Creative
Writing 101: Or even if it doesn’t need them, D&D already has
these tools
This is both a general response this
sentiment and a direct response to some assholes about what DnD
should & shouldn’t do, can & can’t do, and a potentially
a whole slew of other contentious issues in the RPG hobby, community,
and industry.
To begin, I am not against what are
called narrative tools or the use of narrative language, discussions
about how to construct games and sessions to foster certain kinds of
stories or basically all the things that some folks derisively call
“storygame shit.”
I’m not against them in DnD and OSR
games.
I am not against them period.
What I am is against the declarative
statements of what DnD should be doing, and should be including. I
will dig through all the ways DnD already explicitly does many of
these shoulds.
I also do not play 5e DnD. The last
edition of I played was 3.5. So I don’t have a “working
knowledge” of the most current edition, which to be as germane as
possible is the one I will be using; I do happen have the books so I
will try to minimize the amount of talking out my own asshole by
pulling out passages from the core rules, which also to be germane to
this topic I am restricting myself to.
Here are couple of direct quotes of
why I am responding to:
D&D is clearly a combat focused
game, where combat and violence shape the narrative naturally by its
very inclusion and focus in the books, inarguably that's a narrative
shaping going on there, but D&D raw doesn't tell a GM *how* to
use that violence to tell a story besides its broad themes of Kill
Stuff Good. It doesn't educate a player on how to build drama into
their characters, it doesn't explain what kind of plot beats go best
with which kind of monsters, dungeons and traps (tho some editions
and third party content def. have spent some time on this).
This is the prime focus as I see it.
That DnD doesn’t do something that they see it needing to do. They
want or think that DnD should be teaching the players (and I always
include the GM/DM/Referee etc under this umbrella) that these are
things they need to do. Which first means, that DnD needs to teach
the players what these things are. And to do so explicitly rather
than implicitly. I would say clearly DnD needs this else there
wouldn’t be essays and books on applying these concepts to DnD and
RPGs broadly. But maybe that’s not clear. I will say that such
topics aren’t appropriate for the core rules of an RPG because we
have multiple assumptions going on here. What I see as the biggest
assumption is new players picking up of the newest edition of D&D
need ALL of these tools. They are new to the game, with the further
assumption they are new to RPGs period. The books need to explain
what an RPG is, what the dice do, the language of D&D, and the
rules of the game. That’s just how to play. Still need monsters,
because this is D&D. To reiterate. This is D&D. It is its own
genre of fantasy and RPG, and has been forever. Still needs advice on
how to GM the game as a game, and how to design adventures and
monsters. Because this is a game.
It tells you how big a dragon is, how
much health it has, how much damage it does and how to kill one, but
very rarely does it give examples of what a dragon can *mean*.
It's missing a very important element of passing down these
storytelling tools - the education in their proper usage.
So part of this is the “DnD is about
combat because that’s where it’s rules are” discussion that
will never die. To short, DnD is about combat. But it’s also not
about combat. It’s more about about combat. Even as the editions
have put more and more emphasis on the granularity and mechanics of
the combat portion of DnD, the culture of DnD as I’ve seen it for
decades, especially now on Tumblr and Twitter, is about the stories
that happen around or because of combat. Also, this whole “be gay
tieflings and do crimes” (as a combination of multiple and
congruent sentiments I see expressed in a certain segment of the
player base) is a thing. But because DnD is about about combat that's
where a lot of page space is used.
It’s a game. A game ostensibly about
dungeons and dragons. A game “about storytelling in worlds of
swords and sorcery” (PHB 6). Which is an interesting statement in
light of where rpgs as a hobby has shifted over the years.
Storytelling is a loaded term for the entrenched hobbyist. But is it
for new players?
So, do we as fresh players need to
know what a dragon can mean? i.e. dragon as metaphor. I’ll say no.
