Three Obstacles to Literary Realism in Roleplaying Texts

Mark out a triangle and label its vertices "fantasy," "science fiction," and "horror." You will find that most role-playing games can be plotted on this triangle. Exceptions include a handful of indie games (World Wide Wrestling, Bubblegumshoe) and historical games (various GURPs sourcebooks, Hillfolk, Night Witches); many of those exceptions can be tied to an identifiable genre.

Would it be possible to write a good RPG book whose setting is "realist," not fantastical or genre-specific? Or is there something in the nature of the form that makes realism difficult to achieve?

One difficulty, it would seem, is that, in the modern world, individual action is so rarely clear in its effects. Our society is, to a great degree, bureaucratized; getting things done often involves tedious committee-coordinating, permission-gaining, and fund-raising. Realism in such an environment restricts us to the sort of interpersonal dynamics that are hard to specify for an indeterminate protagonist, but that the traditional novel, with its wealth of specific detail and dialogue, conveys with ease. Genre fiction, on the other hand, offers protagonists a broader scope of action: the detective, the wizard, the space ranger, and the vampire slayer intervene decisively in their worlds, and rarely bother asking for permission. In horror, it is the rupture of the bureaucratized world that requires the protagonist to break with routine. The tropes of genre fiction push the protagonists to face their problems squarely, rather than doing what most of us would do in perilous situations, which is to find a proper authority better equipped to handle the problem. Genre fiction offers the RPG writer a range of strong motives for all sorts of protagonists, and settings in which it is not hard for a protagonist to make things happen.

Another problem is that of familiarity. When a person lives in one place for a long time, we say that they become rooted in their community. There is an interdependence between a rooted person and their place: the person's nature affects how they come to relate to their community, while the community's influence shapes the expression of that nature. Myriad realist novels explore such characters, but the interdependence is so complex that it's hard to imagine accounting for a range of possible characters simultaneously.¹ RPG books tend, on the other hand, towards discovery of the unknown: journeys to new lands (as in Qelong), exploration of underground labyrinths, or solving mysteries, for example. If we are looking for a realist style of RPGs books, we should probably begin looking at stories of new beginnings, where a character faces an unfamiliar world.

A third difficulty has to do with the RPG book's origin in a culture that values "playability" and "usefulness at the table." In a tabletop game, a group of people actualize a potential narrative, using the RPG book as a source. Romance and love, classic subjects of realist fiction, are notoriously awkward to role-play; there is a sort of vertiginous social double-vision that happens when players are trying to imagine the social norms of their characters while observing social norms with other players. A system such as Delta Green may specify the breakdown of a character's personal relationships, but those relationships are part of the character concept, and do not seem to be meant to connect directly to textual material. If the form can develop beyond "playability," it can approach matters that become weird and unpleasant when people have to act them out with their friends.

The computer game Stardew Valley has a neat example of a simple romance. The protagonist is someone who has moved to a small town to take over a family farm. Among the friendly townspeople are certain characters that the protagonist can get to know, then flirt with by discovering what they like and don't like. There are sweet little cutscenes as the friendship or romance develops. Eventually, the protagonist can choose a mate and begin a family on the farm. In other words, the game offers a simple marriage plot, serving up a small slice of the subject matter of the eighteenth century novel.

If the marriage plot works in this computer game, it should be achievable in an RPG book, and this could, perhaps, crack the door for realism.

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¹ If someone can create an interesting RPG campaign book based on Wendell Berry's fiction or Marilynne Robinson's Gilead series, I will consider this point refuted.

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QUESTIONS FOR COMMENTERS:

• Are there good non-fantastical RPGs I should know about?
• Have you ever seen a protagonist romance successfully worked into an adventure or campaign book?