Playing Stories, Telling Games

Playing Stories, Telling Games: Collaborative Storytelling in Role-Playing Games

by Lisa Padol

Why do people play role-playing games? There are many reasons, but one of the most interesting is that a role-playing game allows people to become simultaneously both the artists who create a story and the audience who watches the story unfold. This story has the potential to become a personal myth, shaped to meet the needs of its creators. To explain this, it is first necessary to give a brief description of role-playing games.

A role-playing game is composed of one or more sessions where a group of gamers gets together in one place to play. Role-playing games have been described as "make believe with rules." The rules resolve disputes. For example, if Ann's character tries to shoot Joe's character, the usual way of deciding whether Ann's character hits or not is to roll dice and try to reach a predetermined score. The gamemaster, or GM, is responsible for resolving disputes not covered by the rules.

A gaming group is usually composed of one GM, that is, one gamemaster, and several other gamers known as players. The players create one or more characters apiece. They are responsible for deciding what these characters do or say. The GM creates the setting and all the characters with whom the players' characters, or PCs, interact. The characters who are controlled by the GM are known as non-player characters, or NPCs.

This paper focuses on those role-playing games which can be played while sitting at a table. Nearly all the actions which the characters take are described, rather than performed. However, most of the information in this paper can be applied to live action role-playing games as well. These games usually have several GMs, and, as the term "live action role-playing" suggests, the players physically do almost everything which their characters do, with some exceptions, such as combat. However, while combat is handled purely by game mechanics, which usually involve comparing numbers, if one PC is knocked unconscious, the player will lie down and pretend to be unconscious.

In addition to live action games and games played while sitting around a table, there are also role-playing games which are played by regular mail or electronic mail. However, a consideration of mail games is outside the focus of this paper.

Also outside the focus is any lengthy consideration of the rules and mechanics of role-playing games. Rather, this is a preliminary study of the storytelling aspects of gaming, primarily concerned with defining the artists, text, and intended audience of a session of a role-playing game. These terms must be defined before any analysis of role-playing games may take place.

The first questions to answer are: Who is the artist? Who tells the story? Since the GM, or gamemaster, creates most of the world, one could say that the gamemaster tells the story. Indeed, the game company White Wolf has replaced the term "gamemaster" with the term "storyteller" in its role-playing game products. (See Rein Hagen et al.)

The gamemaster, then, is a storyteller, but not necessarily the only one. Game companies sell published settings and adventures, also called supplements, which often have enough material to last for several sessions. The author of a supplement is also a storyteller. However, even when using a published supplement, the GM must make modifications to the story, to render it suitable for the players. The GM is still a storyteller, even though he is using material written by someone else. The creator of a supplement is the author of that supplement. The creators of a story told in a session which uses a supplement include the author of the supplement and the GM.

Moreover, in most role-playing games, the players are also storytellers. They collaborate with the GM, and perhaps with the author of a supplement, to produce the story. How much input the players have will vary. Under normal circumstances, they decide what their characters do and say. They may make suggestions about what other characters should do, or about what direction the session should take. They may be unaware of the magnitude of their contribution. Often, when players attempt to figure out the solution to a mystery created by the GM, their solutions will be more interesting than the one the GM had in mind. In some cases, the GM will then change the original solution to one the players have created. (See Murray.)

The story, then, is created by the players and the GM, and perhaps by the author of a supplement. All of these people are artists, or storytellers.

But what is the story? What is the text of a role-playing session? If a supplement is used, is that the text? But what if the GM has made changes to the supplement? What if the GM is working from notes, or from improvisation alone?

Even if a supplement is used, the supplement is not the text. A supplement provides maps, situations, and characters for the GM. It does not dictate what the players will do or how the GM will respond to their actions. A supplement will often provide multiple options for a session, but the author of the supplement does not expect the GM to use all of these options.

Also, all supplements must be adapted to the needs of the individual group. NightMoves, a supplement for the role-playing game NightLife, presumes that the PCs are in need of money, and, therefore, they will agree to investigate a series of murders. (It also presumes that the PCs are various types of undead monsters.) However, if the PCs are all rich, the GM has to find some other way to motivate them to investigate. Perhaps one of the PCs was a relative or a close friend of one of the murder victims. If the GM wants this to be the case, she may spend one or more sessions introducing the victim and establishing the victim's relationship to the PCs. Perhaps the GM fears that the PCs will not have a chance of solving the mystery. She may choose to add additional clues. Perhaps the supplement describes the families of the murder victims. However, if the GM has chosen one victim to be related to one or more of the PCs, some of the relationships established in the supplement cannot be used.

