Of Fanfics and Roleplaying Games as two sides of the Geekdom coin

[salinea]

When I was about 15 years old and I was just getting seriously into Science Fiction and Fantasy and into the internet active fandom side of them, I read Roger Zelazny's Amber cycle serie and loved it. When I was finished however I felt frustrated. The ending left too many issues hanging, too many threads untied. And they would never be completed because Zelazny had died. I wanted more; I wanted to keep exploring this universe, to keep shedding more light onto the other characters' side of things and all the countless possibilities glimpsed from the text, so I went ahunting on the internet, and...

From where I started with this you would think I would find fanfics, wouldn't you ?

Well, actually what I found was Roleplaying Games, specifically Eric Wujcik's Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game. Imagine, make up your own Amberite Prince character, and start exploring this world all by yourself, interacting with the other characters etc. I was thrilled ! As things went, it took me two years to actually get into the RPG crowd and start playing regularly. But my point here is : the reason I got into RPGs were exactly the same I find Fanfics so interesting.

Given how obvious the similarities of the pull for both seem to me, you can imagine I was surprised to see how little the actors of either cross over to the other. At first glimpse at my flist, I can find only about 5 or 6 people I know who are interested and active in both Fanfics and RPGs* (over a flist of 110 with lots of people into fanfics). Why were the two so uninvolved with each others ? Is it a case of 'parallel evolution' ? Are there more truly different than they look to me ? Is it merely a question of male fen vs female fen ?)

* : (By RPGs, for the purpose of this essay, I'm going to mean merely Roleplaying Game featuring rules, how light they are, and often a setting, either commercialy published or amateurs, and meant to be played in live in small groups involving one or several player and a game master.
The other kind of roleplay, that is indeed pretty popular among the fandom crowd, which involves the roleplay of existing or original character set in a fictionnal canon world with little to no rules but politeness and mostly played online, I'm going to call Freestyle Roleplay or FRP.)



Main similarities and differences outline

Both fanfics and RPGs focus on a certain culture that I like to call Geekdom. It's genre. It's Science Fiction and Fantasy, with a dash of Noir and thriller. It's superheroes, wizards and cyberpunked ninjas. Fanficcers and gamers both worship Neil Gaiman, laugh at Ann Rice, and cry for Orson Scott Card's biggotry. They both spend way too much time on the internet and they're both involved in extremely time consuming hobbies that their neighbourgs, parents, or coworkers might not understand. They both like reading a lot, and spend too much money on collecting the objects of their passions. They both love Princess Bride and can quote Monty Python lines by heart.
They both spend a lot of time analysing with minutiae their favourite fictions, bitching about how badly said fiction was adapted to movie and insulting their favourite author when they feel they have 'betrayed' them and sold out. They both are so involved in their favourite fictionnal world that they want to be active in it. To subvert the popular culture by making it truly theirs and are not content to be a passive consumer. They both can be pretty snobbish about that fact.

Fanfics is usually a female dominated acitivity. Oh, you can find a token male writing or reading fanfics here and then, but the gross majority of fanficcers are women.
Fanfics are, obviously, literary works, and artistic ambition is one of its point. In fanfic dominated fandom, whether you're a ficcer or not, you tend to be big and recognized if you're able at writing, graphics, or essay & analysis.
Fanfics explore a specific published fictionnal work (whether book, movie, TV serie, comic book, manga or anime, video games etc.) by writing about the characters. There's not a dearth of plot focused fanfics, but it's more frequent than not that they focus on the characterization and the relationship of characters rather than on plotpoints or the metaphysics of the world. Most often Fanfics focus on relationship - romantic ships. Gen is a genre muss less popular than either Het or Slash.

Roleplaying Games is usually a male dominated area. You will find many women gaming as well, and their number has been growing steadily in the last ten years, but they're still a minority within the group, and on RPG forums gamers are routinely whining about why there's not more women among them (Usually a cue for flame & wank)
As an activity, RPG requires both "soft" and "hard" skills. The game itself is based on numbers, statistics and rules meant to simulate the world and the characters behaviour in either a realistic way, or a way fitting the genre conventions. However, roleplay skills, acting, the quality of a universe or a character background writeup are also soft skills which can be valued a lot. People who like the first or the second approach can often oppose in dicussions and caricature each others, but in general most people agree that a compromise of both is necessary for the best games.
RPGs explore fictionnal worlds by making up rules to make sense of the metaphysics, by expending on the background (writing up whole cultures, developing the history, detailing technologies and magics etc.) and by giving means for people to create their own character. They don't usually take up on existing characters, they create a whole new character to interact in the world. The rules generally focus on the means and abilities those characters have, and the actions they can make. The games generally center around a scenario where there's a situation to fix, some antagonist that the Player Characters will have to face one way or another. They usually involve very little romantic or sexual action, and when they do, it's often handled either with a great deal of discretion and fade to black, or extremely clumsily (think : "roll endurance+ athletics to see how many times you made her come"). Exceptions exist, but from my experience they don't happen very often.

As you might know, the big main difference between with Fanfics is that RPGs isn't always based on canon body of works. There's quite a few games written from an actually fiction (Call of Cthuluh after Lovecraft, the Star Wars game, the Buffy rpgs and many other TV shows rpgs, Middle Earth RPG, various superhero games made with the licence, many Big Eyes Small Mouth games made likewise etc.) but many of the most popular games are totally original work as far as the setting goes. However even with those, it's obvious that their inspiration stems from the same Genres that inspires Fanficcers. Nobody is going to claim that Vampire:the Masquerade bears no relationship to Ann Rice's work, that Neil Gaiman wasn't an inspiration to Rebecca Borgstrom's Nobilis, or that Shadowrun wasn't written with the genre of cyberpunk as defined by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling in mind. Obviously Dungeon&Dragon itself owes a lot to JRR Tolkien and Jack Vance, and just looking at the Source Material page of any RPG book that's got one will set you right on that subject.

The other difference is that most RPGs are published. They're official, they're the canon, or at least the extended universe part of canon. They're not merely fondly tolerated or looked down upon like Fanficcers are by the officials.
They're also much more well known by the big, fandom ignorant, public. They might be extremely vilified, stereotyped and mocked by it, but I bet if you asked random people about RPGs and Fanfics, they will be more likely to know what a RPG is than what a fanfic is.


The World Weird Web

As activities go, both Fanfics and RPGS are social activities. They both are area which allow actors to interract with like-minded people, to meet them, to have fun with them and to interract around a very specific and somewhat esoteric subjects.
Fanfic itself, though it doesn't date from the Internet, has greatly increased in popularity and accessibility with it. Most of activities around fanfics involve the web, through publication, reading, reviewing, reccomanding, betareading, archiving etc. From there people often friend and meet in real life, but the bulk of the activity around fanfic is Internet based.
RPGs were big before the arrival of Internet, however it certainly did take to it eagerly. Pages recounting game chronicles, providing scenarios, game ressouces, original write up of groups, house rules etc. etc. were certainly already popular by the time I started roaming the Net in the mid 90's.
Forums for theorizing and exchanging ressources but also play by e-mail games or chat games (on mIRC at the time) were also very popular.
However, as an activity, RPG is meant to be done in small group of friends who know each others, and is not a Net based activity in the same way Fanficcing is.
Though ficcing is a more obviously solitary activity, it's more often than not an excellent pretext for socialization.
Though gaming is a primely social activity, I certainly know people who love reading and creating games in a way that is extremely solitary.

