Post by Morreion on Sept 28, 2012 13:33:38 GMT -5
Storyboard: Lessons from what roleplaying resembles most (Massively)
When you get right down to it, roleplaying isn't really like a movie or a novel in which you determine the story. It's not even all that much like a video game in which you write the story; those tend to be structured better. No, roleplaying is most like making your own serial comic book.
Think about it. You have a number of characters with superhuman abilities getting into conflicts on a regular basis. Sometimes those characters pan out into a satisfying story arc, but other times characters show up and then vanish, either because they were awful or because the author didn't know what to do with them. There's a real risk of running on into boredom, and there are a lot of times when characters get kludged into other storylines for cross-promotional purposes.
This is a great comparison! Eliot follows through discussing particulars:
People have come up with hundreds of explanations for why heroes don't just permanently deal with villains and why villains don't just kill the heroes. Some of those explanations are good (I love the idea, for instance, that Doctor Doom hates the idea of murdering someone but wants to prove his total superiority), and some of them are pretty bad. But for our purposes, we don't need any of them because we all know the real reason: The writers want the heroes and villains around for another go.
When you get right down to it, roleplaying isn't really like a movie or a novel in which you determine the story. It's not even all that much like a video game in which you write the story; those tend to be structured better. No, roleplaying is most like making your own serial comic book.
Think about it. You have a number of characters with superhuman abilities getting into conflicts on a regular basis. Sometimes those characters pan out into a satisfying story arc, but other times characters show up and then vanish, either because they were awful or because the author didn't know what to do with them. There's a real risk of running on into boredom, and there are a lot of times when characters get kludged into other storylines for cross-promotional purposes.
This is a great comparison! Eliot follows through discussing particulars:
People have come up with hundreds of explanations for why heroes don't just permanently deal with villains and why villains don't just kill the heroes. Some of those explanations are good (I love the idea, for instance, that Doctor Doom hates the idea of murdering someone but wants to prove his total superiority), and some of them are pretty bad. But for our purposes, we don't need any of them because we all know the real reason: The writers want the heroes and villains around for another go.
