Quote from: Silverlion;334176Most of mine I see more like well done comic books. Even the fantasy games are just a detailed and lovingly painted water color or oil graphic novel.

This is how I see my best games, somewhat.

I run sandbox games, but I try to give them a strong momentum or potential energy. Basically I try to set up a strongly flavored setting, some situations in motion, then drop the players in to muck up the works. I run with whatever they change, and the game flows from there.

At my worst it's been pretty lame (a game that went nowhere), but at my best it's been awesome; the events of the game occur in a way that makes dramatic sense without my hand forcing anything beyond setting up dominoes before the game.

My absolute favorite campaign is the basis for a series I hope to publish some day. I have permission from the players involved to run with it.

Quote from: Koltar;334628It really doesn't have to  split into so many categories.

Let's just call it 3 to 5 Hero/good guy/protagonist characters get involved in action that involves combat quite often, with every 3rd or 4th 'episode' being more relaxed or slower as it builds up to the action-oriented ones.

 With that description you can describe all of these :

STAR TREK, "Firefly", NCIS, Battlestar Galactica, HEROES, "FRINGE", "LOST", "BUFFY :The Vampire Slayer",  BABYLON 5, "ANGEL". CRUSADE, STAR TREK: Deep Space Nine, XENA: The Warrior Princess, "JAG", ROCKY JONES: Space Ranger, "Charmed", "Ark II", TORCHWOOD,  JERICHO, STARGATE: SG-1, .....etc

- Ed C.

I'd agree with that. Archetypes are archetypes for a reason.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;334589In practice, when I see players do dumb shit on purpose that's what they say they're doing- and most of the time, they mean it.  (The rest of the time, they're lying assholes.)  No thought of how it would fuck things up for anyone else, or how it might ruin the night for others, ever enters the thought process- which is in part why I've come to hate the entire idea.

Well dumbass players and drama creation aside, I think the basic structure of TV shows - pacing, character arcs, etc - could be applied to RPGs. Of course all this is a matter of preference.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;334643Well dumbass players and drama creation aside, I think the basic structure of TV shows - pacing, character arcs, etc - could be applied to RPGs. Of course all this is a matter of preference.

Regards,
David R

It doesn't work well if you don't have a hook on the player's via their characters.

For example, Hercules easily could be an RPG campaign (PC's Hercules, Aeolus, and sometimes Joxer, guest appearances by Xena and her sidekick). But, if Herc isn't driven by the psych lims requiring him to help others and oppose Hera, you're not going to be able to impose the 3 or 5 act models of TV. Their players did (the writers).

If Herc wasn't constrained by that psych lim about Hera, he could simply jump out when Hera starts f*ing about with him in act II, tell the guy in need from act I "Sorry, Mom's mad; good luck, you're on your own" and you never get to act III.

Which is why not all TV genres work well in RPG's with that same model... the rails engage their disads and obligations and hold them too those rails. (mind you, I've had players turn a 3 act Trek adventure into a 10-act, by going off rails in strange and interesting ways, leading to further complications, but that's another matter.)

Quote from: David R;334298Why the avoidance, Pseudoephedrine ?

Regards,
David R

The characters is most media lack agency. Only the creator has it. Relying on tropes from them can mislead a group, since those tropes would fall apart if the individuals involved had agency. I've seen games go bad quite due to miscommunication about how tropes are being deployed because players may feel that control of their characters is being taken away, and DMs may be frustrated because they designed their sessions to rely on those tropes. I know that it's even an issue sometimes in my well-functioning regular group.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;334799The characters is most media lack agency. Only the creator has it. Relying on tropes from them can mislead a group, since those tropes would fall apart if the individuals involved had agency. I've seen games go bad quite due to miscommunication about how tropes are being deployed because players may feel that control of their characters is being taken away, and DMs may be frustrated because they designed their sessions to rely on those tropes. I know that it's even an issue sometimes in my well-functioning regular group.

Could you be a little more specific on TV "tropes" conflicting with character agency. IME most games which borrow certain structures/tropes from TV end up like aramis's Trek example. I think when people say their sessions are "episodic" in nature, they mean that the adventure is part of a larger narrative (and could be played out in a couple of sessions) rather than something which is rigidly plotted.

Regard,
David R

Quote from: aramis;334760It doesn't work well if you don't have a hook on the player's via their characters.