In many ways, people who like a specific game and love to tailor rules and create ressources for it and the people who love a specific fictionnal world and like to analyse and write fanfics for it function in a very similar way on the Internet; To the point that I keep wanting to call a RPG milieu a 'Fandom', but I'm not sure if I'm the only one who'd understand why or not.

I think one of the most amusing similarity between Fanfics and RPGs is that both tend to create their own little cultural world which includes very specific and esoteric terminologies, acronyms and expressions (you almost need a list of common used words just to understand either a Fanfiction or a RPG discussion coming from the outside - let alone speak local)
This linguistic overabundance is often redundant, needlessly complicated and riddled with private jokes. People love to create those new expressions and tracing back their origin can be a very strange and funny journey.
It's not impossible that this trait is common in general in the Internet of course, but I do think it's even more popular in both RPGs and Fanfic-dom.

Both are very escapist hobbies. You get lost in your own world where you can forget about the stress of everyday life. There's a definitive appeal of exotism, strange adventure. The frequent debate between the proponants of a most realistic approach against those who'd rather have it all be imaginary because they don't want it to be realistic is common to both activities.

They're both realms of activities where creativity and universe building (damnit, I'd read a great post on metafandom a couple of months ago that said there was a world especially made to say "universe building" and i can't remember what it was) are important. Where people want to share their visions with other, and are likely to be interested by group creation. Ficcers and gamers are both interested in original way to narrate (a roleplaying game is nothing but a narrative frame to storytell at several). And they're both into taking this popular culture that they both like so much to retell it, explore it further, and subvert it.


Mary Sue met Powergamer in a bar, the ensuing fight destroyed the universe

Of all the differences between both domains, I believe the main difference between Fanfics and RPGs, I believe the most pertinent is the difference focus as regarding characters, world metaphysics and plot.

Fanficcers' main focus is the character of the canon world they're writing about. They might be interested in the universe and use it in interesting way to propel their story, but their work tend to be character driven.
And the big no-no, the WORST possible thing that a fanficcer can do, the thing they'll be mocked and reviled for, is creating a glorified self-insert that'll become the hero of the story and steal the spotlight away from the canon characters. Aka, a Mary Sue.

Which incidently, is exactly what a Player Character made for a RPG is supposed to be.
All right, maybe not to the caricature and ridicule point that a Mary Sue is. But a Player Character is, essentialy, a self insert of the player** (check one), that is powerful and able in ways that the Player isn't (check two), who, along with the other Player Characters, is supposed to be the hero of the story told in the game (check three, player is out).
In a roleplaying game, having the Non Player Characters (who in the case of a RPG adapting an existing fictionnal work may very well be the same canon characters explored in a fanfic) be the all powerful star of the story solving the problems is a practice that show of bad Game Mastering.

(** : I'm aware this statement could be discussed by many, as not every characters creared will bear any kind of similarity to the player who did so. However I'd argue that any character that a player will act as for the purpose of interacting within a setting is, by its very nature, a self-insert as it allows to insert ourselves within the world. Whether or not it bears any similarities to ourself, it becomes one of our aspect)

Which doesn't mean that if someone took out Mary Sue from their story and tried to bring them to a game it would work so easily. For one, RPGs tend to give a limited amount of points to buy the character's various abilities and powers, and Mary Sue tend to have them in so great amount that they'll have troubles getting them all. Which bring us to what is a RPG's real equivalent to a Mary Sue (and might help us differentiate a Mary Sue in all its reviled ways from a legitimate OC) : the powergamer, aka twink or minimaxer.
Basically a player who creates their character with an eye for the systemic advantages that'll give their character the maximum amount of various advantages and powers for the least amount of point. To no one's surprise, twinks often tend to be described by their creater as dark, tough, cold in demeanour, silently stoic, handsome/beautiful despite the mysterious scar on their face and have strange names with two many "y" in them. You get the picture.
This, of course, isn't the reason they're hated by gamers. The reason is that they don't play nice with the other children, that they expect everyone to stand in awe of their character nonetheless, and that they want to deal with all the story all by themselves with their mighty powers of doom.

In other words, where the Mary Sue is reviled because she steals the spotlight from the canon characters (her equals as main characters in the fanfic), the powergamer is reviled because he tries to steal the spotlight away from the other Player Characters (his equals as the main characters of the game).

Still it remains that the focus in fanfics is usually to erase as much as possible the writer's ego and bias from their work. In Characterness is valued. Adequation to canon is important. Creative approaches are not unwelcome, but the most popular pairings tend to be either canon, or exist in subtext, and the most crackful ones looked at oddly. In RPGs however, people who houserule and create their own adequations to the setting (or even their own amateur games) are the ones impressing. Creating the most original possible character to play is what is valued.

Borderlines

I said in the introduction that I was surprised so very few people crossed over from one activity to the other. That's not entirely true, there exists a lot of kind of practices that are in between RPGs and fanfics and seem to stem of both in essence. However what is true is that, as far as I've seen, the two as groups and 'dom of the internet do not interract directly.

Freestyle roleplay seems to be very often favoured by Fanficcers. I overall know very little of it, so I can't say how it was created, by whom, and whether those who did knew RPGs well. Fact is that Freestyle Roleplay is basically rules light RPG were the players act the part of canon characters, and sometimes not even that. Oh, and they often have a greater emphasis on romance and sex too, but we already covered the fact that fanfics-dom had a much better handling of those two.
More narrative in content, more about having fun just interacting between characters, but still roleplay of a specific character - original or not - FRP seems to me to be truer crossover between Fanfics and RPGs. In fact the first time I did some freestyle roleplay it was in the context of a RPG forum and in the setting of the World of Darkness games.

From the other side, Roleplayers do write fictions. Fictions involving their character, narrating their background, or even Fictions involving the Signature Characters of the official setting (If that's not a Fanfiction I don't know what is). They've done so for a long time. Yet I know of no Fanfic fandom for a RPG like I know some exist for Video games RPG.

Considering how close both activities are, that people are not afraid to get involved into activities that replicate the other, i don't quite understand why both 'doms seem to be unaware of each others. I've never in the couple of monthes I've been following discussions on metafandom seen any reference to RPGs. If in fandom where official RPGs exist (like the Buffy one) Fanficcers are interested in trying out the game and how to allows to explore their world through yet another mean, I've never seen anyone mentionning it.

I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on the subject.
Are you involved in Fanfictions, either as a reader or as a writer ?
Do you play RPGs ? Have you ever created ressources for an RPG ?
Do you feel that they're similar or not ?
Do you feel interested by the other activity ? If not, what doesn't attract you ?
Any other comments ?

Comments

[shisakura.livejournal.com]

Ohh, good one.

I did play RPGs a while back and incidentally I was the only female in the group. And also GM most of the time. Unfortunately the group fell apart as all of us moved on with their lives but that's another story entirely. Though when I meet one of the players by accident they still keep asking me when is the next session XD

Fanfiction....as you know I don't write at all XD Then again, for those RPGs in the past things did get written so indeed it is like you mentioned, players do write the background stories of their characters. The 'resources' mostly included the writings and some drawings, we were very informal group.

