From: wolf@cheshire.oxy.edu (Clinton Richard Wolf)
Subject: Re: Stupid questions
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 17:03:28 GMT

In article <1992Nov13.003506.9326@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca> agreene@mta.ca writes:
>Yes, it's "Stupid Questions" time here again at Anthony's Playhouse of
>
>(Baruk Kaah)   Hi, guys.  What's up?
>
> (Mal)    Get out of here, you pre-historic baboon!  Haven't you heard?
>          Rec Pakken isn't listening to you.  WEG dosen't like the
>          Living Land anymore.
>
>(Kaah)    Oh, my.  Maybe I can convince Rec Pakken to bump up the tech
>          axiom a bit.  All we need in the Living Land are some BIG GUNS!
>          Then we'll start attracting some players again.
>
>         (Baruk Kaah walks off, fondling his Hachiman Stun Glove)
>
          Heh. *snicker*. Hehehehe. Oh, heck...
 
          ROTFL!!!!!

          Now this would make excellent High Lord Theatre :)


>
>         10.  What's with Spiritual axiom 17?

               And Magic: 12
               And Social: 18
               And Tech: 26


>         14.  In "Cry Havoc" (from _Mysterious_Cairo_) just what did
>         happen to Corey Jones when she transformed into (ack!) Electronic
>         Media?  Is there something about disconnection someone's not
>         telling us High Lords about?

          I think the author disconnected from his brain, personally...
>
>         15.  Why was "Cry Havoc" so badly written?  The rest of Mysterious
>         Cairo actually borderlines on okay.
>
          Cry Havoc is bad because it reads like an RPG session. In fact, 
          what probably happened was the guy saying, "Gosh that game was
          really kewl! I think I'll base a story on it!". This is backed
          up by the admission that the characters in Cry Havoc are charac-
          ters straight out of the guy's game (for example, the barbarian
          was his wife's character). Anyway, apologies to Colin and Clay for
          the statement I am about to make... 

          REGURGITATING AN RPG GAME SESSION DOES NOT A SHORT STORY MAKE.

          Don't get me wrong, I loved reading about 'Get this in not LA' and
          Colin's pieces about his group... but a RPG game and a short story
          are two very separate beasties. Trying to translate one medium into
          the other, without alteration, would be like trying to do a stage
          production of, say, 'Die Hard'. It just >might< work, but it's gon-
          na take a lot of time and effort to emerge with something that will
          have quality in the new medium. All the elements of a good, fun RPG
          game are there in Cry Havoc... role-playing, character interaction,
          in-jokes, a necessarily haphazard plotline (since RPG's are basic-
          ally improvisational sketches, with a framework for basic structure).
          And, of course, taking advantage of those things that only TORG can
          offer, i.e. the Cross Cosm barfight, and the 'transformation' (ugh).

          Now, move to the short story. A good short story is carefully struc-
          tured. It has a theme. It is going somewhere, and not just in the
          sense of 'going to the final conflict where we kill the bad guy with
          a BIG GUN(tm) (or spell, or miracle, or whatever)...' Short stories
          dig deeply into the characters, searching for their quirks and feel-
          ings. they make use of time-tested, recognized conventions of their
          own... foreshadowing, thought sequences, sensual images, metaphor...
          Examine a short story by, say, Nathaniel Hawthorne sometime, or Kurt
          Vonnegut, and look at the effort that was poured into it. This is 
          not to say effort is not put into RPG adventures. They are equally
          valid forms of art, but they are very different. Look at the DRAGON-
          LANCE novels, for an example. Their weakest moments, IMHO, are when
          they start sounding like a play-by-play AD&D game, and not the novels
          they should be. Fortunately, this rarely happens, making them quite
          good overall... but when it does happen, the difference is glaring,
          and jolts the reader out of the story.

          In conclusion, transferring one art form to antoher is not an easy
          process, and the best adaptations are the ones that attempt, not to
          copy the strengths of the previous medium, but to explore the
          strengths of the new one. For instance, I happen to believe 'THE
          SHINING' is an excellent adaptation, because Stanley Kubrick made
          the (correct) choice to let the visuals express character and
          thought, not words. Novels are the masters of words. Nothing else
          comes close to their ability to manipulate words and make greater
          meaning from them. Film is the master of images, and Kubrick was
          one of the only directors to understand this, which is why every
          adaptation he has done (2001, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange),
          while being necessarily different from the books they spring from,
          are works of art in their own right, and have the singularly impor-
          tant power to immerse the audience. To grab them, enmesh them. To
          make them care. BF Skinner's 'Walden Two' is a crappy novel, be-
          cause all it is is a long, thinly disguised essay. As an essay, it
          would be wonderful. As a novel, it sucks. Aldous Huxley's 'Island'
          is the same sort of work, describing a vision of an ideal society,
          yet Huxley weaves his points into a true storyline, with conflict
          and characters, relationships and verbal images. The essay is always
          there, but it is between the lines. The essay is re-worked to be a
          theme, thus raising Island to the status of a true novel in its own
          right.

          Anyway, enough of my tirade. Perhaps I should save this and haul it
          out next time I have to do an English essay :). If you're still con-
          fused as to what the difference between an RPG and a short story is,
          I invite you to compare two stories:

          #1: 'Cry Havoc!' : a Role-playing session put on paper.
          
          #2: 'The Chekhov Strain' : a true TORG short story. And a good one.

          The difference should become obvious...




-- Clint, full of sound n' fury, hopefully signifying something, though...
 
 

           

 
                  




Newsgroups: alt.games.torg