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Adam
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Joined: 30 Dec 2002
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Location: Australia
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 Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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If somone loved me and i didin't love them i'd be amused for a little while and be enjoying the attention. After a while i'd get annoyed with it all and end it. Then perhaps take out the restraining order.
If i loved somone and they didin't love me back i'm going to be crushed at some point in the future where they don't feel the same and end the relationship.
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bay
Wandering Minstrel
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
Posts: 138
Location: new jersey, usa
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| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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| biggerUniverse wrote: |
| bay wrote: | | whats all this bickering and musing about love, go make RPGs. |
Perhaps this sort of musing will spark inspiration for one of us or another. Nothing makes a better story exposition than unrequited love... |
well thats a point well taken. how about an rpg about the misery of true love?
.02$
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Mandrake
elementry school minded asshole
Joined: 28 May 2002
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:13 pm Post subject: |
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I don't see the harm in this conversation. It's barely taken a few minutes of my time to write/read/interact with it, so even if I didn't write about this it wouldn't be taking away too much from actual RPG design....that and my question actually has a lot to do with an RPG I've thought about before.
But, spawning from that, I think some more questions are in order. 1. Are RPG's just entertainment? Or can they reach a level of literature? 2. If they can reach a level of literature, how much should we have to pander to an audience before we leave the realm of video game and enter the realm of high art (that is mostly something the masses cannot understand)? 3. Do we have the right to preach to an audiance? 4. Should we do it, even though we can? 5. What are things we should approach if we are to use RPG's as an artistic medium?
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biggerUniverse
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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Answering these questions are the goal of a large body of present and future research and debate. To sum up my view, I think the end-game goal of the RPG genre specifically is to tell a literary, linear story in a non-linear, non-deterministic way. I think they should be high art as opposed to regurgitation of old themes. I'm not saying break any molds, more that they should be used in a more abstract, artistic way. To your points:
1. No, they can be a medium for a set of messages, entertainment is a subset. (I.e., political, social commentary, literary, etc.)
2. It would be a balancing act. Look at Shakespeare or Goethe. There are deep themes that are not caught by most, but there are also shallow themes, jabs, jokes, and bawdy wit. We should look to the masters of the literary genres when designing.
3. Yes? Haven't we and won't we always to some degree? What is in our games is a view of a world as we see it. We are passing judgements on who is good and who is bad. We are filling stereotypes and writing commentary on what the boundaries of those stereotypes are.
4. I believe that we should.
5. Succinctly: anything but politics. Leave that to these people. Games are meant to be escapism. They can be social commentary, but to return to Shakespeare, you will see that his work is largely bereft of direct, contemporary political reference. It is all symbolic, and seems more to be commentary on social practice than political practice. (Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, The Tempest) Histories are not-withtsanding, as they are political, but they hide it in ancient or past history (Richard II, Henrys, Julius Caesar).
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Adam
Mage
Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 416
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:13 pm Post subject: |
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| biggerUniverse wrote: | | 5. Succinctly: anything but politics. |
I don't think people should not make political games. I think that is a good example of what not to make if you are taking that road.
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Mandrake
elementry school minded asshole
Joined: 28 May 2002
Posts: 1341
Location: GNARR!
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
It would be a balancing act. Look at Shakespeare or Goethe. There are deep themes that are not caught by most, but there are also shallow themes, jabs, jokes, and bawdy wit. We should look to the masters of the literary genres when designing.
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Yes and no. James Joyce, Proust, Sartre, Nabakov and many other masters of literature are not approachable by a majority of the reading population. We should be careful who we pick and choose to follow. And it's not just Modern or Post Modern writers. There are many Post-Modern writers that are easily accepetable to the larger reading population (A. S. Byant for one), and many that are not (Thomas Pynchon for example ), and many of the modern tradition that are (Hemmingway for one) and many modernists that are not (Becket for example). I could go on and on throughout history and the different literary movements (from nonsense writing of Lord Byron to the existintial musings of the original Kafka) and show you examples of ones that a normal, spy-novel reader would enjoy, and ones that would make them think twice about reading anything not in the best seller list.
Another question, though, is that we are obv trying to move RPG's now into an area of literature or art (much like how the comics field is slowly doing now for the past 20 or so years), what do we owe the game playing population? Do we owe them a sembelance of reasonability, or can we move past it into the obscure and confusing? Do we owe the game player anything as far as keeping them in the game, or should we allow some sort of meta-story telling?
