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My learned colleague Professor Inverarity has argued that the so-called 'narrativist' games emanating from the Forge design collective have as their cultural antecedents middlebrow kitsch. I propose here to examine several Forge games and test the truth of this thesis.

In the course of this necessarily sketchy study (necessitated by recent cuts in the faculty budget), I hope to also lay the groundwork for an analysis of how themes might be embedded in these games--and indeed, whether themes are embedded at all.

Firstly, the case of Sorcerer. Unless Prof. Inverarity would care to summarise his argument first?

I fear you suffer from a misinterpretation of the sources of tackiness and kitsch.

EDIT: ...but surely Pierce will give you a heads up.

Prof. Inverarity has yet to garner a tenure-track job, children. As such, he feels compelled not to burn too many brain cells on the infraweb.

Even so, the provisional syllabus for his class on Forge and Kitsch--to which you may apply during his regular office hours this coming fall--would surely include:

Clement Greenberg, Avant-Garde and Kitsch

Adorno/Horkheimer, culture industry chapter from the Dialectics of Enlightenment

Quote from: droogMy learned colleague Professor Inverarity has argued that the so-called 'narrativist' games emanating from the Forge design collective have as their cultural antecedents middlebrow kitsch. I propose here to examine several Forge games and test the truth of this thesis.

In the course of this necessarily sketchy study (necessitated by recent cuts in the faculty budget), I hope to also lay the groundwork for an analysis of how themes might be embedded in these games--and indeed, whether themes are embedded at all.

Firstly, the case of Sorcerer. Unless Prof. Inverarity would care to summarise his argument first?

So...wait...you're going to argue whether or not Forge games are the products of middlebrow kitsch or not? Or if themes are embedded in Forge games?

Wow..ummm..If I only had a brain...

One important addendum to the bibilography, what with the whole narrative thing:

Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit, The Forms of Violence

My apologies for the delay. I was strangely unwell after the faculty dinner last night--undoubtedly there was something wrong with the wine I consumed.

Sorcerer[/size]

Sorcerer purports to be a game about the price one will pay to attain one's desires. "How far will you go to get what you want?" is the game's tagline.

It will be seen that this central premise is in the form of a question. Therefore, before a Sorcerer game is played, theme is in fact latent. Not until the game is finished will theme be clear, as it arises from the answers given to the question.

How does Sorcerer attempt to achieve its goal? It does so by personifying power, in the form of demons. Objectively, demons in the game are collections of powers. Characters may access power by summoning and controlling demons.

In accessing the power of a demon, the player risks his character's Humanity. Humanity is a game statistic that may either increase or decrease. Accessing demonic power may decrease the score. Denying demonic power may increase the score. If and when the score reaches 0, the character ceases to be the property of the player

Crucially, Humanity is defined by the group before the game begins. Demons are simultaneously so defined. Therefore, the forms taken by the question, as well as the answer(s), are determined wholly by local aesthetics and ideology.

I conclude that Sorcerer, as a game, cannot be meaningfully categorised as high-, low- or middle-brow. The sources listed are an eclectic brew of literary and popular. The play of the game is so bound to the specific group playing that little may be said about it without particular examples.

Quote from: droogI conclude that Sorcerer, as a game, cannot be meaningfully categorised as high-, low- or middle-brow. The sources listed are an eclectic brew of literary and popular. The play of the game is so bound to the specific group playing that little may be said about it without particular examples.

