:53.502-07:002018-03-25T01:46:53.502-07:00@Zak
Thanks for the clarification, it's been q...@Zak<br />Thanks for the clarification, it's been quite helpful on a second reading. With regards to the crit/fumble bit, I may have misspoke; I do believe that funny and/or awesome things happen because of crits and fumbles (I have a house rule that says if one of my players kills something with a crit, they get to describe the death, and if it's plausible or fun then it's fact. This has led to several dragon heads escaping catapult-inflicted bouldering with somehow-intact eyes to be sold, as well as general absurdity). I don't believe that every story found online that contains "and then I rolled a nat20/nat1" is factual, just purely due to people's memories and tendency to simplify or dramatise. The point of the paragraph though, was that perhaps the author of the quote is all too willing to believe that someone's simplified version of things is fact, which seems harder to swallow when the claim is read as "the creative response to the crit was caused solely by the crit", which seems to have been implied.<br /><br />I just wanted to point out why I thought the author of the quote was wrong, but I suppose I should've written a draft rebuttal first.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12168237338944794342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-981763365379224292018-03-25T00:21:51.241-07:002018-03-25T00:21:51.241-07:00@Gavorche
Angela Carter@Gavorche <br /><br />Angela CarterZak Sabbathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-3313598317554539302018-03-24T23:40:04.287-07:002018-03-24T23:40:04.287-07:00Where did you find that cool "Old Age" s...Where did you find that cool "Old Age" story?Ghasthousehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07401924351959645260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-60143594998607483652018-03-24T21:54:39.613-07:002018-03-24T21:54:39.613-07:00The very structure of the classical story is part ...The very structure of the classical story is part of a problem of modern consciousness.<br /><br /> ^<br /> |<br />Now this is the essay I want to read.Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13943447274270987904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-76588056621775739172018-03-24T16:18:00.661-07:002018-03-24T16:18:00.661-07:00@Zak
Viz 5: yeah, I don’t think Egri’s model is v...@Zak <br />Viz 5: yeah, I don’t think Egri’s model is valueless? I’ve just always seen RPGs as drawing heavily since Appendix N on pulp and genre which has plenty of stories that confirm to Egri’s model (good and bad) but also have a strong focus on challenges & outcomes than on personal growth & social values (and a lot of the more moralizing work—Heinlein & Goodkind spring to mind—tends towards the conservative, libertarian or reactionary viewpoints like idk Michael Moorcock diagnosed).<br /><br />But viz 2: yeah if yr reading Harry Potter performative allyship is the most complex form of good you can envision since it promotes a world that is extremely black and white.FM Geisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06185541338779784634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-5950212402569382662018-03-24T15:50:30.489-07:002018-03-24T15:50:30.489-07:00@kyle Traylor
" If Edwards did not produce G...@kyle Traylor<br /><br />" If Edwards did not produce GNS, would a similar theory have lead to a similar coalescence of the same people?"<br /><br />I think there may have been less fuel on that fire--or they might not have met each other so quickly.<br /><br />@FM Geist<br /><br />1. Yes<br /><br />2. Harry Potter<br /><br />3. Yup<br /><br />4. I think success here IS mainly centered around uptight people inventing game sthat appeal mostly to other uptight people<br /><br />5. I think it is worth pointing out that many hollywood films that are good can be said to follow Egri's model (from a certain pov) and that may be the lens they see this throughZak Sabbathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-40921509972786291932018-03-24T11:34:38.295-07:002018-03-24T11:34:38.295-07:00That is in theory the purpose of Fiasco, so it'...That is in theory the purpose of Fiasco, so it's not impossible for such things to appear in GNS. But it's possible that players disregard the clusterfuck element of the rules and play it for the didactic anyway.Verad Bellveilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06200642022404699056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-47850277534815143782018-03-24T11:12:33.786-07:002018-03-24T11:12:33.786-07:00Just imagine if Edward's basis for stories was...Just imagine if Edward's basis for stories was the joy of watching a clusterfuck unfold, instead of a morality play. D&D's already pretty good at the former, though.WrongOnTheInternethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10307593854612561638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-55475927498909241842018-03-24T10:11:59.519-07:002018-03-24T10:11:59.519-07:00Things that still baffle me after the 4th rundown:...Things that still baffle me after the 4th rundown:<br />—the view of literature as moral instruction seems like an impoverished view of literature? Like, the concept of how storytelling works is less complicated than how Roland Barthes saw the storytelling of professional wrestling operating (in an era of more simplistic shorthand in wrestling which is also considered low brow entertainment). <br />—which brings me to “what are these people reading” (other than each other’s games)? I find it hard to swallow that they’ve read much? Given the whole literature of ambiguity and non-moral quandary goes back (in genre) *at least* to Aickman, Machen, Du Maurier, etc. & ambiguity, complication and reader interpretation have been big in literary circles for as long as I’ve been alive (unless you are Howard Bloom or one of his adherents).<br />—like even SocJus or whatever discussion *at this point* on fucking Tumblr has a more dynamic relation to the written word. Which is somewhat depressing from the standpoint that this is a *literary* enterprise and it *matters* somehow because it is *moral instruction* but even someone as committed to minimalist storytelling as Brecht would seriously question the didacticism of “here is a premise explored primarily through DM fiat because the rules funnel story & interpretation towards a particular outcome”?<br />—which (I am truly sorry I write so much) is just weird from my experience of having friends into this style of game because it feels like the ability to have any fun is premised on (1) agreeing with a fairly simple premise that structures the game and (2) playing with people you largely agree with? Which if this is supposed to be provoking insight seems like a pretty significant bug (although I feel like some aspects of this mentality see it as a feature: people who are “correct” play this game and get a proper outcome)?<br />—even charitably reading Edwards i feel incapable of articulating why I would *want* to play Narrative games because for all his praise: they seem hollow as fuck (but I also read & doing an intro to creative writing group exercise with mechanics to force a homogenous outcome feels wasteful since I could *just write something* instead).<br /><br />Idk, like this flummoxes me?FM Geisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06185541338779784634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-47524033497123042312018-03-24T09:31:41.820-07:002018-03-24T09:31:41.820-07:00Fair enough. Some elements of the structure of the...Fair enough. Some elements of the structure of the N portion of the theory seem to suggest they could be used, or could have been written, into a framework absent Egri's theories. Thoughts on this are unfocused as yet so I have nothing solid to offer there.<br /><br />Separate question related to audience: do you think validation of certain moralizing tendencies is what they were looking for in specific? If Edwards did not produce GNS, would a similar theory have lead to a similar coalescence of the same people?Verad Bellveilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06200642022404699056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-64903631018745836902018-03-23T21:54:05.182-07:002018-03-23T21:54:05.182-07:00@Kyle Traylor
I don't know. It's hard to...@Kyle Traylor <br /><br />I don't know. It's hard to imagine a version of the writer/game designer/game theorist I see here that would have preferred a theory of stories other than Egri's while still being the same guy, nor an audience receptive to our universe's Edwards that would have also been receptive to such a different idea. It's like asking if Timothy Leary had been into weightlifting instead of drugs<br /><br /><br />@Leslie<br /><br />Regarding the tales: having filmed, watched and uploaded hours and hours of RPG footage (publicly available), I have to say I completely disagree. Pretty cool stuff happens on crits and fumbles. Maybe you've been at bad tables.<br /><br />My position on the quotes from GNS acolytes in the essay is that they're not great. Examples of very Basic with a capital-B thinking about RPGs and stories. They are "somewhere between incomplete and plain wrong," but they are not so much "examples of how GNS can mislead the reader into making bad assumptions about games." as examples of how GNS either attracted or inspired such very Basic thinking--while encouraging people to think of that Basicness as highbrow.<br /><br />My position on them in general, outside the essay, is: read what you like. If someone finds these views compelling and/or original then there probably isn't much I can say to them that is going to be of use.Zak Sabbathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-9650325521306913892018-03-23T21:41:36.796-07:002018-03-23T21:41:36.796-07:00With regard to this abbreviated quote,