I think, that RPG's are games first and art second. So, unlike literature or painting we need to keep the player grounded in our world. We can't do anything extremely esotoric or else lose the player (like, a Finnigan's Wake RPG). So, first we must keep the story and the concepts accessible. Second- we should attack larger ideas, but I agree, nothing currently political (since that changes very rapidly, esp in modern politcal stuctures that have a shorter life span). We should also be able to question philosophical concepts- but again, we need to balance like Doesoyvski, Goethe and Shakespear- we need to strike a sembelance to ground the player in our reality and not lose them to loftier goals.
Next, as art we can also make comments on RPG games in general by challenging common RPG video game motifs as well as challange RPG video game playing techniques to open up new forms of expression for both the game designer and the player.
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biggerUniverse
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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Why are we not having a convention about this. ;)
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Hajo
Demon Hunter
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:58 pm Post subject: |
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I'd like to see this discussion continued here in the forum. It's very interesting although I have little to contribute. The biggest weakness of all of my projects is the lack of story. I hope to learn how to do better by listening to your discussion.
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biggerUniverse
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Location: A small, b/g planet in the unfashionable arm of the galaxy
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 3:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Mandrake wrote: | | I think, that RPG's are games first and art second. So, unlike literature or painting we need to keep the player grounded in our world. |
Do you mean simply that the storylines should not venture too far into the realm of art/deep literature? If so, I would broadly agree, but would reserve that there is also a niche (as there has always been in literature) for stories that are "too deep/philosophical" for the average reader.
But I will remind you that your examples of books and authors(mine too) are not only about the commonplace, grounded subjects. I have a book that was written in 1862 called "We All" (the author's name escapes me now). I keep it as part of my collection to remind me that there were other authors, and thousands of titles that we do not remember, not because they were not popular in their own time, but because their messages were not deep enough, they were not timeless. That book was "on the level" of the average reader of the period, and now it is forgotten.
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Mandrake
elementry school minded asshole
Joined: 28 May 2002
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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first, a clarification: By "our world" I meant the world we are creating in the aspect of the game.
| Quote: |
Do you mean simply that the storylines should not venture too far into the realm of art/deep literature? If so, I would broadly agree, but would reserve that there is also a niche (as there has always been in literature) for stories that are "too deep/philosophical" for the average reader.
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No, what I meant was the creator delving into experimental story telling techniques that could lose the player by making it incomprehensible. Techniques such as meta-storytelling, symbolic and esoteric word play, polysemi(spl?), self-referential narratives, self-destructive sentences. Not that we shouldn't use these, but we should use them sparsely. An example would be the use of polysemi by Shakespeare and the use of polysemi by James Joyce. Shakespeare did not lose his audience. Joyce does (unless you count the small audience of avid scholars who pour over Joyce's work like Protestant's to a bible).
We should definitely attack larger, philosophical ideas. We should address it often- but we should not lose the player doing so. We should also experiment with the structure of the RPG as a medium or vehicle. But we should not be forcing ourselves into obscurity to do so. We don't want to make games that can only be played by those of us who become RPG scholars. We don't want to become the types who enjoy a game simply because of it's challenging nature to what an RPG is. Not saying we shouldn't challenge the roles of what an RPG is, and I'm not saying we shouldn't try and change the ideas that form the cliché RPG. But, we shouldn't lose our audience in our own genius, so to speak.
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Mandrake
elementry school minded asshole
Joined: 28 May 2002
Posts: 1341
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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For those of you who have never heard of Finnigan's Wake (which, btw, is a book I love dearly, but not something well...anybody can read) here is a wikipedia article on it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake , so you can understand the level of obscurity I'm talking about here. I'm not just talking about RPG's approaching philsophical themes and attempting to poke at them, I'm talking about complete and utter complexity.
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XMark
Guitar playin' black mage
Joined: 30 May 2002
Posts: 870
Location: New Westminster, BC, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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(EDIT: Statement retracted, since I hadn't read the interesting stuff you're talking about yet. Actually now I want to join the conversation)
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Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!
