Quote from: David RAnd yes Pierce, wanting to fly a starship IMO is wallowing in Capbellian trivialities or rather engaging with them.

Only if you're a Campbellian. In which case you either got your B.A. in the 1950s (Hi, Old Geezer), or something went seriously wrong with the humanities part of your college education.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityOnly if you're a Campbellian. In which case you either got your B.A. in the 1950s (Hi, Old Geezer), or something went seriously wrong with the humanities part of your college education.

Nah, just taught by an old geezer (not tBP one)

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RYou think wanting to fly a starship is not wallowing in Campbellian trivialities?

Regards,
David R

It certainly is wallowing in Campbellian trivialities! Oh! Wait! You didn't mean John Campbell? Who's this Joseph Campbell fellow? :O

-clash

Quote from: SettembriniMmm. Aren´t the things making them popular counterproductive to gaming? I can bear with soapy-drama if it´s fast-paced and imaginative, like the new Doctor. But only as a consumer and only for about an hour.
And in my book gaming is way more fun than watching telly.

This is a communication problem. "soapy-drama". I am not sure what you mean by this. I am going to guess that is about shows that have a drama elements, a formula, continuing plots, and/or characters.

The answer not all show are suitable as a RPGs. In general the shows that have "action adventures" like "Alias Smith & Jones", "A-Team", "Dukes of Hazzards", "Star Trek". Are going to be used for RPGs. I have no hard data to support this other than the handful of games I seen or heard about.

The popular action adventures show have elements that are very applicable to gaming. A lot of them start with a hook something that draw the main character into the situation. The hook is a classic roleplaying plot device used to draw PCs into an adventure. Used so much that is been extensively cliqued and mocked.

 I will be honest if you are looking for me to break down a show to tell which element are useful to a RPGs. I don't have that for you.


The only specific thing I remember is my own Star Trek game.

QuoteIt was run in the 80's before Next Generation. The players played their own crew. My secret ingredient is that I had an episode encyclopedia an an extensive VCR tape collection and so I will continually throwing in little references to original episodes. Like a minor crewmen from TOS would show up as part of the current story. Lt Riley I think was one of them.

The best adventure I ran was where the players was sent to mark the area where the USS Defiant disappeared ("Tholian Web"?) as it was considered a navigation hazard. As it turned out it was a time portal and the player's ship (The USS Challenger) caught a Klingon ship entering the stressed zone.

Well the plot was that the Klingons used the portal to go back into time and shoot a missile at the United State during the Cuban Missile crisis causing Earth to suffer World War III a century earlier. When the Klingon when into time portal the spatial distortion (how l love that term) expanded to encompass the player's ship and rendered it immune to the timeline change.

When they got out. They found the subspace relay network gone. And couldn't get a response from the nearest starbases. When they ventured further into the Federation's Core they found it to be dominated by the Andorian Star Empire locked in a losing war with the Klingon Empire. Vulcan was conquered by the Romulans. Earth was a nuclear wasteland of warring medieval nations.

The highlight of the adventure was a hour long debate over the ethics of changing the time-line back. Everyone was in character and debated as their characters. It was coolest bit of role-playing I ever remembered.

Finally they helped the Andorians against the Klingons in exchange for cloaking technology to allow them to slip between the lines to get back to Earth. They used the slingshot method of going back into time to 1962 . Hid behind Earth's Moon and blew up the Klingon ship before it could launch it's missile. They returned home to find the Time-line restored back to normal.

The point of that campaign was that we wanted to play in the Star Trek world and have our own Star Trek episodes. I was the GM because I knew both the episodes and elements well enough and could GM well enough to pull it together for everyone and make it a Star Trek Game.

Star Trek is not the only show that suitable for an RPG. Obviously Star Wars is and there are dozens of other that been adapted by dedicated groups. It seems to me that the shows that had to most expansive elements seem to be the most popular to use.