This is not the same as saying that this isn’t a question to
answer, but I’d like to first assume that folks picking up DnD
already have some ideas, second that they can think for themselves,
third that it is much more interesting if groups create their own
meanings, and fourth, this is from the 5e Monster Manual:
Creatures of Ego. Chromatic dragons
are united by
their sense of superiority, believing
themselves the most
powerful and worthy of all mortal
creatures. When they
interact with other creatures, it is
only to further their
own interests. They believe in their
innate right to rule,
and this belief is the cornerstone of
every chromatic
dragon's personality and worldview.
Trying to humble
a chromatic dragon is like trying to
convince the wind
to stop blowing. To these creatures,
humanoids are
animals, fit to serve as prey or
beasts of burden, and
wholly unworthy of respect.
pg86
This is only a single paragraph on the
half page on chromatic dragons in general. Each dragon type has its
own half page of flavor text that tells you what that dragon is
about. This is not including their lair actions and regional effects
sections which also show what these dragons specifically are about.
Aside from saying green dragons “take special pleasure in
subverting and corrupting the good-hearted” (pg95) what more could
you want regarding what a dragon can mean? That green dragons present
the sweet corrupting influence of the untamed forest?
Either this person is unaware of what
DnD actually contains, which is possible, or finds even all of that
to be insufficient and wants the books that should be for teaching
and reference the game of DnD to also be a creative writing text
book. A more uncharitable reading would be that they are deliberately
obfuscating the content of DnD to highlight the virtues of their own
indie storygame.
Continuing on. And I will avoid
addressing the aggressive misreading and attacks directed at me by
some storygamers.
especially given the increasing
popularity of story-focused d&d actual play, i think a LOT of
gamers are picking up d&d specifically to tell those kinds of
stories - and many that i've talked to find themselves disappointed
that they can't sit down and just have a critical role or an
adventure zone or whatever just Happen, and talked to GMs who feel an
immense pressure to build those stories lest they get lambasted as a
bad GM despite not having the tools in the book to do that. i think
its reasonable for games about playing roles of characters to have
conversations about how better to give players the tools to tell the
kinds of stories they want to tell?
This is a very good point. Especially
because of Critical Role and The Adventure Zone being extremely
popular Actual Plays centered around 5e DnD and evidently being the
cause for a massive influx of new players (which is a good fucking
thing). But let’s look into the 5e books and see what we can find
regarding whether or not GMs have the tools to in the books to do
what Mercer or McElroy have done. Hint those are skills acquired
through years of playing DnD and being a voice actor in the case of
Mercer and I don’t even known what exactly all the McElroys do
something involving a million podcasts and being entertainers. It
should suffice to say that these folks have developed skills over
years if not decades, and that is what is being witness by their
audiences. Any dissatisfaction or disappointment on how the first
sessions go isn’t going to be a correctable with a text book on
creative writing or theater or whatever. Have you ever read folks
first works of any kind of creative writing, fiction, non-fiction,
poetry? They are all “bad” and have multitudes of flaws because
they are beginners. No book is going to magically provide players
with the skills to apply what they have.
Now, let’s dive in the 5e DMG to see
what good old WotC has given the new players to work with. I will
jump straight to Appendix D: Dungeon Master Inspiration (pg 316)
which has several book listed on the subject of creative writing and
storytelling. This along with Appendix E: Inspirational Reading (PHB
312), with its large list of fictional works to read (the DMG also
has a fair amount of fiction listed) should for the new player offer
a bounty of different books the both put the game in a context but
also provide insight to the implied deeper meanings, if any are
actually needed, of things like dragons.
While I believe this is alone
sufficient to begin playing DnD with an eye towards emulating what
they see in CR or TAZ, which are also resources in this, I’ll
acknowledge the desire to have these tools in the core rules.
AAAAAAA
In fact, I will argue that the
didactic relay of how to construct meaning, insert drama etc will
strangle creativity by creating a list of shoulds because it has.
There are still tales of woe involving GMs attempting to fit their
games to narrative constructs. Because first of all DnD is a fucking
game. It doesn’t need to construct, as someone has written “DEEP
MEANING,” because the most important meaning is that of folks getting
together to have fun.
