Why this focus on sappy tv shows?

This is a rant. You have been warned.

Have you looked at some of the games labelled as "storygames" or games about which the designer sprouts exclamations like Story Now? I have, and while I love some New School Forge games, some things makes me sigh.

This all begins with Robin Laws (my Robin Laws number is 3, by the way).

I was listening to a recorded session from Dragonmeet, namely the Pelgrane Press session with Simon, Robin and Ken and they talked about upcoming stuff. One thing Robin was working on was something called Drama System. This was presented as yet another attempt at trying to use the narrative structure of other media in a rpg.

Often when new school games borrow ideas about narrative structure they seem to think of TV shows. Actually, a few games by Robin Laws does this. There are a couple of games that explicitly try to minic TV shows, like Buffy, Smallville and Primetime Adventures. My experience with those games are not positive.

So, when I heard about Drama System I triggered on the word "relationships". I have realized that one reason I'm not very fond of taking inspiration from TV shows is that I really don't care for relationship focused TV soaps.

Why are all these Forgie New School games so focused on relationships? Some designers talk about how odd it is with the classical adventuring party, outside of society and without any natural human bonds and relations. Others talk about how interpersonal conflicts drive drama and immersive roleplaying.

Those who have games with me know that I can go bananas with funny voices, in character speak and that thespian spiel. But, I can also play the game with the characters as chess pieces when I want to focus on e.g. world or story exploration (going along the rails, for the heck of it). I think both is valid roleplaying.

So, why is sappy tv shows the norm for serious character development? I don't think it's anything wrong with it, but I am bored of it! I have relationships already, to friends and family. Why do I have to have that in a game?

Rant over.

As usual, the real world is a bit more nuanced and if it seems like I was slagging a certain designer, let it be known that I received my copy of Robin Laws Skullduggery yesterday, and it looks like great fun!

Old School games and thespians

I've been thinking about the conversations had following James Malisewski posts from OSR Con in Toronto, and him playing with Ed Greenwood. Many peoples seem to have an instant dislike of any would be thespians at the game table. It reminded me of a poll at Dragonsfoot way back, when the level of engagement in the game was the focus of the poll. The result was that most people there treated AD&D as if it was chess, or Monopoly.

From what I have gathered, the prevailing wind in these parts are kind of the opposite but with a healthy dose of simulationism as a side order. Way back the periodicals had articles espousing the values of acting, talking and being in character. Add to that an influential designer who seem to value realism really, really high and you have a bunch of kids who grow up to be either sim earthers or drama queens. Yeah, I am exaggerating.

But, what about me? Well. I have found that I becomes quite bored if all I do is roll the dice and have to treat my character like a chess piece. Outrageous accents just makes me more engaged. Now, if you are to treat the characters as game pieces, having many and detailed choices to make in the game makes it far more fun. Actually, I think this is where 3rd and 4th D&D really shines. You can happily play without any hint of "acting", and still have a game where you have a lot of things to do. On the other hand, a game like the older editions of D&D or T&T where combat rounds are minutes long and everything is abstract I think the game becomes boring unless I get to engage in a little extra like at least yell something in a funny voice when rolling to hit.

Now, with more abstract games, and more up to GM fiat and player inventiveness you would gather that those games should leave more opportunity for the players to express themselves by doing more thespians experiments. I mean, they do have less rules baggage to weight them down, and more freedom to interpret what abilities and limitations their characters suffer from, right?

Maybe I am off on a totally wrong track here. There's not like there's any strong causality involved or something like that. Somehow the world is not the way I expected it to be.

Let me also add that I think the level of pretentiousness is important. Even when I was quite enthusiastic about it (yes, I was!), Vampire: The Masquerade was a game I liked best when I never met the guys (and gals!) who played it. The same thing is true about things like freeform and "jeepform" which are way to game which makes my stomach turn. That's when I think the would be thespian ought to go to drama class and leave me to my roleplaying game. I just hate the combination of acting, pretentiousness and RPGs. When I act out a bit I goof off. It might be serious, but I am playing a game.

There's more to it than rules density.