What of the sources that you would call literary as opposed to popular?  For others, the books listed are:

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
A Personal Demon by David Bischoff, Rich Brown, and Linda Richardson
The Devil's Day by James Blish
"Lizzie Borden Took an Axe" by Robert Bloch
Medea by Euripides
Seductions, Darklings, and Crucifax by Ray Garton
The Tower of the Elephant, The People of the Black Circle, Hour of the Dragon and The Scarlet Citadel by Robert E. Howard
The Night Man, Dark Seeker and Mantis by K.W. Jeter
Adept's Gambit by Fritz Lieber
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by Howard Phillips Lovecraft
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock
Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore
The Devil Wives of Li Fong by E. Hoffman Price
Thousandshrine Warrior by Jessica Amanda Salmonsen
Cellars and In Darkness Waiting by John Shirley
Night Winds, Bloodstone, Dark Crusade, Death Angel's Shadow, and Darkness Weaves by Karl Edward Wagner

I'm not up on criticism of most of these, but they all seem firmly in the popular camp to me.  There's a possible exception for the two historical plays -- they were popular at the time, but are now more often read rather than watched.  There are also some comic books, movies, and TV shows listed, but those are usually not considered literary either.

As for the embedded theme of "How far will you go to get what you want?" -- it seems odd to me.  There's a game-mechanical Humanity score, and if it drops to zero, then you lose control of your character.  So you don't really have the choice of going far to get what you want.  If you go all-out, then your character is taken away from you.

Euripides and Marlowe are not normally thought of popular literature. In any case, Sorcerer does not rest with much weight on its author's influences. The game is as described, and without seeing what is done with it locally, no judgement can be made.

Certainly Ron Edwards' reading list is firmly in the category of middlebrow, in Greenberg's sense of mass art that apes high art. I daresay most readers will have a pleasure or two in that list, but again it misses the point. Sorcerer, as a game, simply poses a question. There is, in fact, no embedded theme because the theme is formed by the answer(s) of the players.

Whether or not it actually achieves its stated aims is another matter, and one on which I have several graduate students currently working.

Quote from: droogSorcerer, as a game, simply poses a question. There is, in fact, no embedded theme because the theme is formed by the answer(s) of the players.

droog, how is this different for any other game ? Of course not all games pose questions...or rather maybe they do, but not in an overt manner.

Regards,
David R

Now, I believe that a central component of Professor Inverarity's charges is that the instructions to the GM of Sorcerer as to how to use the game are derived from a mass-market sensibility towards entertainment. Am I correct, Professor?


[Professor R, your query is irrelevant at this time.]

Quote from: droogThe play of the game is so bound to the specific group playing that little may be said about it without particular examples.

I agree with this -- system, after all, doesn't matter; people do.

That said, the list of sources John listed are pretty heavily middle-brow; nothing wrong with that: I much prefer a down-to-earth set of sources to a pretentious one.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.I agree with this -- system, after all, doesn't matter; people do.

That said, the list of sources John listed are pretty heavily middle-brow; nothing wrong with that: I much prefer a down-to-earth set of sources to a pretentious one.

Cheers,
-E.

It is, I suspect, an odd trait of from whence the elitism springs.

Essentially, it's about being "less geeky than thou".  An ironic situation in which, due to trying to differentiate themselves from what is basically a niche interest set, one attaches one self to influences that outside the subculture are extremely mainstream.

A lot of the pretention I have seen from Forge types, droog here being no exception, is the idea that somehow their tastes are more "normal" than the rest of us nasty geeks.

So you wind up with Primetime Adventures, a game about emulating crappy network TV.

Naming Dr. Faustus as a reference is as boring, tacky and intellectually shallow as it gets.

Quote from: J ArcaneIt is, I suspect, an odd trait of from whence the elitism springs.

Essentially, it's about being "less geeky than thou".  An ironic situation in which, due to trying to differentiate themselves from what is basically a niche interest set, one attaches one self to influences that outside the subculture are extremely mainstream.

A lot of the pretention I have seen from Forge types, droog here being no exception, is the idea that somehow their tastes are more "normal" than the rest of us nasty geeks.

So you wind up with Primetime Adventures, a game about emulating crappy network TV.

Heh. Yeah. I love it when I see people posting to esoteric role-playing boards about how they're not geeks; how they roleplay differently from those guys who pretend to be elves...