RPGs and fanfiction, I think they're similar in that they deal with some universe with its rules. But otherwise they seem to be entirely different. In a way those FRPs (Ohh, good name, I kept wondering how to differentiate between the two for a while.) are much closer to fanfics. Fanfics are all about exploring the characters, on the other hand RPGs in the way I played them were about exploring the universe. Which is to say that for an RPG to even so much as have a chance of existing in a created world, this world has to be vast and something new. Personally, I can't really imagine an interesting RPG set in X universe for example. While for fanfics it doesn't particularly matter how vast the world is, it matters that characters are interesting. There's definately a shift of focus there.

Now, FRPs are something fun. They're like a fanfic written by two or more people where focus is solely on characters and their interaction. They're much more accepting to original characters, however, just like traditional RPGs without bothering with the whole set of mathematical rules. Then again, in my RPG group very often dice were used for creation of characters and nothing more. The rest was up to judging of GM. After all it's no fun if your character dies at the very beginning of the game. Giving GM this much freedom always guaranteed that the game would run smoothly and if a character died, they would go out in the blaze of glory rather than falling of the stairs XD

Personally, I am not that interested in writing fics - obviously - as playing either FRPs or RPGs. But my lack of interest in writing isn't the question of being attracted or not, it's more about the fact that I can't write XD

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Groups falling off is something I've experienced quite often yes. As have I being the only female of the group, but I'm used of that in the contest of Geekdom. Could you believe how surprised I was when I got into the Clamp fandom to see how massively female the demographics were ? I'd never been in any similar situation before.

I know lot of people who write lengthy gaming ressource without even being part of a group or playing them. The pleasure of creating them, of imagining in this universe seems to be enough.

I do consider Fanartist as being a part of the Fanfic-dom - well Fandom. Maybe I should call it otherwise... I'm a bit at loss for words there. Anyway, fanart often heavily interracts with fics, either as illustration or inspiration. They often creatively re-shape the canon stories : your drawings of female Seishirou is a good exemple of that ^^ And no one would claim Shi isn't a BFN of the X fandom even though she doesn't write fics.

Fanfics are all about exploring the characters, on the other hand RPGs in the way I played them were about exploring the universe.
Yes, I do think it's the biggest difference, and I think it's very amusing to see it is, given the adequation between fandom and female demographics and RPGs and male demographics.
There's definitly some stories that make me want to create Fanfics more than RPGs, and vice verca. I was never interested in the Buffy RPG because for me BtVS is all about the characters and the world make no sense. On the other hand CS Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy, though its characters are cool and i've read some decent fics about them, mostly makes me want to play in its world because the magic system kicks so much ass.
Then there's fictions that make me want to do both ^^

They're much more accepting to original characters, however, just like traditional RPGs without bothering with the whole set of mathematical rules.
I didn't know that. I've had very little experience with FRP to be honnest, because I feel a bit intimidated by the importance of characterizing properly and I seldom think I would be up to it.
With original characters it must be more fun... but then I always wonder : why not do a real RPG ? XD

Then again, in my RPG group very often dice were used for creation of characters and nothing more.
Ohh, really ? Creating characters is one of my favourite part of any RPG (then again, for a GM to let a PC die is IMO a big no-no unless it was either from a very big and silly mistake that they were warned against, or willingly to go in a blaze of glory fitting to the character story)

I think it's very cool that FRP and RPGs, being more alike games, allow people who don't feel confident writing to explore the world and the characters anyway in other means, and to be part of the fandom that way. I know I'm not the best of writer either, and sometimes I feel self-concious about the fact people seem to get popular and friended a lot only when they're able to write very well. It's rather stupidly elitist. (then again, I can think of counterexemples to that, but it's a trend that exists)

Thank you so much for answering to my post, I'm glad someone found it interesting ♥

[shisakura.livejournal.com]

Hee! I wasn't really surprised, myself XD I didn't think much of it at all.

I know what you mean XD I used to draw maps for things I imagined in my head XD And it wasn't for any RPG either, just for my pleasure XD

Well....I don't know about that, really. Fanart is very different from fanfic. Usually an image is more about eyecandy than exploring a character. Of course there can be a story behind the image and usually I do have stories for them or they spring from the things I thought up....but there are images that are nothing more than eyecandy. Good example of that would be the image of Ritsu. There is nothing behind it whatsoever except me trying my hand at drawing him. Fanart doesn't necessarily tell stories which is what fanfic has to do. Of course a doujinshi is an exception to that, being an image story of sorts XD In a way fanart is something completly different from both fanfic and RPG, both of which tell stories and leave the 'look' of things up to imagination. On the other hand fanart deals with how things look like and leaves the story up to imagination.

Yeah, that is true XD Apparently males and females are interested in different things entirely XD

You know, I love FRPs for the very fact that characterization is not something set in stone. Yes, you start from the canon characterization but then suddenly during the course of playing the characters grow and change in an entirely unpredictable way. Which is something I don't think happens in fics and would be probably unacceptable. Actually....I don't believe I read a fic which shows how a character slowly changes from one thing into something entirely different.
And why not a real RPG? Well, for starters because not every world has an official RPG and creating rules from scratch is a bit tiresome. But that's not all. In a way those OCs in FRPs are more like OCs in fics than PCs in RGPs. They're start out as supporting characters (because your canon character needs parents, friends, etc.) who just happen to grow to be more, really. And quickly you start loving them just as much as canon characters if not more.

Well, yeah. I love creating characters for RPGs. And have a LOT of trouble creating characters for FRPs, which I guess proves just how different those type of characters are.

Bah. Every fandom is full of elitist. That is rather stupid but what can you do? Personally, I don't care about being a part of the fandom, just about having fun which is what FRPs and RPGs are to me. Who needs a fandom anyway? XD

It was very interesting :3 I loved it.

[peacewish.livejournal.com]

You put quite a lot of thought into that! You should come join our FRP, tomoeda_drama, because it's the coolest. We're short people to play Yamazaki, Sonomi, and if you're willing to put a lot of quality effort into it, Tomoyo. Or, dare I suggest it, an original character. It'd be awesome to have you.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for the invitation, I'm very touched you think I'd be up for it.
It's tempting, especially for Sonomi which I adore, but I doubt i'd have the time to get involved in a FRP. I tried once for the one that Tam handled, and after a couple of weeks, I simply couldn't follow anymore, especially with my timezone being so different as everyone else's. Then there's the fact I don't know the CCS canon as good as I'd like to (I never watched every episodes of the serie - and what I did watch was 5 years ago. For playing a secondary character like Sonomi it would probably become a problem)

[shining-sword.livejournal.com]

Too bad. It would be really cool to have a Sonomi fan on the team, but if you're too busy then it's better you don't. Lord knows we've had enough trouble getting people to focus. If you ever change your mind, let me know.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

came here via your great comment to lemurrgirl's anti WNGWJLEO post, with which I strongly agreed (your comment--not the post). Interesting essay, though I'm not sure whether it might not be helpful to distinguish between traditional RPGs (incl. LARP) and online LJ RPGs which are much closer to fanfic in many ways...or maybe the similarities are there from the get-go. I remember hen I met my first RL slashers, we talked about gaming (b/c most of them were gamers) and one came up with a neat world building theory...so, really, just totally agreeing with you and giving you the heads up on memorying you for metafandom (and maybe we all can begin talking about gaming a bit more :-)

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

oops, they already had you in there...that's what happens when you're gone for a month and try to get back into things...but regardless how you got in, a great post worthy of being discussed!!! :D

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks ! Glad you found it interesting (both the essay and the comment)

to distinguish between traditional RPGs (incl. LARP) and online LJ RPGs which are much closer to fanfic in many ways...