Supplements, therefore, will be changed to suit individual preferences. Material will be added or cut, depending on the needs of the group. A supplement is not the text of the session. Neither is the text of the rules of the role-playing game, although one might argue that the rules constitute a meta-text.

Of course, supplements and rules can be considered texts in a different sense. The Origins Awards and the Strategists' Club Awards are given for the best role-playing game products, so clearly a comparison between them is possible without reference to an actual game session. (Schick 414 - 417) But the text of a supplement is not the text of the session, nor is the text of the rules of the game.

The GM's notes do not constitute the text either. They may be more tailored to the group than a commercial supplement, but they do not dictate how the session will go. Like the material in a supplement, the material in the GM's notes will be modified, or even ignored, depending on what happens during the session. Neither the GM's notes nor the commercial supplement is the text.

Neither is a transcription of the session the text, any more than a film is the screenplay. The film itself is the text. Similarly, the session itself is the text of the session. However, the comparison between game and film must not be taken too far. One can watch a film over and over again. There is nothing to prevent the video taping of a game session; however, the tape is not the text. The text is the session itself. It is, therefore, transitory, existing only for the duration of the session.

Why this is the case will become clearer when a third question is considered: Who is the audience of a session?

During one game session in which I participated, a neighbor knocked on the door of the GM's apartment to ask if we were doing some kind of improvisational theater. We gladly explained what we were doing, but the point here is that we were surprised to discover the presence of an outside audience.

We were certainly not rehearsing. The session was the finished product. Was it not intended to be seen?

Usually, gamers do not object to an audience. Indeed, they are often delighted to explain what is going on and to ham up their performances, particularly in live action role-playing games. Nevertheless, an outside audience is not a requirement. It is not a usual component of a game session. Rather, if the game is held in someone's house, relatives, spouses, lovers, and friends will generally ignore the game. In more public settings, such as conventions or university clubs, people may wander by, sit down and watch, perhaps ask a few questions, and drift away. Rarely is a game session so enthralling as to hold the attention of an outside audience for the entire duration.

However, it does hold the attention of the gamers. The players serve as audiences for each other and for the GM. The GM is also an audience for the players. This is true even though as much as 99% of the game world may be created by the GM. This world exists solely for the pleasure of the gamers: the players and the GM. Even the author of any supplement used is incidental. Indeed, one gamer insists that the game, or the text,

is defined by what goes on at the interface between the GM and the players. Parts of the background which don't make it to that interface are not really part of the game; they are part of a related imaginative exercise for the GM. (Porter, "Adventure Matinee #30")

Anything which reaches the interface between the GM and the players is part of the text. Anything which does not reach the interface, and, therefore, does not affect both the GM and the players, is not part of the text.

Although this preliminary definition needs modification, it is a good starting point. The material which reaches the interface includes the GM's descriptions of settings, along with any diagrams or handouts provided. It includes the players' and the PCs' reactions to the GM's descriptions. It includes the GM's personification of the various characters who interact with the PCs, and the PCs' reaction to them. The interaction between GM and players covers everything from combat between NPCs and PCs, resolved with dice, and sometimes diagrams and miniatures as well, to simple dialogue. A GM can interact primarily with one player while the others look on. For example, if one PC is on a date with an NPC, the other PCs are unlikely to be present, but the players can enjoy the role-playing between the GM and the player whose PC is present. How far the performance goes depends on individual tastes and comfort levels.

The players can interact while the GM watches. This is also included in the definition of material which reaches the interface, and is also part of the text. Several GMs insist, "All I have to do is sit back and watch. My players do all the work." Two or more players can interact in character, essentially performing for the GM and the other players. One GM says:

One of the best moments in [the game] thus far was a three hour stretch when Troy's and Craig's characters talked about and compared their homelands (it began with a debate about whether Craig's PC was really scum without honor because he was a mercenary; Troy's character argued no, Craig's insisted yes, he was). (Murray)

This in-character dialogue was enjoyed by both players and by the GM. It was part of the text of the session, existing "at the interface between the GM and the players", and enjoyed by all.

However, there is material which is part of the text, but is not accounted for in the definition of the interface. Two players can go off to one side and have an in-character conversation which neither the other players nor the GM overhears. Nevertheless, this is still part of the game, hence part of the text. In live action role-playing games, the vast majority of the game is made up of such conversations. The GMs are often as surprised as the players by sudden twists in the game.

Let us assume a group composed of one GM and four players. If two players isolate themselves to have an in-character conversation, 60% of the gamers are unaware of part of the text. However, the 40% of the gamers who are aware of this part of the text are in the position of being simultaneously artist and audience. This is also the case if the GM speaks privately with one of the players, or, as often happens, slips him a note.

