Forums » RP Discussion » Can RPing be beautiful? An attempt.

Video games, books, movies, songs, poetry; everything I love is storytelling to me.

In storytelling, there is always an ideal, an optimal way to tell your story; an archetype of plot to fit the narrative, a style to match the message, or characters to seek a purpose. Words are often the tool, but in all mediums involving story, the goal is the same; finish the thought. Get to the point. Accomplish the task. There are many words for it, but it is effectively the same thing: a resolution.

How does this fit into RPing? Well, RPs are about the story, too. Characters are united by the goal of resolving problems; they are given purpose via themes and messages. RPing is as much a medium of storytelling as writing a novel.

Even so, RPing is a very different medium of storytelling than most, if not all, forms of art, and this has been the subject of my speculation from the very start of my RP hobby.

Don’t get me wrong. RPing is great fun. The most fun I had was my first try at the game. The experience of watching your character clash against other characters, to face down enemies, to experience a whole other world, oh that was an experience worth having. But as the novelty faded, a want for something beautiful emerged. And in the structure of these rps, I sensed it. There was something lacking that I could not quite place, and even now I wonder if my finger has found it.

To the effort of finding this missing piece, I present this idea as an example. The particular portions which relate to those missing pieces I’ll outline for the sake of being (perhaps unnecessarily) explicit.

Let me know if you find this idea interesting, if you think it dull, and whether you have suggestions for smoother devices or deletion of any overbearing/unnecessary mechanics.

The greater goal which all characters are involved with, desire to chase, desire to resolve, and as a group, are united by it.
ex: A Chosen was taken down to the deep chambers of the Underearth, and there bound by spell and seal the old gods, so long as her life is lived.

Main character, a protagonist, who in reaction and action is proactive, directs the characters, and demands consequence and reaction from the world. (Not necessarily played by the GM, but certainly much communication between this character and the GM is necessary, so that the world and the main character are in reactive relationship.) They have something they want, something they desire, and it directs their character and relates to the greater goal.
ex: A knight seeks justice for the world, so that the law will create peace. Since he cannot tolerate injustice, the protagonist will seek to save the Chosen once he learns of her.

A starting point must be a controlled environment, with clear goals, that represents the home environment for the players, a structural comfort which the plot interrupts.
ex: The beginning PCs are in training at an aristocratic castle, given jobs to take down crime and defeat minor but personality-rich enemies. This both unites them and directs them.

A world not strictly defined, free for the collaborating, but directed by a common vision.
ex: Taking place in a time period akin to 1400s England, where magic is commonplace and mundane, the virtues of knighthood held higher than any other, and distinction in class from birth.

Characters with roles, with purpose, that know how they fit into the world and how they view the protagonist. They ought to have wants and goals, and their perspective makes the story seem different. Perhaps one makes the world more colorful, another makes it seem darker, or they might make it look like it’s all in shades of grey. This is entirely up to the character, which may emerge as they are written.
ex: A fellow squire, this youngling is a bit cowardly, and greatly admires the protagonist. He hates his own weakness, and doesn’t recognize his own strengths. Role: tactician.
ex2: The apothecary apprentice, this young woman brews potions and poisons upon request, and some mischief may be traced back to her now and again. She thinks the protagonist an idiot. Role: medic.

Posts would come in two flavors; action-oriented (when there is a goal to accomplish, like a battlefield setting in video games) and leisure-oriented (when the characters are in idle time, like an exploration setting in video games.) The former would usually be quicker posting, less planning, and be heavy on dialogue and movement, while the latter would likely involve longer collaborative posts and planning more extensively, and be heavy on the thoughts and feelings of a character.

What do you think? Is it too restrictive? Do you think it’d work as an RP or fall apart rather easily?

I don't think it's restrictive, but I do think it's going to be a hard sell for a lot of roleplayers. There are innate challenges with every medium (how do you do interior monologue in film without it becoming tedious?), and one of the hardest issues about RP is the need to usually have an even spotlight share among all players.

Different formats have different ways of addressing this. Obviously, the most cut-and-dry solution is something like good old crunchy D&D, where actions are mathematically plotted out over an evenly-split timeframe of 6 seconds each.
As far as I've encountered, there is no set rule about spotlight in text RP, but it's kind of an unspoken expectation that everyone matters equally. Having a single protagonist immediately shifts the focus in a way that will require a lot of humility from everyone else involved.

You might be able to draw a bigger crowd employing a somewhat less classic approach to narrative, that is, those narratives in which there is no defined main character. Both film and print have had success stories with this approach (See: Pulp Fiction, A Song of Ice & Fire, etc), and this way all players can have a sense of roughly equal value.

Once everyone is involved and empowered, the next challenge is then ensuring that your players are prepared to pay greater attention to the holistic storyline than the immediate ones concerning their characters. This is a really tricky one, and probably something that you can only truly gauge by having previous experience with each player, and knowing what their primary interests are.
Roleplaying is a very personal hobby, and it would be presumptuous of me to say that there are right and wrong ways of expressing oneself through it. In the case of your particular project though, there is very much a "would work" and "wouldn't work"

I'd also like to mention a little gem of a game system that has been making waves in the past few years: Microscope. It's a fresh approach to communal storytelling, focusing firstly on a set of stage-setting principles in a fluid timeline, and then 'zooming in' on particular moments of that narrative, be it 10,000 years, a lifetime, or 30 days.
If you were to lay out a world-building session involving all players, then have people put their hands up to play certain scenes, you could have a story with enormous scope but not have to worry about the inevitable interest-entropy that kills so many promising narratives.


But to simply answer your titular question, my take is: you betcha!

Funny that you should mention a classical approach I'm probably using the term differently from you, but the Classical era was that of the Greeks, of which Homer is one, and epic poetry an archetypal form. To clarify, in epic poetry there is no set protagonist in the conventional sense of the term. Alternating perspectives abound (from the gods, to the heart of Troy, to Hector, to Paris, to Achilles, and so on) but there are central characters that the action focuses on. Achilles and Odysseus, in the Iliad and Odyssey respectively, have the necessary set of skills and contextual role to propel the narrative and overcome (or be overcome by) their obstacle. Achilles wants to be the best warrior ever (and was dipped in the River Styx as a babe, also has a terrible temper that causes all manner of plot) and Odysseus wants to get home (and has the wit to do it. The favor of Athena doesn't hurt). But neither story would be complete, or at least, nowhere near as rich, without the varied cast of other "protagonists" who are each endowed their own perspective.

Perhaps the term protagonist was wrongful on my part. I wanted Companions to play a role like that of Hector or Paris, Penelope or Telemachus. The (previously dubbed) Protagonist is only a protagonist in the sense that he is contextually and skillfully central to the narrative, while the Companions are necessary to enrich and complete the narrative.

I suppose I was going for elegance with that. I thought it'd be valuable to have a character and goal to unite the characters and focus the story, but not inhibit it. I was thinking of it in terms of applying rpers with personality affinities to their matching roles. It's an ideal, sure, but the question is would it work? I'm willing to wait a long time for elegant beauty x)
Definitely wholeheartedly agree on this. For something like this, the RPers are key. They are the writers after all.

Oh, and thanks for the recommendation! A good system like this is just what I need x)

Ah, yeah. Guess I walked into that one a bit. Having originally developed my love of stories through film, I have a bad habit of not remembering to consider fiction from before the twentieth century.