I thought it was what I did when I differentiated Roleplaying Games from Freestyle Roleplay... Unless you're speaking of something else ?

I also have a yearning to compare Cosplay to LARP but i know too little of either activity to do it properly, and cosplaying in general might be a more transversal activity to fandoms :)

I do think that gamers' taste for neat world building could beneficit Ficcers, just as Ficcers' ability with characterization and ships could greatly improve the gaming experience.
One game that does have a lot of "slash touch" is Exalted, probably because of how much it borrows from Anime. It's full of canon gay, creative take of sexuality, in-the-text perversions, and general gender fuck. It's also the RPG I know for which a friend is planning to write fanfics of the Sig characters.

Thanks a lot for reccing me to metafandom. When I just saw I was there my heart made a big leap :) regardless of how it got there, that you thought this essay was worth it makes me very happy.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

grrr...i just had this long comment and my computer ate it...anyway, the most interesting point, i think was that there seem to be different (gendered?) investments in purpose, i.e., world building versus "winning" that distunguish fic and freestyle LJ fic (which often come out of the same community) from traditional RPG...then again, i know very little about the latter (though my office mate is doing her best to change that :)

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I'm rather tired and weary-eyed and probably not understanding you correctly (OMG, if I don't take my contact lenses out I'm going to scream!), but if I'm right in reading you as associating "winning" with RPGs - then, in twenty+ years, this is an attitude I've never seen. People want their characters to succeed, of course, in whatever activity they have planned, but I've never seen anyone who wanted that at the expense of the story - in fact I've seen more complaints at what seemed to be an unearned and easy victory handed to the characters than at hard fought but ultimately lost battles and schemes.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

see, that comes from talking about things i know nothing about...just ignore me and go on your merry ways :) (i may have been mixing vague things up and together...)

so, if both are world building and story creating...do you see any differnces between the two?

and i need to talk to you, b/c you made me read renault...but i think i liked yours better...thnks so much for sending!!!

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Just a little more on the "winning" issue! In competitions, there is of course an attempt to win - but as both a player and a judge in RPG competitions, how one wins is a subjective thing. Usually the competition game is written with various objectives in mind: the characters must get Item X, save Child Y, defeat Monster Z and so on - but then it's down to the judges to argue amongst themselves over how well each player in their particular group played their character (for competitions, players are given characters that are created specially for that game and that game alone). "Winning" for a group may equal "did all the parts of the game faster than any other group", but for individuals (and usually players enter as individuals and haven't previously played with the group they are assigned to) "winning" is down to "good acting/being clever with what they've been given/making the GM (Games Master - the person actually running the game) laugh" and so on. There's no set way to win a competition, and perhaps the real "win" is having a good time in the company of others.

so, if both are world building and story creating...do you see any differnces between the two?

RPGs are far more collaborative - the GM may be using an officially published adventure for the game, or may be using one they have written themself, but that's only half of it - the actual running of the game is when the adventure is "written", with the players reacting and interacting (and often ignoring the carefully prepared material to hare off after red herrings that they have invented out of their own fevered imaginations!). There is give and take between the person who runs the game and the players, and the GM must be prepared to more or less throw their carefully prepared stuff to one side and let the players do what they want - this often means the GM has to provide entertainment on the fly, complete improvisation. It's scary but a lot of fun. And of course, most GMs, when they hear the players come up with better interpretations of the material given to them will smile mysteriously and adopt that better interpretation as the "real" one! GMs are, on the whole, sneaky thieving bastards. *smiles mysteriously*

Yay, you read Renault! And I'm glad you liked the fic (I find Renault doesn't pay near enough attention to extra-terrestrial superheroes, as a rule :-)

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i'll start persian boy on the plane, but fire from heaven definitely could have used some more extra-terrestrial superheroes :D looking forward to reading the other fics you sent but which i did not print out...and it was great reading it in athens...

i really need to sit down and read some more on RPGs, think some more about it...one of our essays is on fic as rpg and on the sims and it's great, but i need to hear some more from long time gamers like yourself and etrangere, need to leaen more about the differnt forms of role playing (as a reader i'm most interested in the postmodern lj rpg's where lj personas and fictional personas interact, but that's probably the farthest away frfom traditional table top, right?)

anyay, thanks for setting me straight and giving me lots more info and stuff to think about...there are a couple of recent books on games that i want to read (not rpg but i'm interested in where they differ and intersect) and jenkins has been writing several things in the past few years...but that's for me to do after i get home, get the kids back in school and prep syllabi...i know i'll be back to ask more questions, b/c this is really interesting to me (and i need to get over my genered binary thinking :)

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

For stuff about women writing (official) games material as well as fiction, you might want to talk to archangelbeth and incandescens (that might be helpful for you too, etrangere). Also papersky has written GURPS sourcebooks, and is now a full-time novelist.

The various LJ RPGs seem to me to be pretty far away from the table top kind, with at least one extra layer between the player and the character: instead of, say, me playing a world war 2 American sergeant, it would be me as daegaer playing, let's say, my particular conception of Aziraphale - and to add confusion to the mix, it seems to be the norm to set up a separate LJ for the characters, so it would be Me -> daegaer -> aziraphales_diary -> Aziraphale. Obviously the LJ RPGs can lend themselves to plot, but I find the comments threads far too confusing to read, and the actual style of playing too staccato and bitty.

For an interesting LJ RPG that presents itself in an different way, I think you should check out the Weiss Kreuz game estet_missions, where as far as I can see, all the roleplaying is done under friendslock or in chat, and then someone (more than one person I think, but the majority of pieces show the same style) writes the sessions up as stories. When I first read something there, I had no idea it was a RPG (the PCs - both canonical and original characters - didn't, and still don't, seem like self-inserts to me, etrangere, which is why I think that perception may have somethng to do with first person vs third person narrative) - with what is on public view, it looks like a carefully constructed interlocking set of WiPs, but in fact is being created communally in gaming sessions. I'm assuming the players are representative of the gender split in LJ fandom, predominantly women. Certainly the player who suggested I read a story featring the character she plays is.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that "bad username", I tried to have it show "aziraphales_diary" as an example of one of the layers between player and character.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

(as a reader i'm most interested in the postmodern lj rpg's where lj personas and fictional personas interact, but that's probably the farthest away frfom traditional table top, right?)