And how they wish, wish, wish the rest of the world would realize how normal and mature grown people sitting around doing lets-pretend with dice is, if you just pretend the right way.

Edited for clarity: I don't think there's anything immature about playing D&D, or pretending to be an elf, or anything else; I think it's all good stuff, and the distinction between AD&D and Primetime Adventures in terms of maturity or quality, or high/low culture is, I think, fiction. It's all what the players choose to make of it.

On topic: The Dr. Faustus thing; there are certain references that are so... over-used that instead of being "high culture" they become somewhat pretentious middle-brow. I think Yeat's the Second Coming (also brilliant) fits into this unfortunate description. Nothing against the original works, but they don't make the citing work an especially elevated piece of work.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: SettembriniNaming Dr. Faustus as a reference is as boring, tacky and intellectually shallow as it gets.

Magister Settembrini nailed it, droog.

The very foundational question of that game, "How far blah blah blah...," emerges from the background of a specifically postwar North-American, ballpark libertarian obsession with bourgeois subjectivity and the adequate realization thereof in face of an adversarial world (known to us--but not to its proponents--as consumer capitalism) that marks it as dated humanism circa 1955.

In short, kitsch.

I've always hated the high-brow, low-brow, middle-brow bullshit.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThe very foundational question of that game, "How far blah blah blah...," emerges from the background of a specifically postwar North-American, ballpark libertarian obsession with bourgeois subjectivity and the adequate realization thereof in face of an adversarial world (known to us--but not to its proponents--as consumer capitalism) that marks it as dated humanism circa 1955.

In short, kitsch.

Aha! There is meat in this sandwich!

While I share your political stance with regard to the ideological underpinnings of Sorcerer's Weltanschaung, I am of the opinion that such an analysis could trivially be extended to most roleplaying games. The petit-bourgeois doctrine that Dungeons and Dragons (or Traveller)runs on, for example.

Quote from: droogThe petit-bourgeois doctrine that Dungeons and Dragons (or Traveller)runs on, for example.

And here's where you're completely wrong.

Thanatos: of course you hate it.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityAnd here's where you're completely wrong.

I must ask you to defend your assertion, Professor.

Quote from: J ArcaneSo you wind up with Primetime Adventures, a game about emulating crappy network TV.

I intend to examine Primetime Adventures in due course, Professor Arcane.

Quote from: droogI must ask you to defend your assertion, Professor.

[R. Edwards]You pay tuition for that.[/R. Edwards]

I'm on vacation, droog!

Special pleading! I am irritated by your lack of commitment to this faculty's standards, Professor!

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThanatos: of course you hate it.

It's my school of philosophy, I guess.

QuoteThe petit-bourgeois doctrine that Dungeons and Dragons (or Traveller)runs on, for example.

First: Traveller and D&D run on totally different doctrines.

In recent D&D, the only thing hardcoded into the game is achievement principle. Power through several forms of codified achievement.

Whereas in Traveller, there´s only Power. How you get it, doesn´t matter.

For the actual game, these are the only ideological things hardcoded into the game. Everything else is totally open.

See, the Kitsch in Sorcerer is the question it asks. And the fact that it asks a question at all. To be interested in this question is tacky in itself. (= :rolleyes:)

Traveller doesn´t ask questions.
D&D isn´t longing for an answer, either.

They just are.

And they are not kleinbürgerlich, you can run their Universes in any political direction you want. Actual play in itself is kleinbürgelich in sofar as every emotionally safe leisure activity at dinner tables is. The act of playing RPGs is as petit-bourgeois as playing Settlers of Catan is. But that doesn´t help us in any way.

The D&D character is a striving, upwardly-mobile exploiter of his own labour. He invests profit back into his personal capital in order to build the capacity of his business to weather crises and continue to grow. Definitely the principle of small business and the aspirational middle classes.

In Traveller, the small business rules are even encoded. Buy cheap, sell dear.

