The Blog of Roon

Tell you what, I have got to stop trying to play bitchy characters. I’m no good at it. I get out-bitched in no time flat.

Which has its moments, admittedly. I wanted to laugh as hard as everyone else at some of the piercing one-liners aimed at Latiel—couldn’t if I wanted to stay in character, of course.

The curious thing, though, is the defense Latiel adopted once it became clear she was heavily outclassed in the bitch department. She started being nice. Wish that tactic worked in more situations, I do.

I have been invited to sit on a panel at Odyssey Con on Narrative in Gaming. I’m more than a little nervous about it; I haven’t read any narrative theory since undergrad. So I’ll toss out some thoughts, and perhaps I’ll end up with something coherent to say.

I first ran into shared storytelling not through gaming, but through BBSing. I met my husband that way, in fact, and we sustained a years-long long-distance relationship in part through the power of shared stories and shared storytelling. I love telling part of a story that grows and changes around me; anticipating the next bit is as compelling (if not more so) than writing the next bit myself.

Shared storytelling is not the only attraction of RPGs for me, but it is certainly a strong one, as my long-suffering gaming buddies will attest. (I drown those poor people in email. I hope this blog will get some of that out of my system, because I think they’re starting to lose patience.)

So the questions that rise to my mind about RPG narrative are:

• Are we really talking about narrative here, or drama?
• What are the differences in process between RPG narrative creation and individual creation?
• What about RPG narrative creation and collaborative authoring?
• What are the differences, if any, in the resulting narrative?
• Who authors an RPG narrative? Is the gamemaster sole author, first author, or one among peers?
• If the RPG group has a chronicler, a person who regularly writes about RPG events, where does the authorship of the resulting written narrative reside? What if the chronicler writes about events left in the background of actual play? (Gee, can you guess I’m a chronicler?)
• If we accept RPG as narrative, then RPG participants are simultaneously authors and readers of the resulting text. (If RPG is drama, then participants are simultaneously actors and audience.) What would Stanley Fish think of that? Is RPG-narrative authoring the same authoring that a Fishian reader does while reading? If not, what does that do to reader-response theory?

Juicy stuff here. Not a few fantasy novels, wholly aside from the RPG-related book mills, are reputed to be RPG chronicles (though if I list any I may be accused of libel—this is not, interestingly, a badge of honor). Has anyone studied how they differ from more traditionally-authored fantasy?

Well, that’s a start. I’ll ponder some of these questions, and perhaps suggest some answers. Ponder with me, and send me your ponderings.