There's A LOT of experimental RPGs around, especially around amateurs games accessible in .pdf forms.
Diceless RPGs like Amber, Nobilis, Theatrix or others that try to find other means of deciding success or not of an action without randomizer elements are often more narrative in functionning. They're games that let more leeway to the PCs to participate in the scenario and insert their own plot point independantly of the GM (thus are closer to theatrical improvisation or collective storytelling)
Game systems that function as a tool box like Fudge, Fuzion and others are also interesting. The interaction between rule system and rules is always one of the topic that theoricist most focus on in the RPG milieu (their equivalent of meta if you will ;))

I know there's a few games that are trying to do totally without the GMs. When I'll get home from work and have more time to properly research it I'll try to find you some links if you want.

As I said in the original post, we actually do sometimes FRP coming from RPG so it's not something that merely comes out from Fanfics. I only ever did it in online games.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Throwing my two cents in : like daegar I don't believe that "winning" is an issue for RPGs. However, I suppose you could say they are more result oriented, and especially oriented toward the abilities and powers a Character garners through a story. The only existing goal of a RPG is to accumulate Experience Points (which can be called many other things depending the game) so as to improve your character and making it more powerful.
In fics the focus is on relationships and characterization, in a way that's seldom relevent in RPGs.

I think in both cases the necessity of solving the plot of the story can be important, but that doesn't make any more focussed on "winning."

[mad_maudlin]

::here via daily_snitch::

I agree to a point about the gendering of outcomes. I was In a FRP (to continue the terminology of the original post) on the Prodigy BBS and later on Delphi, and there was definite conflict between one group of our regular player-writers, the ones with RPG experience, and another, who were mostly come at it from a fanfic perspect. I wouldn't call it a winning versus world difference, though--more like plot focus versus character focus. I know of a D&D group that imploded because of conflict over characters (which sucked, because it was the closest I came to getting to play myself) and even FRP needs some kind of driving plot line to structure the character interactions, even if it's quite general and vauge. It's a matter of where the creators focus the bulk of their attention--few games would give over an entire session to character developement, and I don't think it's possible to write decent fiction that's 100% pure plot (though I've seen published authors who were apparently trying...).

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

ah...thanks for jumping in. that makes a bit more sense than what i was saying, i guess...plot is more teleological in a way, though, in't it? maybe that's where i was going (and channeling a good friend's brillant paper about sth slightly differnt and getting it all wrong in the middle of the night :)

here's still ondering how much of it is gendered...

Here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

This is really interesting.

I think there is one thing that I didn't see you touch on which I think might be a factor as well, it certainly was for me. Fanfic is something you can do regardless of whether you know any other fans in person, but tabletop RPGs need a group of people to function. No matter how much you might be interested, if you don't have friends who RP then you're stuck. I think it's possible that more people are interested in RPGs but just have no way to participate.

I don't really know how much that might be true, but it is true for me personally. In high school and early college, I would have loved nothing more than to get into RPing. I read fantasy almost exclusively, including a boatload of Dragonlance novels. But I didn't know anyone who played, and while I occasionally saw ads at the fantasy bookshop for people looking for new players, the idea of calling someone out of the blue and getting together with them is enough, even now, to send me into a panic attack.

Fanfic is a social activity, too. I'm not the sort of person who would write if I didn't have an audience. I need outside motivation or it would just never get done. If I'm the only one I'm entertaining, then I can do so just as easily with the story still in my head. But since my social awkwardness is almost entirely related to my physical self, the internet allows me to "talk" to people and get involved even if I don't know them.

Anyway, as to the questions...

I both read and write fanfic, writing more than reading. I have never RPed, though as I mentioned, there was a time when I would have loved nothing more (I was not involved in fanfic at the time either - no internet).

I don't feel that, for me anyway, they come from a similar motivation. The desire to RP is not at all connected with wanting to explore canon further, it just the desire to adventure in a fantasy world. Yes, the one I was most interested in was Dragonlance, and I also ate the books up with a spoon, but I would have taken any RPG. Fanfic, though, I write out of a desire to explore the characters and situations found in whatever canon currently has my interest. I've never had a desire to write an OC in a canon world just to explore that world; it's that sort of fic that I think is most closely related to RP, but even though RP really interests me, that sort of fic doesn't interest me at all.

So in the end, I can see a similarity for some people, but to me they are completely different activities with completely different motivations.

Re: Here via metafandom

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

No matter how much you might be interested, if you don't have friends who RP then you're stuck.

That's what I tried to address when I said :

Though ficcing is a more obviously solitary activity, it's more often than not an excellent pretext for socialization.
Though gaming is a primely social activity, I certainly know people who love reading and creating games in a way that is extremely solitary.

But i agree. Actually, that's the reason it took me two years between the time I learned about RPGs and the time I started playing them. I didn't know where to start to find people interested in playing them.
In many ways I believe it's one of the big reason why there's so few female among gamers. They're interested, but during High school which is the main moment when through socialization people het hooked to the hobby, they're often not interracting with the guys who're doing it.
Without the Internet I would never have been able to start playing. The net allowed me to start knowing people so that I didn't have to ask them out of the blue to make me play.
Over the years, I've also played RPGs purely online, with people I who lived in other countries; and I've also known people who were active in a RPG 'dom (creating ressources for it or discussing rules etc.) without ever playing that game.

So in the end, I can see a similarity for some people, but to me they are completely different activities with completely different motivations.
Fair enough. People can't all have the same pull to RPGs as I had. Thank you for sharing your opinion. :)

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

on RPG forums gamers are routinely whining about why there's not more women among them

This has been going on for at least twenty years. In my experience, the small minority of women gamers has remained at more or less the same level during that time, with usually no more than one or two women in each group of six to eight male gamers. I was in one group for eleven years - during that time there were (at differing times) three other female gamers in the group - two adults and one child. I was the only one that lasted more than a few weeks, and possibly not coincidentally, I was the only one who'd been there from the very start. I've been in my current group for four years, have always been the only woman, and am currently running one of our games. This group is far more a group of friends than the previous, which really only met to play. The current group goes out to eat together, plays cards together, goes mountain biking together (well, not me, I have the sense of balance of a squid on stilts) - we are very much friends as well as fellow geeks.

I'd have to disagree with your view of PCs as Mary Sues - in the various groups I've been in, the creation of self-insert charactes has been frowned on, and players who routinely do that are mocked and seen as not having the talent to play other types of characters. I don't think that the first person narrative associated with traditional RPGs is in fact necessarily conducive to Mary Sueing. In fact, Mary Sueing is taken as the mark of a bad roleplayer.

Are you involved in Fanfictions, either as a reader or as a writer ?

Yes. I write far more than I read. Practically all my stories are in my LJ memories.

Do you play RPGs ? Have you ever created ressources for an RPG ?

Yes to both. I have played D&D, Harn, Traveller, Weird Wars, Everquest, GURPS, Middle Earth RPS, Bunnies and Burrows, Macho women with Guns, Kult, In Nomine Satanas, Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia and several other systems. I have written published sourcebooks for Traveller, competition scenarios for several systems, and provided research for other writers' published sourcebooks for various systems. I have run D&D, Paranoia, Traveller and Space:1889.

Do you feel that they're similar or not ?

On Usenet I once saw the statement that many novels were not being written because people had their creative urges satisfied by playing RPGs. I absolutely feel they are similar in the urge to create a story.

Do you feel interested by the other activity ? If not, what doesn't attract you ?