QuoteThe D&D character is a striving, upwardly-mobile exploiter of his own labour. He invests profit back into his personal capital in order to build the capacity of his business to weather crises and continue to grow. Definitely the principle of small business and the aspirational middle classes.

In Traveller, the small business rules are even encoded. Buy cheap, sell dear.

There´s much more encoded into Traveller. Might makes right, and doesn´t care for your profit.

That´s just an example, but your ignorance of actual Trav and D&D play shows a lot here.

Homework:

Review Adventure 1 the Kinunir, and show us the petit-bourgeois part.
Review expedition to the barrier peaks, and show us small time business model.

Keep also in mind, that you are confusing terms here: The Kleinbürger is not engaging in buying and selling. The petit-bourgeois is engaged in emulating the real bourgeois and nobility, all the while keeping his emotions and passions at the most average levels he can. Upward mobility is totally not petit-bourgeois, they want to stay where they are, and want to be told how great it is that they aren´t working-class or worse any more.

Power in Traveller, even more than D&D, comes from wealth. Might requires credits.

I think that our difference in terms may be due to different backgrounds: curse these interdisciplinary seminars.


[And re The Kinunir etc, Professor Settembrini, I am pointing at structure while you are pointing at individual rivets.]

QuoteMight requires credits.

...and it doesn´t matter in Traveller, where they come from. Nearly all Trav adventuring is about avoiding real work, and getting money in different ways, often illegal.

And the structure of the Kinunir, is a fractal embodiement of all Traveller campaign structures.

Again, the most improtant thing:

Traveller doesn´t ask questions.
Adventure games don´t ask questions.

Droog, your analysis operates at the level of content. That's Zhdanovist Marxism of the show trials period. Crude, crude, crude.

A true political critique, as we all know, operates at the level of form, of the structure that produces any and all content to begin with. In certain games that structure is called Nar, and as we also know it produces sci-fi, modern horror and chivalric content with equal (= equally tacky and petty bourgeois) ease.

Re. actual play being petty bourgeois, I hate acknowledging this, needless to say. But all I can muster as defense is to point out, with D. Diederichsen, that what's left today of the grande bourgeoisie of yesteryear is nothing but table manners anyway.

So, actual play is petty bourgeois insofar as nearly everything is... with the exception, mind you, of Bohemian subcultures, dandyism and all the rest of it--but for now, that's limited to pop music circles.

That said, as a Deleuzean I shouldn't have introduced Marxist terminology in the first place. I suck. I want to call RPGs "lines of flight"--like Vietnam vets culture (A Thousand Plateaux). But that's much harder to argue, so I'm not actually doing it.

Speaking of show trials, there may come a time where we need to scrutinize comrade Settembrini's statements for evidence of Gamist deviancy.

Quote from: Settembrini...and it doesn´t matter in Traveller, where they come from. Nearly all Trav adventuring is about avoiding real work, and getting money in different ways, often illegal.

I submit that 'criminal' and 'petty-bourgeois' are not incompatible categories.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityA true political critique, as we all know, operates at the level of form, of the structure that produces any and all content to begin with. In certain games that structure is called Nar, and as we also know it produces sci-fi, modern horror and chivalric content with equal (= equally tacky and petty bourgeois) ease.

I am compelled to point out, Professor, that there is no such thing as 'Nar' structure. It is essential to compare specific forms.

QuoteRe. actual play being petty bourgeois, I hate acknowledging this, needless to say. But all I can muster as defense is to point out, with D. Diederichsen, that what's left today of the grande bourgeoisie of yesteryear is nothing but table manners anyway.

So, actual play is petty bourgeois insofar as nearly everything is... with the exception, mind you, of Bohemian subcultures, dandyism and all the rest of it--but for now, that's limited to pop music circles.

Postmodernism will solve all your problems, Professor.

I look forward to your Deleuzeian treatise.

