The Forest for the Trees
This post is full of good advice. A lot of folks toil under the expectations of the hobby and what they feel they need to write or run an RPG. I've talked about that in the past with The Product Boomerang and Run the Game you Wanna Love. I am also in full agreement that the average writing level in the scene is just kinda ho-hum and people should really commit to trying to scribble stuff that is more personal to them. The resulting discussion in the halls of the Gay Beholder server is where my disagreement comes from.
Caveat Emptor
I know both the folks in this quote, game with them fairly often, and talk to them near daily. This isn't to take them on or anything but to tilt at the windmill of one form of expression being less artful or w/e. OF COURSE THIS IS A PERSONAL CHOICE AND AS SUCH EACH PERSON'S CHOSEN HOBBY THAT IS ARTFUL WILL BE DIFFERENT. I shouldn't need to claim that on a personal blog but I am sure some joyless people will misconstrue this anyways.
Was it Likely > my strong feeling that the writing I do on this blog is substantially less artful than the writing I do elsewhere.
Press the Beast > This is huge. This is why I _hate_ RPGs, because I feel the same way lol
There has been a push in recent years for adventures to hew closer to novels than the adventure books of yore. Due in large part to the success of such works as SAG River and The Isle (odd coincidence that) and the grass roots push for people to chew their own food and bring their own contextualization to the game. And yeah this needs to happen. Folks shouldn't make generators for stuff they derive no joy from. Run a dungeon with only humans as the monsters if you hate making monsters. Run an investigation with no-one capable of doing violence if you hate statting out encounters. Run the game you wanna love.
But I can't help but feel this derision of the written form RPGs comes from a place that is only looking at half the picture. Audiences don't look at scripts for films or negatives for photography then judge the final product as being tripe. Surely it would be a tall order for any dungeon room to rival the beauty of Dream Song 14 with just its written word. But to disregard what happens when those rooms gets played feels like cutting off the medium at the leg. Cuz there is no doubt what I would prefer to read for leisure, novels novels novels novels. But when I do read RPG PDFs it's not for the same joys of reading a novel or poem. Just like when I write my own poetry or set up my camera for some photography I am not getting the same joy as I would from prepping for RPGs! Surely more RPGs and their modules should be better written like the exemplary works of Mandog, Wolves Upon the Coast, Murex Canyon, Time After Time; but even those laboriously crafted works of love only get to reveal of themselves what passes through my lense at the table.
I have been reading through a lot of Classic Traveller modules recently and while these are not going to win any fiction awards the ideas itch to be played out where they can finally metamoprhosize into those moments of pure poetry. One of the most emotional sessions I have ever run was the initial run of Operation: Subservient Echo where for the entire module one of the players had been hijacked by a mind shrimp and acting erratically forcing another player to trust his compromised friend even though he was certain he might have to hurt him or die. None of that is my factotum notes but KIT and KEYHOLE's embrace at the end of the session is something I think about an awful lot.
RPG books deserve to be better written, but that is not the entirety of the art we talk about. That pressure people feel about slumming here it in RPGs because they can have a much wider splash than other hobbies shouldn't be a cage. There are plenty of great writers out there who should embrace "yeah I write good shit for RPGs" rather than toying with it as some kind of lesser work. There is time and energy enough for you to practice a number of things.
To put my money where my mouth is here is a poem of mine alongside some photos I am proud of.
Exchange Rate
Crisscrossing, thru the nuclear strait.
Languid foreign hires consider a bubbling sea
and shell 10 cent shrimp
($5 adjusted).
Here the sea brings again decomposed waste poised to ruin.
Libations stew, firewood hoarded,
villains of the night, groveling, crowd the edges.
Aged youth chin wag, pubic beards buffer intention and cause.
All very alone,
language disconnects,
as an encore, erodes meaning
The Marlboro Man says Vaya con dios to Formosa.
Prepare transliteration:
lingua franca.
Olfactory urges press you,
and in turn
against me
loose bellied in Kansas
carefree/agitated as I-70 winked in distance.
I’m not uncomfortable, yet.
Pornographic bodies take form beside me.
unfocused, fuzzy maps
slot pinned eyes.
Celluloid feet tap a worn Chevy dash.
(w/ trim)