I'm interested in both! I've roleplayed for over twenty years, and have written supplements and stories during that time (it was only when I stopped writing RPG materials that I started writing fanfic).

Any other comments ?

I'd be interested in knowing what sort of games systems women have played or run. There are a huge number out there, and I've never known any that have no women involved.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

This has been going on for at least twenty years. In my experience, the small minority of women gamers has remained at more or less the same level during that time, with usually no more than one or two women in each group of six to eight male gamers.

I'm surprised to hear so. My impression has been that the female gamers were increasing during my own smaller experience of the milieu. I've known more and more female gamers as time went. I certainly get the feeling that the global awareness of women's point of view in the writen RPGs have improved and things have been less tailored for the boys. But, yeah, we'd need some real demographic statistics to know about this.

I don't think that the first person narrative associated with traditional RPGs is in fact necessarily conducive to Mary Sueing. In fact, Mary Sueing is taken as the mark of a bad roleplayer.

Interesting. I've never seen self-insert characters criticized in play. Ridiculously glorified and "pretty" characters yes, but self-insert as such no. People around me seem to accept that some people keep making the same kind of characters pretty easily.
I tried to nuance my statement about Mary Sue and self-inserts a bit, but I can see where you disagree. I said so in parts because I can't look at any of the characters I've created and think "There's no part of me in there. They don't express a side of my own personnality" and I do think I play diverse kinds of characters.
Then again, the same thing can be said of writing. Can we ever write a chatacter without feeling that they represent a part of yourself ? Without being able to relate in some way to them ? As a fanficcer (though I'll never claimed to be a very good or experienced one) I'm not able write characters I can't relate with - but I don't think that make them 'Sue either. :)

Yes. I write far more than I read. Practically all my stories are in my LJ memories.

That's the part where I say I adore your GO fics. And feel ashamed about lurking without ever reviewing them. Especially the Esther one. It rocked my world so.

*random*yay, you're refer to INS by its French name !*/random*

On Usenet I once saw the statement that many novels were not being written because people had their creative urges satisfied by playing RPGs. I absolutely feel they are similar in the urge to create a story.

Well pointed. I tend to alternate between Fandom and RPGs obsession myself. When I was utterly subsumed into the Exalted world, I had totally stopped reading fanfics. Once I got back into various fandoms, I stopped paying attention to the RPG dom so much. In all cases, I feel the urge to write up things and participate in discussions, but not both at the same time.

I'd be interested in knowing what sort of games systems women have played or run. There are a huge number out there, and I've never known any that have no women involved.
Maybe I should crosspost to RPG.net :) though I wrote this primely with an Fandom audience trying to be clear when I was talking about RPG and I'd fear the parts where I talk about Fanfics would be too occult to the non-initied.
When you say you know of none with any women involved, do you mean in the creation ?
Now that I think of it, at least in the small part of RPG publishing I was involved (which was French, and not American so the milieu might be totally different) there was a surprising number of women involved. I wonder if the writing part of world building attracts more easily women in general.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I certainly get the feeling that the global awareness of women's point of view in the writen RPGs have improved and things have been less tailored for the boys.

Paranoia was always rather good about that - admittedly as part of its poking fun at other games systems! At cons I always saw quite a few women signing up to play it - in one way its non-sexualised characters could be criticised as merely all being "men", no matter what their gender, but I'm not sure if that's correct. The comic insanity of the setting seemed to appeal to both men and women.

The whining about "why aren't more women involved" has always been a feature, though :-)

On "self inserts": hmmm - yes and no, I think. Like you say, characters, whether RPG or fic characters, tend to have something of the player/author in them, but that doesn't make them Mary Sues - the PCs with 18s for all stats, backpacks of unending useful items and melodramatic backstories, now they're Mary Sues! I really do think, though, that it's the first person narrative of RPGs that makes PCs seem like self-inserts, rather than as a separate character behind which stands the player. If someone were to write up a session as a story afterwards, I don't think the (non-Mary Sue) PCs and NPCs would necessarily stand out as self-inserts at all, once they had the distance of third person narration.

That's the part where I say I adore your GO fics

Thank you!

yay, you're refer to INS by its French name !

It was the French versionn I played! A friend had it, and mixed it with the Swedish game Kult -- damn, that was disturbing and unpleasant . . .

When you say you know of none with any women involved, do you mean in the creation ?

No, just which games are more likely to have women players and GMs - there are lots of women writers, especially for sourcebooks (are there less for the actual original rulebooks? I don't know).

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Never played Paranoia though I've heard a lot of it. non sexualized-characters are always a very good templates for exploring the boundaries of social gender. Wich brings us to the why of the interaction between slash and SF, the theme of otherness... and I'd better stop there.

I really do think, though, that it's the first person narrative of RPGs that makes PCs seem like self-inserts, rather than as a separate character behind which stands the player. If someone were to write up a session as a story afterwards, I don't think the (non-Mary Sue) PCs and NPCs would necessarily stand out as self-inserts at all, once they had the distance of third person narration.
That's a good point. However even a well written fics, in third person narrative, which was written with OCs being the heroes of the story would risk being seen as a Mary Sue story. I think, abusively, but with Fandom being what it is, i wouldn't be surprised of that.
With the distance from third narration, still, a character isn't anymore there to stand in for ourselves. But there's a reason why the focus of a RPG is on character, with a 1st person immediacy. Few games explore the possibilities of playing a group of character at a time (like Ars Magica) even though the idea is very interesting.
Oh, well, I'm confused and I'm not sure of what I think right now.

It was the French versionn I played! A friend had it, and mixed it with the Swedish game Kult -- damn, that was disturbing and unpleasant
INS crossovered with Gnosticist Kult... that'd be like His Dark Material on crack. That must have been trippy. O_o

No, just which games are more likely to have women players and GMs - there are lots of women writers, especially for sourcebooks (are there less for the actual original rulebooks? I don't know).
I'm sure some games attract more women than others. I've always had the impression that most White Wolf games had a reasonnable audience of women players. We need a poll.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Paranoia is a lot of fun - I don't much like the latest edition (from mongoosepublishing.com), it seems unnecessarily complicated and the pictures are very bad quality, as if they've just been photocopied from the first edition rulebook. The first edition is the best, if you can find it. It's quite freeing to play characters that cannot think about sex or gender differences - and if players make remarks that betray any knowledge of real world sexual politics, they can simply be interrogated as to where they heard such treasonous stuff :-)

However even a well written fics, in third person narrative, which was written with OCs being the heroes of the story would risk being seen as a Mary Sue story

Oh yes. Fanfiction readers seem to have a resistance to original characters (especially if the OCs are female).

One game I'm running at the moment, Space: 1889, has a rule that gives every PC an NPC to run as well. So the group contains a mad scientist and his NPC niece, a civil servant/secret criminal (now that character is a Mary Sue!) and his henchman, and so on. The players find it a bit of a burden, really, to have to deal with the NPCs themselves - when the characters were generated, two players actually decided that one would be the subordinate character of the other, so they'd avoid having to run two characters! (It was a good idea, but then one player moved house and can't come any more - so the "sidekick" character, an army private, now has his officer as his sidekick :-)

The INS/Kult game was very trippy indeed - and not in a good way! The GM managed to scare himself, let alone the players and it never got taken up as a regular game.