Well, your categories are now muddled up, droog.
Are we talking you an upward-mobile model in in game content?

Or are we talking the process of play as an act of kleinbürgelich escapism?

Because the latter is basically moot.

Or can we look at the process of distancing oneself from the escapist activities via self delusionary exploration of "important themes and questions", and how utterly tacky that is.

Quote from: SettembriniWell, your categories are now muddled up, droog.
Are we talking you an upward-mobile model in in game content?

Or are we talking the process of play as an act of kleinbürgelich escapism?

Because the latter is basically moot.

Or can we look at the process of distancing oneself from the escapist activities via self delusionary exploration of "important themes and questions", and how utterly tacky that is.

I am eager to examine all sides of the question, Professor. It will, of course, be necessary to separate rhetoric from reality.

Quote from: droogI am compelled to point out, Professor, that there is no such thing as 'Nar' structure.

There are rules that "encourage" (zzzzzz...) or "foster" (bleargh) "story," or "drive it ever forward" (gahh). Rules = structure.

QuotePostmodernism will solve all your problems, Professor.

I look forward to your Deleuzeian treatise.

Not to be anal (yeah right), but Deleuze is not a "postmodernist." There are no French "postmodernists." Postmodernism is an invention of Anglophone academia, Lyotard's (often misunderstood) little book notwithstanding.

You know, there is no word for 'kitsch' in Japanese. I feel that that is the sense in which there are no postmodernists in  France.

Quote from: James J SkachWow..ummm..If I only had a brain...

:D

droog, since this discussion is going down a familiar route, is my point relevent now?

Comparing D&D and Traveller to Sorceror is just another example of the disingenuity that threads like these breed. A better comparison in terms of structure (and perhaps embedded themes and whether the game achieves it's stated goals) would be, I think, Unknown Armies the game of Power & Consequence.

But only participants who place value on terms like Nar , Adventure & Thematic - all problematic because of their lack of connection to reality - would argue about something that most gamers take for granted -that most if not all games have themes and it's only a matter of preference that separates why some games are played whilst others are not.

Regards,
David R

I'll just jump in to point out that the class categories being used here are archaic. Characters are just capital, _players_, on the other hand, take on the aspect of members of the managerial class, using instrumental reason and technical expertise to control the use of capital that they are responsible for. The responsibility is independent of any possible "ownership" they might have of that capital (as for example, when one player plays the character of another player because they are absent).

Edited for clarity

Certainly an idea worth considering, Prof. Pseudoephedrine; although it seems we find the middle classes at the end of every road.

Well you wanted to sell us Dr. Faustus as something special.
You shot yourself in the foot in that regard.

@Pierce: What´s a "Bildungsbürger" in english?

EDIT: droog, please structure your line of argumentation, so that we can seperate the five degrees of tackyness from each other. As playing RPGs is in itself petit-bourgeious, the "Everything at once" approach doesn´t help at all.

Quote from: SettembriniWell you wanted to sell us Dr. Faustus as something special.
You shot yourself in the foot in that regard.

How so, Professor?

Because it´s not.

Quote from: SettembriniEDIT: droog, please structure your line of argumentation, so that we can seperate the five degrees of tackyness from each other. As playing RPGs is in itself petit-bourgeious, the "Everything at once" approach doesn´t help at all.

Would you like to lend me your assistance in this project, Professor? I can't promise you much apart from a free lunch.

Now, on the matter of Doctor Faustus; while a 16th-century play by Marlowe may certainly be one of the lesser lights of the English canon, it is difficult to see it as popular or kitsch. I can only assume that my literary education has some way to go.

In point of fact, Edwards cites Medea as the most important single reference in his list (p 21). But I do not understand your harping on the point, Prof. Settembrini. I believe I already mentioned the middlebrow nature of Edwards' reading list earlier.

Quote from: droogCertainly an idea worth considering, Prof. Pseudoephedrine; although it seems we find the middle classes at the end of every road.

