Ideally characters are situations.

Quote from: AosIdeally characters are situations.

You've got to expand that thought, it doesn't make much sense to me as it is...

Yes; I think these two concepts are interconnected to the point that both are essential, and you can't really have one without the other.

As such, the whole argument is very chicken-and-egg.

RPGPundit

It´s not chicken or egg, it´s one of the underlying differences in preferences leading to different RPGs.

D&D published texts are all about characters. Traveller published texts are all about situation.

Ther is no right or wrong there, it´s deeper: It´s preferences.

I don't think the two can be usefully separated.

Ned

Quote from: SpikeAh, but what were you planning to use for mechanics? I was thinking something involving Charades coupled with non-euclidean dice...

Actually, before going to sleep I spent a moment thinking up "Mimes in the Woods", a silent party game about a company of mimes whose bus has broken down during a trip to an annual performance art contest, leaving them stranded in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the night... Taking turns with three basic actions ("Despair!" and "Bear!" and "There!"), the players would then try to weed out the competition by throwing each other to the wolves while searching for a way back to civilization.

I understand that situation and character are married in the RPG genre. But which one is more important?
 
As I think about it, I'm leaning more towards the situation. If the players are the heroes ie the good guys, they cannot really create a bad guy. If you take fully fleshed out, entertaining characters, is it still an RPG if they improv a Seinfeld episode.
 
However, a good situation, or bad guy is what makes a character a hero. You can take a vanilla character with no backstory or thought and make him the great Dragon Slaying hero with a couple stories to tell after a good situation or two.
 
I think this applies in amoral games too. Where the characters aren't necisarily "heroes". It's what they do in the situation they're in that makes them important. The fact that they are characters does not make what they do important.
 
I'm also not trying to say that players can't drive the situations either. As I think a player's character is his tool to help steer the situation in an entertaining fashion.
 
Does the opinion trend depend on what your main function (GM or Player) is?
 
I'm usually a GM in my group.
 
Still rolling this around in my brain-part. I also want to play the Mime game.

Quote from: KrakaJakAs I think about it, I'm leaning more towards the situation. If the players are the heroes ie the good guys, they cannot really create a bad guy. If you take fully fleshed out, entertaining characters, is it still an RPG if they improv a Seinfeld episode.
 
Still rolling this around in my brain-part. I also want to play the Mime game.

The thing is, Krak... Seinfeld was all about the characters in situations. Don't get on that stupid bandwagon about a 'show about nothing'.  It was a show about weird characters in situations.   I'll bite that you can't seperate the two, at best you can make one primary, but the other will exist.

Hell, even Mimes get situations: 'Stuck in a Box' 'Climbing a wall' and 'being killed by a tree'...

I'd say situation is more important than character, although you really should have both. Character puts you into the game, but Situation is the thing that ties the game together. What's interesting to me though, is who produces situation? And how?

In a traditional game you'd have the GM producing situation for the characters (cf. adventure modules). In an advanced traditional game you'd have the GM developing situation from the characters' actions (cf. well-run campaign). In some Forge games I've seen, you have players producing situations for other players; which I find very intriguing even if it takes some getting used to.

How does one produce situation? How does one turn a fancy idea into something that can be played? Do you produce situations in WFRP the same way you would in CoC? I don't think so, although right now it's just a hunch.

Quote from: SettembriniIt´s not chicken or egg, it´s one of the underlying differences in preferences leading to different RPGs.

D&D published texts are all about characters.

Is it now? I think a little place called the Forgotten Realms would beg to differ with you.

QuoteTraveller published texts are all about situation.

Is that so? The very first thing I think of when I think Traveller is "prior history". Quite possibly the singlemost brilliant mechanic Traveller ever provided the gaming world.
And all about character.

RPGPundit

QuoteIs that so?

Yes, it is.

Quote from: SettembriniYes, it is.

Actually, the published texts that are about characters is... The Players guide; meanwhile the DMG and the MM are about providing situation.
 
If you want to bring in Page count, most 1 Book RPG's have 2 chapters for setting (usually an introductory chapter about the setting, and then a GM chapter about the setting)2 chapters for rules (Stanard rules and the some subsystem, like Magic or Charms or what have you)which are used by both players and the GM, with only 1 chapter about creating characters.
 
However, I don't think that just cause a situation takes more space to explain necisarily makes it more important.

I'm with the essential unity myself. The nuances certainly come from things like the kind of game, players' preferences, whether you're PC/GM, to name but 3 examples. It's also a peculiar duality in that everyone is simultaneously character and situation.

As a PC you're both a character for yourself and a situation to everyone else. The dynamics of this will vary according to the kind of game; eg. PC's are much simpler situations to each other in a straight dungeon bash than they would be, say, in a game with lots of high soap opera. I said everyone, but of course GM's can be pure situation- eg. the weather. And GM's are usually more situation than character because that's what GM's do: contrive situations for the other players' characters.

And so on and so on spiralling into a miasma of ever more finely divided jargon that makes me wonder what's been happening in KrakaJak's game to set off musings prompting this question in the first place. What's up KrakaJak?

look at this way if you will-
setting: undeground tunnel beneath the great pyramid-
this setting is not a situation it is merley a setting. Add Indiana Jones- you have a situation- regardless of whatever else you add. Add a wimpy Lovecraftian intellectual hero and you have a completely different situation. Setting and character make situation. If you take cahracters and put hem in a vacuum- that vacuum is the situation.

Like good Drama, and good game session requires characters in situations.* With just characters you've got nothing to play except some sort of Freudian intercharacter interviews about Id and Self (as anything else would require discussing situations). With only situations you've got nothing at all to play because RPGs need PCs.

As for which is more important, ideally that will change according to the game session. One session may be all about running from a tarrasque with a castle on its back. There's not really time for much character intersection because you're too busy running and hiding. The next session might be filled with trying to talk your way into a refugee caravan and a little free food because you've been running naked and scared for the last two days. Usually each session spends a little time focusing on both sides of the coin unless it's a hack-and-slash campaign or an amateur thespian campaign.

In the end, if you aren't happy with both, pick which one you prefer and find a group that agrees.

* I'm not saying a good RPG session requires drama, just that in this case they both have the same inputs necessary to generate a good output.