I think you're right about White Wolf games having a decent sized amount of women players - perhaps it's because players have a preconception from film that female vampires exist and are as dangerous as male ones? Whereas popular culture portrayals of, say, soldiers, include women only as tokens or trophies and so women gamers feel that's what they would be in a military-based game?

We do need a poll!

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

You know it is funny but I noticed a while ago that Ben and his friends put a lot of creative energy into their games. It seem just like story crafting to me.. plotting, characters, etc. There is an interactive component so it is more like writing in group as opposed to Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books where it is simply you interacting with an author.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yeah it does feel a lot like writing in group. Except it's not just writing. Writing is a big component, but drawing, systemetic and statistical creation, acting (as roleplay), improvisation and even music play a role too. It's a very inclusive medium for creation.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

*bounces head gently on the desk*

Oh, absolutely. Sorry, I just had that writing piece on the brain when I was posting. And even when you are are scripting, you are sometimes (often) writing in opposition either against the game or other players, which is much different than a collaborative. I don't play them myself but I'd say for Ben the competetive piece is strongest.

Oh, and other things too like psychology, and politics maybe economics. Very rich media.

Here from <lj comm="metafandom">

[evilbo.livejournal.com]

I started out doing FRP in the X-Men fandom, then I got into RPG gaming, and then I got into FRP again, mostly RPS.

I just read fanfiction, I don't write it (except for one single attempt), and I've only ever done RPGs online in chatrooms. I've tried to create RPG resources for myself, but none of them were very decent. ^^;

I feel that the major difference between the two is how the writing and/or experience is done. In fanfiction, you decide on the particulars of the story and what everyone does. If you're playing in an RPG, you have a setting that may be influenced by your character and the other characters in your party, but otherwise isn't under your control at all. If you're a DM, you still don't have complete control, due to the fact that the actions of the party can make or break a game if they act in ways the DM didn't expect.

FRP is similar to this - there are some where the moderators do exactly like an RPG, except without dice, and there are others where the mods set up an established setting and don't change it in any way. In this latter case, character impact on the setting is extremely limited.

The 'parallel' evolution and the presence of mostly male gamers in RPGs can probably be blamed on how the first RPGs started out as wargames. Dungeons and Dragons was one of, if not the, first 'real' RPG that had an extensively established setting and focused on what the characters did, not if a certain group of units could kill another group of units.

I hope I didn't say anything that wasn't already obvious. ;)

Re: Here from <lj comm="metafandom">

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

You bring in some very interesting points ^^

I think the problematic of control is a very interesting point, both in how players relate between each others and with the GM, and with how they relate with the canon material, especially if we define both the urge to Fic and to RP as taking a pro-active stance with the fictionnal genres that we love.
Taking back control.
Though with Fanfic we claim to take this control back from a dominant culture, by interpretating the text to see things that allow us to better identify with the characters, by extrapolating the subext for sexual content etc. we remain in an attitude that is similar to the same culture :
There's a writer who has all power over the course of the story, and there's their readership. Readers can propose ideas, plot bunnies even and by their feedback it's not impossible that they influence the narrative... but none of those are all that frequent or all that valued. The relationship is still one where all the power rest in the writers, and all the votes of popularity rests in the readers; just as is their relationship is with the canonical text.
Then there's the risk of being jossed. Of seeing the control that they have over their own story be put in danger by new canon. Then the alternatives are going A/U (with the loss of legitimacy that it often implies), rectifying, or starting new stories. Fanficcers are in a constant power struggles against the canon, they constantly need to extrapolate, guess, and find new ways of interpretation so as to keep their reading/writing canonical.

RPG has got what is in the end a more genuinely original approach. Control is shared between players and Game Master more evenly. And the canonical text do not impose as much canon over their games. There's a Golden Rule : if you don't like it, change it; and there's not as much question of legitimacy of your story/game because it doesn't stick to the canonical text. There's still rule lawyering and people who want to drop their games because a new book is out and it's been jossed, but all things considered, it doesn't happen with as much gravity as it does in Fandom.
There's of course, GMs who are more or less good at sharing their power, and players who are not as responsible with it either. In practice, GM can be very directive and PCs be too lazy to properly participate to the building of the story. But at some good table and in theory there's a lot of possibilities. And the whole existence of rules in RPG are so as to distribute this power in a "fair" way.

Wow, I find this a very interesting thread to investigate about the similarities of both and what's behind about geekdom. Thanks for your comment.
Now I wonder how much more interractive Fanfics could be, and possibilities of format with other means of sharing the control over the story.

Absolutely brilliant post

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

I game and read fanfic about the same amount: occasionally. They appeal to me for the same reason, which is that they allow participation in works of art. RPG's are group fanfic-writing exercises, essentially, especially in setting-heavy games like Exalted, my current kick. On the flip side, fanfic is like an RPG where all the PC's are controlled by one person, especially when OC's and minor characters take center stage. (Like the acronym blending there? *g*)

Re: Absolutely brilliant post

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yay for fellow Exalted fan ! ^^

The problematic of control (of the setting, of the characters, etc.) is an interesting angle I didn't talk much about, indeed. It's especially an interesting issue regarding FRP (where usually the only and most important rule is about controlling other characters) , and relationships with canon and Golden Ruling. RPGs widespread control more easily between the players and more easily reshape the "canon" of a game, whereas in Fanfics there's a more struggling approaches to canon, because they built on a canon that's not necessarly made for them to exist and they must build on the negative space, subtext or rely heavily on interpretation. The fight to control the legitimate interpretation of the text can be seen in Shipper wars. In RPGs there's some people who can't stand house ruling and changing the setting, but what would be seen as going A/U in Fanfics is generally more easily accepted.

Thanks for your comment and I'm glad you liked the post :)

[mad_maudlin]

Here from daily_snitch.

I'm a writer, not a gamer, though not for lack of trying--I've done lots of FRP on BBSs and tried to get into two different D&D groups. (One was in mid-campaign, the other self-descructed over an incident involving a PC sodomizing a vampire.) I like to think I know about as much about RPGs as a non-gamer can, though.

You comments about Mary Sues and Minimaxers make me think. I tend to think "self insert" is a bit too broad a definition of Mary Sue; I define her as a character breaks the canon--she may steal the spotlight from canon characters, but it's usually because she has qualities that violate the constraints of the universe she's being written into. A concrete example: Harry Potter canon doesn't allow for spells that raise the dead, but an HP MS might manage to come back from the dead (or bringing someone else back through her tragic self-sacrifice). Fictional canon has interlocking considerations of universe, plot and character, so a Mary Sue in that canon tends to distort all three.

RPGs, however, replace the concern about canonical characterization with the concern about interaction between PCs and between gamers--instead of, "I think you've made Harry a bit OOC" it's "If you start talking about your mighty staff one more time I'm going to shove my Diet Coke up your ass." They also have built-in constraints on how far universe elements can be stretched: in Harry Potter, d20 edition, no acanonical resurrections are going to happen bcause the system won't allow for it. But even if there weren't those sorts of constraints, I think the majority of games wouldn't create Mary Sue PCs just because they wouldn't be much fun to play in an actual game. "Let's see...I rolled a negative number...and that's still a critical hit. Yay." This is the same reason most writers don't write MSs--because ultimately realistic character are more fun to write about.