Earlier, the text of a role-playing game session was defined as "what goes on at the interface between the GM and the players." Is it possible to modify this definition so that it includes those parts of the session of which only a percentage of the gamers are aware?

Matthew Porter, who proposed the earlier definition, suggested that the term "interface" be re-defined so that it includes "any interaction between two or more gamers." (Porter, Personal Interview) The interaction may be between all the players and the GM, between at least two players, or between the GM and at least one player. In short, the text is defined by the interface between or interaction of at least two gamers. This interaction must be directly related to the game. Ordering a pizza or talking about football scores during a session involves interaction between the gamers, but is not part of the text.

Also, information which does not reach the interface, which is known by only one of the gamers, is not part of the text. A GM will almost always have such information. This information may shape the text, but is not part of the text unless and until it reaches the interface and is transmitted to at least one other gamer.

In a role-playing game, then, those who create the story do so for their own pleasure. A game session is a collaborative art, intended to be appreciated by the collaborators themselves.

This is why the session is the text. It can transcribed, summarized, or videotaped and shown to those who did not participate in the session. However, once this has happened, we no longer have the text itself. We have a new text, and a new audience. Both are valid; gamers enjoy reading summaries of their sessions and the sessions of other gamers; nevertheless, the game session itself is the primary text, a story whose tellers and audience are the same.

Everyone enjoys being told stories, and I have yet to meet anyone who does not wish to be a storyteller at least part of the time. Because of their interactive and collaborative nature, role-playing games allow people to tell and be told a story at the same time, enjoying the role of audience without relinquishing the role of artist.

Furthermore, the process of creating a story is made easier by the fact that there are at least two, and usually about five, gamers collaborating on the text. Many who believe that they could never write a novel, or even a short story, discover that they can make a worthy contribution to a role-playing game. Each gamer is only responsible for part of the story. Usually, the players begin with one character apiece. It is not such a daunting task to create and develop one character, especially when the other players and the GM provide associates, friends, enemies, and an environment to which the player has only to decide how the character should react.

The GM is responsible for creating the background. This can get very complicated; however, it is possible for the GM to delegate a certain amount of responsibility. The GM can use supplements, modifying them as much or as little as he chooses. The GM can ask the players to create part of the game world. For example, a player who wants his character to have a mansion with many servants may be asked to draw a map of the mansion and to develop the personalities of those servants. (The player can do this over the course of several sessions.) Finally, it must be remembered that, although the GM creates the environment for the players and their characters, she does not have to decide how they react. Indeed, to do so would be counterproductive.

At its simplest, then, the players create PCs, and the GM creates the environment. The environment gives the players something to which the PCs must react, and this reaction, in turn, shows the GM how the environment must change. If the GM is wise, he will allow these changes even when they mean that his plans for the session must be completely re-worked. The GM cannot create the story without the players; if he can, he should be writing novels, not running games. All the gamers, the players and the GM, work together to create a story which will delight all.

This story also works as a personal myth. In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell explains that in a society without a "powerful mythology", people make up their own myths. (8) Myth cannot be kept out of our lives. If we cannot find our myths in the stories of Hercules and Odysseus, we speak of the Camelot created by John F. Kennedy, and of Elvis, the once and future King. For gamers, myth is created in game sessions. Characters become heroes with whom players can identify because they themselves have created the characters. Whether a game session centers on an epic battle, Byzantine politics, or a simple day in a town created by the players and the GM, the events of the session are mythical to its audience, which consists of the players and the GM who collaborated to create it.

This, then, is one reason role-playing games are worth studying. They provide everybody with the tools to create a personal myth. It is of no importance to most gamers whether anyone studies what they do; they themselves are the only audience they need. Those who choose to do so can learn from the gamers by studying their creation and appreciation of myths and stories.

Works Cited:

Adams, James. NightMoves. Swanton: Stellar Games, 1993.

Campbell, Joseph with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, and Aukland: Doubleday, 1988.

McDevitt, Bradley K. and L. Lee Cerny. NightLife. 3rd ed. Swanton: Stellar Games, 1992.

Murray, Chris. "Spaceship Venus: Back from the Grave." Alarums & Excursions 235, March 1995, N. pag.

Porter, Matthew. "Adventure Matinee #30" Alarums and Excursions 198, Feb. 1992, N. pag.

---. Personal Interview. 28 Jan. 1995.

Rein Hagen, Mark, Graeme Davis, Tom Dowd, Lisa Stevens, and Stewark Wieck. Vampire: The Masquerade. Stone Mountain: White Wolf, 1991.

Schick, Lawrence. Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. Buffalo and New York: Prometheus Books, 1991.