On Role Playing, Literature, and Acting

[benlehman]

This was an essay, but I realized that it can be trimmed to one line:

The only similarity between acting, literature, and role-playing games is that they all use words and, sometimes, plot arcs.

Relvevant Forge thread:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12711&highlight=

Anyone else have thoughts?

Comments

[wirednavi.livejournal.com]

Hm, when I first read this I thought 'No, no, no!' but now I think we're more or less agreeing but using slightly different terminologies. I'm not suggesting that one ignore scenario plot in favor of character plot, or vice versa. I'm suggesting that they ought to be integrated more.

I know that character development and character plot are not necessarily the same thing; however, I feel that they are inextricably linked. It's hard to have character development without something meaningful happening plotwise to them.

For instance, in 7th Sea, it seemed to me that one of the reasons that Cristophe didn't get character development or interesting decisions was that the things that were happening to him weren't presented as things that were meaningful to the character. They were dangerous, certainly, and he tried to take the most expedient way out of danger, but not emotionally involving. I'm not saying that was

To put what I said in better terms - I believe that it is necessary to integrate plot which targets, emotionally involves, and is meaningful to each single character/player with plot which targets the whole scenario (whether that's saving the world or whatever). I think a lot of GMs (though not many in FGS) present 'The Adventure' ("There is a haunted fortress north of town.") and expect their characters to run through it, because that's what you do, right? And sometimes players go along with it because if they don't then they don't get to roleplay at all. Like you said, the best character plots integrate the other characters and the overarching plot.