So it's definately the minimaxers who most closely model the spirit of Mary Suism compared to regular gamers--it's all about the coolness of the character and the focus on him rather than considerations about the plot or universe or your fellow players. Also, your description of the stereotypical minimazer PC reminded me a lot of an old fanthropology discussion about Gary Stus. And also a guy I met one summer in high school who just couldn't wait to tell everyone who knew the slightest bit about D&D all about his favorite PC--a half-orc, half-dwarf ranger. To which we said, "That makes no damn sense!" To which he replied, "So what? It's not against the rules!"

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

You comments about Mary Sues and Minimaxers make me think. I tend to think "self insert" is a bit too broad a definition of Mary Sue; I define her as a character breaks the canon--she may steal the spotlight from canon characters, but it's usually because she has qualities that violate the constraints of the universe she's being written into. A concrete example: Harry Potter canon doesn't allow for spells that raise the dead, but an HP MS might manage to come back from the dead (or bringing someone else back through her tragic self-sacrifice).

I'm not sure it's the best exemple because I can certainly think of a lot of bringing-someone-from-death story in the HP fandom that do not involve a Mary Sue; but yeah I see what you mean : A Mary Sue breaks too much the implicite rules of a setting/genre/narrative. It's a very good definition. And it allows for paralelism with the Powergamer who often cheats with spirit the rules, or at least bends them.

But even if there weren't those sorts of constraints, I think the majority of games wouldn't create Mary Sue PCs just because they wouldn't be much fun to play in an actual game. "Let's see...I rolled a negative number...and that's still a critical hit. Yay." This is the same reason most writers don't write MSs--because ultimately realistic character are more fun to write about.
You'd be surprised how many players seem to want exactly that ^^ but yeah that's also a rather immature impulse that passes with good players.

So it's definately the minimaxers who most closely model the spirit of Mary Suism compared to regular gamers--it's all about the coolness of the character and the focus on him rather than considerations about the plot or universe or your fellow players
Agreeing again ! And very well said :)
I was trying to draw the parallel between PCs in general with Mary Sues because I think it's an idea that brings out some interesting content to the "are there good Mary Sues ?" discussion.
In many ways, RPGs is a milieu much more welcoming for people wishing to Mary Sue without being too extravagant about it, and eventually will nudge them in the good direction without it necessarly jarring against the context of the game too much.
Ah, I don't express myself well, let's say :
If you brought a Mary Sue out of a fanfic to make her as a character in a RPG, you'd need to be a powergamer to make it work.
However, if you brought a regular PC out of a RPG to write them in a fanfic, I'm certain that would at least push the Mary Sue limit test.

Thanks for your comment ^^

[mad_maudlin]

You'd be surprised how many players seem to want exactly that ^^ but yeah that's also a rather immature impulse that passes with good players.

I think Mary Sues are also something that immature writers will eventually grow out of, presuming they grow at all. So that's another parallel.

However, if you brought a regular PC out of a RPG to write them in a fanfic, I'm certain that would at least push the Mary Sue limit test.

I don't like Mary Sue "tests" because I think they focus too much on detail that's not necessarily relevent--they address the symptoms and not the disease. Any decent charatcer, in a game or a novel, is going to score at least in the mid-range of such a test, because otherwise they'd be too unbearably boring to write/play. Even what we might think of as unforgivable characters (like the American Exchange Student at Hogwarts) could be written as a non-MS.

The real test, if there is one, is whether the character is integrated into the universe: if her amazing abilities are plausible within the world-system, if her actions have realistic consequences, if all the characters react to one another believably. A good PC fits all those criteria, I think.

[eslyssa.livejournal.com]

Are you involved in Fanfictions, either as a reader or as a writer?
I've been a fanficcer - both a reader and a writer - for several years. I fit your description of a fanficcer extremely - and rather embarassingly - well, from the minute analysing the various canons to within an inch of their lives, to the quoting of Monty Python. I really like the way you express the reasoning behind it - To subvert the popular culture by making it truly theirs and are not content to be a passive consumer. I've never thought about it that way, but that's surprisingly accurate. As someone who writes both plot as well as character based fics - and I personally don't think that they are as self-exclusive as you seem to - I know what you mean about the ratio. And certainly about the gender ratios. I remember having a male Beta at one stage - and being hugely proud of it. I also think that depends on the fandom, however. Within the HP fandom, I am friends with say, half a dozen guys. Within the SW fandom, that number greatly increases. So on to Stargate, Startrek, and other more Sci-Fi fandoms. Certainly I'd agree on how fandom-ignorant the wider community is. I'm so used to explaining fandom/fic to everyone that when someone I knew in RL turned out to be actually -involved- in it, wow. That was a surprise.

Do you play RPGs ? Have you ever created resources for an RPG?
I do play and have played RPGs for about the same ammount of time I was reading fanfic (it took me a bit longer to get into writing fanfic), but at that stage they were completely separate in my mind. I played both the DnD style, mainly with my older brother and his friends (clear example of what you're talking about with RPG gender bias!), dice-based, LARP, and then later, live-time online RPGs, both MUDs (similar to DnD) and MUSHes (much more.. er.. freeform, did you say?). More recently, I've become involved with playing - and sometimes running - LJ or GJ based games. The MUSHing and Journal-games (and the LARPs) are far more story and interaction based, and I describe it to friends as similar to an interactive fanfiction. These last types of RPG I find are much more female-popular. Particularly in the HP fandom, many of these games have few or no males. I'm involved in a SW MUSH which has about an equal gender-base. But when you get to the MUDs, DnD, tabletop, that sort of stuff - yeah, it's a great way to meet guys.

Do you feel that they're similar or not?
Very much so, depending on your type/fandom/community. As I said, I describe some RPGs as interactive fanfics. When a game advertises calling players 'writers', you know that it is that sort. Personally, they're my preference as to types of RPGs. However, when you get to DnD, MUDs, dice-base - no, they're a different kettle of fish. LARPs even more so, although I have written fanfics based on plots developed in a LARP. I think that my ideal, the compromise in between the two types of RPG - point-based, but narrative and plot focused - are quite similar.

Do you feel interested by the other activity ? If not, what doesn't attract you?
I'm very much interested in both, though I must say that I've not done nearly as much non-Web RPG since I've been into fanfic. I've tried to use the web to -organise- things like LARPs, but not to much success. If you want to talk about groups that don't really overlap, think about your online vs. offline RPers.

Wow. That was a bit long...

[arrefmak.livejournal.com]

Very good threadspace. Found by way of google blogsearch for 'Zelazny Amber rpg'.

Many female and male RPGers are not into the 'crunchy bits' of number systems and chart results that are laid down on your Player Character. For these people, there are more new ideas surfacing in RPG games.

Nobilis, Amber, and others already mentioned, plus some new things showing up here and there.

Nice thread.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the comment, I'm glad you liked my post and the comments to it ^^ and yay for google !

Oh, i've no doubt there's more to RPG than the crunchy bits. I'm a big fan of Nobilis as well as Amber myself. But let's face it, some of the most successful, in terms of popularity, games are very crunchy, which is what I wanted to address in parts in the compareason.