Games, Storytelling, and Breaking the String

Electronic Book Review has published an article titled “Games, Storytelling, and Breaking the String” that discusses the various ways narrative has been injected into games over the past 30+ years.

The game systems of tabletop RPGs are in some ways very similar to those of digital RPGs – sometimes identical, in fact, in the case of computer RPGs licensed from tabletop games. They are, however, vastly more free-form. The rules of the game provide a structure for resolving player actions: rules for combat, magic spells, skills, and so on. Unlike digital RPGs, there is no pre-established story line, although most paper RPG rule books contain one or several stories for new gamemasters to use. The expectation is that a gamemaster will invent his or her own stories for players, using the rules system as needed.

Paper RPGs, unlike electronic ones, are social affairs; players get together periodically to play, and spend at least as much time role-playing for their friends as they do trying to maximize their character’s effectiveness in a purely structural context. It’s common for a group of friends to get together for years, playing the same characters in the same game world with the same gamemaster. In the process, they establish long character histories, flesh out the world background, and so on. For long-term role-players, the stories they create through play can be as emotionally powerful and personally meaningful as anything you find in a novel or movie – perhaps more so because the players are personally involved in their creation.

These “stories” are meaningful to players precisely because they are intimately involved. Players frequently write “expedition reports,” in which they retell the story of a particular session of play, or several sessions. Expedition reports almost invariably make dull reading for those who are not involved in the campaign, because they do not have the same intimate familiarity with the setting and the same long history with the players and their characters.

Many role-playing gamers never give “story” a second thought; they get their kicks from solving problems and playing roles, and they don’t mind terribly whether the things they encounter knit together into some kind of coherent story. For them, that isn’t their main interest in the game.

Additionally, traditional tabletop RPGs, while they often exhort players to roleplay and tell stories, don’t generally provide a structure to shape them; their rules are concerned more with determining the success or failure of individual actions, and they leave it up to the gamemaster and players to shape the tale.