Quote from: SettembriniThat I don not understand: D&D is a game that has no script in it if there ever was an unscripted game. If there is one source of learning text against dramatic structure then it´s AD&D adventures.

Sure there is

you equip yourself,
go into some nasty dungeons
beat the hell out of some monsters until you are beat to hell.
Retreat
Heal


And luckily they added

When you reach 9th Level you can establish a stronghold and men will flock to your banner and make you their lord.

And this all supported by

The Official Monster List
The Official Treasure List

which gives D&D it sense of time and place. Western European medieval.

Understand D&D is rooted in Wargaming. That it wasn't a radical break from what went before. Its initial appeal that was neat that you got a reason for your miniature army to be fighting and that your commander had cool items and a history. Of course the whole thing was so open ended it that people figured out it could do a lot more.

Mind you that today that this story of D&D has been overdone so much that is seems clique.


 

Quote from: SettembriniThis is the faultline, that´s so problematic: When I´m playing a Star Wars game, I want to fly a starship, because I want to fly a starship. Not because I can wallow in Campbellian trivialities.

People don't think of Campbellian trivialities. Most are not that knowledgeable about Campbell. They want to be like Han Solo, Bo Duke, James Kirk, or Hannibal Smith. Which are archetypes that Campbell attempts to describe.

Since you mentioned that you played Star Wars. How that playing that different what you are complaining about? Haven't been in a game using Star Wars rules that wasn't really star wars. And vice versa where you felt like you  were in your own brand new Star Wars Movie and the game was good.

I really love wallowing in Bruce Campbells trivialities!

I thought you guys meant Campbell Brown - and wallowing in her...uhh...well...nevermind..

I really like wallowing in Naomi Campbell's trivialities...but this is not the forum for it.

Regards,
David R

Dammit you all pissed me off

I am going to eat some Campbell Soup

You're disgusting..eating Campbell....

Edit: estar did you read the link Pierce provided ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: SettembriniSo what fun could it possibly be, to be the away team and have one red shirt with you as an NPC. To have him die.

The redshirts are the hit points of Trek. The major characters cannot suffer serious damage until they are all gone.

Quote from: David RYou're disgusting..eating Campbell....

Regards,
David R

But it's Mmm Mmm Good.

Fine.  Be that way.  I'm off to Camp Bell for some rest.

Quote from: estarDammit you all pissed me off

I am going to eat some Campbell Soup

Andy Warhol did that every day for ten years. AND made art out of it!

estar,

The problem with both of us, is that we have the exact same taste and outlook!
For whatever reason, you don´t seem to have encountered the "story-creators" that I´m referring to.

The point is, leaving Campbell aside, that wanting to be like Han Solo is totally different from wanting to emulate the "story"-structure of Star Wars.

In my Star Wars reactor explosions, of which we had many, it never was clear who would get out of the exploding craft/mine/planet/speeder/etc. in time.

We had totally over the top action scenes. And we had a pretty high PC body count.

But having cinematic vs. realistic action adventure isn´t the problem here. The problem here are people who think Star Wars is not about exploding reactors, but really is about TEH HERO, TEH MENTOR and TEH FATHER.
And who try to warp action-adventurey gaming into exercises of recreating the shallow drama of tv soaps or star wars.
Without the space theme and special effects, Star Wars is a horrible, horrible movie.

But still there´s people out there thinking the family ties of the protagonists are something worthwhile to re-enact via copying plot twists from Grey´s Anatomy. Without effort, just by saying :"it would be cool, so it will be just like that."
Without any in-universe plausability.
Just like in the (blockbuster) movies.

And why, oh why should one wallow in the worst that US-media have to offer (formulaic portrayal of the human condition)? Why?

Quote from: GrimGentThe redshirts are the hit points of Trek. The major characters cannot suffer serious damage until they are all gone.

Now, that´ll only work in a parody like Galaxy Quest.

Again: were is the fun of doing it like it, except in a parody?
It´s stupid, why repeat the stupidity?