Them again? Can't we go to the beach next time, dad?

Quote from: Settembrini@Pierce: What´s a "Bildungsbürger" in english?

Doesn't exist!

LOL ROFL

Returning to an earlier point:

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThere are rules that "encourage" (zzzzzz...) or "foster" (bleargh) "story," or "drive it ever forward" (gahh). Rules = structure.

It is important to ignore the rhetoric and grasp the actual form of the game if we are to shed light on its cultural location. I am not sure that the author's leaning towards kitsch has any bearing on how the game plays in practice. If you'll direct your attention to the whiteboard:

• The character has a desire.
• Demons can help him attain that desire.
• What will the player do?
• The GM lays on stress. What will the player do now? Etc.

Comments?

Quote from: droog

• The character has a desire.
• Demons can help him attain that desire.(1)
  
• What will the player do?
• The GM lays on stress. What will the player do now? Etc.

Comments?

(1)Thanatos02 has speculated that the use of demons may indicate their own sign; that is to say that using a demon in the game Sorcerer might demonstrate certain class and philosophical bias. In this case, Thanatos02 goes on to mention that the premise of "How far would you go..." becomes moot at a certain point. For example, the very summoning of something called a 'demon' might, in itself, be a mighty sin greater then anything the summoner would command to demon to do.

He speculates that the question raised might and the gaming method (demon summoning) could indicate a would-be middle-class initiative. The petty use of demons seems designed to artifically excite, for example, where the subject matter ought to do as well. The use of a potentially rebellious third-party actor who is forced to act on the part of a summoner who risks their humanity for forcing the deal also speaks to a conflicted opinion of industry; demonizing forced labor, but also viewing it as a path to power as well as the user losing 'humanity' the more they push... speaks of a bourgeious mentality (Mocabee 136)

(never mind)

Before security dragged Prof. Calithena away, I believe he was shouting something about the theme of power versus humanity being as old as the Greeks. Could anybody shed any light on his ravings?

Quote from: droogCertainly an idea worth considering, Prof. Pseudoephedrine; although it seems we find the middle classes at the end of every road.

One of my pet projects, never pursued in any sort of academic way, is an updated taxonomy of the economic classes in society. I'm not sure there is a middle class any more, just varieties of technocrats and experts who have usurped the roles of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat alike.

Droog, I can't comment on Cali's post, I didn't read it. But since I have a fetish for the Greeks, why don't I share my thoughts anyway. :D

I've said it before: There are no humanist subjects in the Greek epic. The epic is not a novel, let alone a "story." It is a very alien thing. Funnily enough, it is alien in ways tangentially interesting for our lowly discussion of RPGs.

Settembrini's earlier point is relevant here: D&D characters don't need a question in order to act.

To act unquestioningly is to act epically. For a question to precede action, what needs to have happened is a split between the private interiority of what is considered an autonomous person on one hand, and a hostile or indifferent external world on the other. "Given the world's adversity, what will I, snowflake that I am, ever do? What could even get me out of bed?"

That split only happened in the modern world, in Romanticism & after. When Edwards "cites" Dr. Faustus, what's really meant is not Marlowe but Goethe's Faust--or whatever memory of that play has survived into 20th-century US comic book culture.

Relations between subjects and environment in the premodern world, especially antiquity, are a totally different ballgame, and so are their accounts in genres like the epic, as opposed to the novel. Mid-twentieth century notions of "story" will not begin to fathom them.

The first pages of Erich Auerbach's amazing book, Mimesis, talk about precisely this difference.

In the Odyssey, he says, "a continuous rhythmic procession of phenomena passes by, and never is there a form left fragmentary or half-illuminated, never a lacuna, never a gap, never a glimpse of unplumbed depth. And this procession of phenomena takes place in the foreground--that is, in a local and temporal present which is absolute."