"It re...With regard to this abbreviated quote,<br />"It really does amaze me how many 'epic rpg stories' are only the result of a natural 1 or natural 20 (or the equivalent in another system) and not any inherent creativity from the players or GM." <br />I've noticed that these tales (solely in my anecdotal evidence, I've never tried to get consensus from others) tend to be exaggerated anyway. I've listened to people tell tales of what happened in games I ran, claiming to have gotten a natural 1 that led to something ridiculous, when I remember them sitting there and considering a foolish course of action on the basis that it made sense for the character to act that way in the context they were in, and then rolling poorly on top of that. Like it's a bad idea to attack Baba Yaga's house with a scythe while it's trying to stomp on you, but rolling a 4 on the hit roll only made the situation look more silly, not actually become worse. These kind of tales tend to be, in my experience, the most prone to exaggeration, either from a desire to make them more immediately understandable, or simply because the result is easier to remember than the process that led to it.<br /><br />Secondly, are those quotes being presented as extra reading material, or do you have a stance to take on them? I'm having some difficulty working it out, since the general thrust of your argument with regards to GNS-born theories is that they're missing an important point, I don't see any context there to indicate whether you're presenting them as just something to thing about, support for your points, or counter-points to be considered despite being born of GNS. <br />I don't like making the assumption that the writer is presenting something in a particular way, in case I'm misreading things, and because I personally feel that all of those quotes (under the heading "Here Are Some Other Ideas About Stories..." are somewhere between incomplete and plain wrong, I find myself assuming they're presented as examples of how GNS can mislead the reader into making bad assumptions about games. But then the incomplete ones make me second guess that assumption, so ... I don't know. I'd appreciate the clarification.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12168237338944794342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-52655486655915475962018-03-23T21:28:21.006-07:002018-03-23T21:28:21.006-07:00How do you think the theory would have changed if ...How do you think the theory would have changed if Edwards' ideas of what constituted "true stories" were not pulled from Egri? If he hadn't written off postmodernism as "arrant nonsense," but all other things being equal, would GNS have maintained a similar structure, but with fundamentally different definitions to Narrativism, or would it be totally unrecognizable?<br /><br />Further, do you think it would have had anywhere near as much an impact on indie-RPG design? Verad Bellveilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06200642022404699056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-91088886552545068712018-03-23T15:23:04.056-07:002018-03-23T15:23:04.056-07:00That ending is fire by the way. That ending is fire by the way. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-75817185457547017272018-03-23T15:22:30.333-07:002018-03-23T15:22:30.333-07:00@starfarer
I think you are close to the mark BUT ...@starfarer<br /><br />I think you are close to the mark BUT "roleplayers not rollplayers" is not a thing Edwards was into, at least not at this time --and that Ouijaboard description could, from his pov, just as much apply to "role" players, since Edwards felt that was Whtie Wolfs' fault (largely) .<br /><br />That's why there's 3 categories: people who are doing it wrong, OTHER people who are doing it wrong, and narrativists.Zak Sabbathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-58171042338225831382018-03-23T15:15:36.477-07:002018-03-23T15:15:36.477-07:00Kudos. This is a great post. (That Robert Bohl sni...Kudos. This is a great post. (That Robert Bohl snip seems pretty typical. You go against the collective and they lose their minds.) The Ouija Board lament always seemed like a way to explain away functional friendly gaming groups that the GNS crowd could never manage by explaining their enjoyment and cohesion as *dysfunction*, thus keeping followers assured they were the virtuous ROLEplayers not the primitive ROLLplayers. I'm glad the fad is mostly over. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-69520293224540601762018-03-23T13:13:45.802-07:002018-03-23T13:13:45.802-07:00@Gary Furash
I think that's a canard.
1. Mor...@Gary Furash<br /><br />I think that's a canard.<br /><br />1. More narrative control is helpful if you want the kind of morality-tale structure Edwards does<br /><br />2. There's nothing at all here from me or Edwards about the "right way to play" that would pit pbta against D&D that way. They are meant to appeal to different desires. <br /><br />3. Did you read it? It sounds like you didn'tZak Sabbathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-18183667067231429272018-03-23T13:05:51.727-07:002018-03-23T13:05:51.727-07:00Can you talk a bit about how this eventually becam...Can you talk a bit about how this eventually became about shifting narrative control from GM + Random to player controlled? And if that's the right way to play why is D&D so much more popular than PBtA?Gary Fhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17908206934819308524noreply@blogger.com