For example, Hercules .....
Which is why not all TV genres work well in RPG's with that same model... the rails engage their disads and obligations and hold them too those rails. (mind you,...

I think we are straying into emulation territory here, aramis. I really wasn't talking about genre. I think there's a difference between running a game based on Hercules the TV show and running a game based on the Hercules the myth using certain structures from the medium (TV).

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;334850I think we are straying into emulation territory here, aramis. I really wasn't talking about genre. I think there's a difference between running a game based on Hercules the TV show and running a game based on the Hercules the myth using certain structures from the medium (TV).

Regards,
David R

The structures require the setting tropes and genre support in order to work.

You can't use the three act model without some way to hook the characters to the rails. In the case of the demi-god quasi-greek genre, the inherent psychology of the characters needs to be present in order to hook those rails.

In Trek, it is the implied (or even explicit) duty to overcome the mission briefing obstacle that hooks them to the rails.

In Buffy, it's the duty of the slayer; should the slayer decide to say "Screw it all, I'm done" the episode will fall apart OR the scoobies will take over.

Genre and character psychology are in fact the glue that allows TV-like planning to work.

Traveller doesn't work well on a TV three act model... because it seldom has the obligation to ride those rails. You have to plan a much more neural-net-like adventure plan to cope with the much wider range of genre-acceptable options in Traveller. Of course, if one can rope players into playing an active duty game, you can rope them in with the rails on wheels of military obligations. Or if they are all Noblemen and voluntarily take that as a restriction to duty.

In Superhero fiction (comics, TV), the heroes have a bizarre obsession with stopping the bad guy; it's pathological for them. And that is the wheel that is hooked to the plot-rail. Supervillains, however, have no such compunctions. Run a supervillains game, and the 3-act model usually fails. (If you run a minions of the supervillain game, however, the threat of the boss works to hold it to rails.)

Quote from: aramis;334874The structures require the setting tropes and genre support in order to work.

Not necessarily in gaming. I think when it comes to emulating a specific piece of fiction, translating it to a game, then perhaps. But mostly, most gamers (IME of course) are much more flexibile when it comes to TV tropes/structures.

QuoteYou can't use the three act model without some way to hook the characters to the rails. In the case of the demi-god quasi-greek genre, the inherent psychology of the characters needs to be present in order to hook those rails.

Yes, you can't use the three act model....and I do not think most gamers rigidly follows this. It's a lot more informal I think, which each act evolving into something else (and not necessarily leading into the next) sometimes ending abruptly depending on what the players do.

QuoteIn Trek, it is the implied (or even explicit) duty to overcome the mission briefing obstacle that hooks them to the rails.
In Buffy, it's the duty of the slayer; should the slayer decide to say "Screw it all, I'm done" the episode will fall apart OR the scoobies will take over.

Yes but in a roleplaying game it's different. The crew may decide to something else, the slayer could say "I'm done" and the game could go on but just in a different direction.

QuoteGenre and character psychology are in fact the glue that allows TV-like planning to work.

Not in my experience. Maybe it's because we run games differently. I can honestly say, that I have used many TV tropes - genre and character psychology have played a minimal role or not at all, unless we (the group) wanted it to. What are your thoughts on story/character arcs ?

For instance, character/story arcs as in "this season (the following number of sessions/adventures) the game will revolve around this character and the next "season", on this character".

QuoteTraveller doesn't work well on a TV three act model... because it seldom has the obligation to ride those rails. You have to plan a much more neural-net-like adventure plan to cope with the much wider range of genre-acceptable options in Traveller. Of course, if one can rope players into playing an active duty game, you can rope them in with the rails on wheels of military obligations. Or if they are all Noblemen and voluntarily take that as a restriction to duty.

Like I said, I don't think a TV three act model is rigidly followed - I don't think it can be in a role playing game. I haven't had this problem with Traveller or in fact any game. I do think however that you can vaguely plan out the follwoing - set up , confrontation, resolution and solidify it on the fly, so to speak.

QuoteIn Superhero fiction (comics, TV), the heroes have a bizarre obsession with stopping the bad guy; it's pathological for them. And that is the wheel that is hooked to the plot-rail. Supervillains, however, have no such compunctions.

Well I suppose they have other pathological obsessions, which could be used to hook them to the plot rail. Are we still talking about TV structures and tropes, because I think we are straying off topic here.

Regards,
David R