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XMark
Guitar playin' black mage
Joined: 30 May 2002
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Location: New Westminster, BC, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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| biggerUniverse wrote: | | 5. Succinctly: anything but politics. Leave that to these people. Games are meant to be escapism. They can be social commentary, but to return to Shakespeare, you will see that his work is largely bereft of direct, contemporary political reference. |
I'd have to agree with this. I don't want a game to preach its political beliefs to me. Personally I prefer when the decisions in a game (political or not) are not explicitly referenced as "good" or "evil", leaving it up to myself to judge the value of my actions.
Then again, sometimes a plotline of a game has a large political content (kingdoms at war for example). In that case, the best places to look for story-writing inspiration are history and the news, as long as you make sure that it doesn't become too obvious or heavy-handed.
Actually, in my remake of The ARC Legacy I've found myself accidentally drawing many different elements from the current war going on in Iraq. I didn't even realize it as I was writing. The villain character Prince Damien I've realized is mimicking peoples' exaggerated caricatures of George W Bush. (the whole insane warmonger thing. Bonus points because his father, King Alnor, was in power before him.) And the whole situation in Zydnia is right out of the headlines: The Pruthian army is occupying Zydnia for control over its seaport, but a group of insurgents operating in secret constantly attacks the occupying soldiers in an effort to send them home and leave Zydnia alone as a sovereign nation.
One could play The ARC Legacy and believe that I'm the indie-rpg equivalent of Michael Moore, trying to preach extreme left-wing views when really my only intended "moral" of the story was "war is bad". So as I've written the dialogue, I've consciously decided to avoid sending heavy-handed political messages, choosing instead to focus on the characters' development.
So, in conclusion, well... I don't really have one. I just like talking about my game :)
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Mark Hall
Abstract Productions
I PLAYS THE MUSIC THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!
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biggerUniverse
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Location: A small, b/g planet in the unfashionable arm of the galaxy
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Mandrake wrote: | | I'm not just talking about RPG's approaching philsophical themes and attempting to poke at them, I'm talking about complete and utter complexity. |
Ok. Then we are not at odds, simply talking about different things. I would tend to agree with you on the complexity of the semantics used to convey the ideas.
In coming from a phliosophical angle, I was trying to stimulate some debate about what are the storyline goals, how should we go about conveying a deeper message to the player than "save the princess".
Which brings up a good point: we are not only faced with the task of changing how we write storylines and guide the player, but making the player think about RPGs differently. When I sit down to play an RPG, I do not expect to be asked to solve moral dilemmas or struggle with my morays or understand subplots of a storyline. I expect to save the princess.
To change that mindset is a daunting task indeed.
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biggerUniverse
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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EDIT: I was glad Xmark brought this up, becuase I think we were getting too abstract, and an applicable example came just at the right time.
| Xmark wrote: | | Actually, in my remake of The ARC Legacy I've found myself accidentally drawing many different elements from the current war going on in Iraq. I didn't even realize it as I was writing. The villain character Prince Damien I've realized is mimicking peoples' exaggerated caricatures of George W Bush. (the whole insane warmonger thing. Bonus points because his father, King Alnor, was in power before him.) And the whole situation in Zydnia is right out of the headlines: The Pruthian army is occupying Zydnia for control over its seaport, but a group of insurgents operating in secret constantly attacks the occupying soldiers in an effort to send them home and leave Zydnia alone as a sovereign nation. |
I apologise for not playing ARC Legacy yet, so shot me down if I'm wrong, but whom does the player play? An insurgent? If so, that is a dangerously political plotline to begin with. You, as the character will feel defiantly, and believe that the evil Prince Damien is in fact evil because he comes to occupy your land for a reason you see so clearly. But what if you were a soldier in Damien's army, or just a villager in Damien's principality? You might see him as righteously defending you and leading you to victory. As long as you find a way to show both sides (say, a Zydnian insurgent and a Pruthian soldier befriend each other and learn from one another) then that is a nice peice of pertinent social commentary.
You could use Polti's 36(7) plots to go very deep and detailed with that story. Throw in that the insurgent's sister is in love with the soldier and has to decide between her country and her love. The soldier is ordered to kill the insurgent's family (without knowing whose family it is), and the insurgent must decide whether or not to take revenge, not knowing that the soldier had no idea that it was the insurgent's family.
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