The Greek epic has no "background"--it is all foreground--and its protagonists and their actions have no depth--they are all surface. They have no hidden recesses of "character," from which the turmoil of a "question" might arise. They live in the fullness of the instant, which is transparent to them, and to their readers.

"Delight in physical existence is everything to them [the Homeric poems], and their highest aim is to make that delight perceptible to us. Between battles and passions, adventures and perils, they show us hunts, banquets, palaces and shepherds' cots, athletic contests and washing days.... the Homeric poems conceal nothing, they contain no teaching and no secret meaning. Homer can be analyzed, but he cannot be interpreted."

Auerbach was pretty smart.

To steer this back from the heights of Homer to the plains of RPGs, I shall repeat myself and mention my anti-story counter-example from a couple months ago: ole Conan, who, while not exactly Homeric, is even less a humanist subject.

Like Odysseus, Conan doesn't ask Teh Question. He too has no depth. What Bataille said about animality in the Theory of Religion is true for him: The animal exists in the world like water in water. Even its death is merely a ripple on its surface.

This unquestioning depthlessness is what Conan shares with the epic, and it's what's reverberating through a modest but remarkable enterprise like the D&D roleplaying game.

My only quibble with Pierce's statement there is that I would push the development of interiority back to the Protestant Reformation, with its explicit problematisation (albeit in a basic way) coming about through Descartes etc. in the early-modern period - well prior to Romanticism.

A tour de force, Prof. Inverarity, though I think the roleplaying game as it exists has less to do with epic and more to do with television soap. Consider the continuous weekly episodes, the meandering storylines, the central cast that undergoes adventures at a rate far beyond that of normal suburbia.

Quotethough I think the roleplaying game as it exists has less to do with epic and more to do with television soap.

...then you are doing it wrong, totally wrong.
In mainstream roleplaying, there are no situations whatsoever that resemble an episode of a TV Soap.

If you want to draw such a US-centric and oblivous parallel, then you could say:

The mainstream roleplaying games share structural similiarities with Saturday morning  toy advertisement cartoon shows.

And even this simile breaks down together quickly, as RPGs totally lack the "moral at the end of the story". And if they lack the superhero bullshit: "I can only win, if I do the morally right thing!"

My main accussation against Thematic Games is that they in deed seem to emulate TV Soaps, horrible!

EDIT: Coming to think of it, I think droog totally misread Pierce´s point: the epic is not meant as a story-structure, but as a text-type. The similiarity of RPGs and epic texts regarding introspection was at hand, not schedule and structure of events.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityDoesn't exist!

LOL ROFL

OMFG!

Agreed, basically, on Homer.

Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Socrates are not quite so convincingly dealt with through this prism, however. I could be convinced that they don't have modern interiority; less sure that their actions and way of understanding actions are ones which aren't morally structured in a way congruent to the power vs. humanity question. As long as the conflict is there I don't think interiority is essential to it.

The Sorcerer text highlights a particularly modern sort of interiority, granted; not convinced that the mechanics can't handle situations that don't require any connection to that. In particular, Sorcerer & Sword seems to point in this direction, albeit through the prism of 'lowbrow' (and some 'middlebrow', like Leiber) S&S fiction.

Interestingly, we may be cultural artifacts of a bygone age: interiority may be on its way out as we speak.

Other than that, don't want to get dragged into this discussion.

Pierce: great post, although almost totally unrelated to the topic of this thread. Of course, it wasn't a very good thread in the first place, so do go on. ;)

Stunning post by Pierce. I've favorited it.

QuoteAeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes

They are dramatists, so they surely deal with the human condition.
Homer is not.

How Socrates fits here, is above me. Care to explain?

I feel some trepidation speaking up among such learned scholars, but I believe the Professor Inverarity has clarified why I find the Paladin anathema to D&D play.  The class concept seems predicated on weathering the turmoils arising from the split between the interior persona and the oppressions of the exterior world.