In case you haven’t already read the introduction to this week’s column, in which I discuss how role-playing games can be considered art, it’s here. You may find it useful. Also useful another column, in which I describe the term “distance.” I’ll be throwing it around quite a bit, so I’d suggest reading it in full. In short, though, distance refers to the level at which a player empathizes with his or her avatar character. Lessened distance is accomplished by certain mechanics that allow the player more control over their character, specifically in dramatic moments. My previous discussion of distance was focused on video games, but I’d like to apply the same principle to role-playing games, specifically regarding ways that the storyteller can reduce distance for players.
How Role-playing Differs from Video Games
While distance may well be a valid concept for role-playing theory, it operates very differently in the confines of role-playing than it does in video games. Video games allow for a highly focused visual and auditory experience that diminishes physical distance, whereas the limited programming of video games means that mental distance is still a significant barrier, since one’s avatar character can only perform actions and experience things that the game designer planned for. Role-playing games, on the other hand, cannot offer the same visual and auditory stimuli that video games do, since they are essentially verbal story-telling, and therefore have a tendency toward greater physical distance than video games, but the player (and narrator) have incredible control over the actions of the characters in the story, making mental distance virtually non-existent (though it is still there).
The responsibility of lessening distance in role-playing games falls most heavily on the GM. It is the GM who crafts situations for the players to respond to, and the GM who describes the locations that players have their adventures in. If the world does not respond to the players in a logical way, for instance, then the GM has committed error, and distance will increase for the players. Players do have a smaller responsibility to their fellow players and their GM; if a player character starts to act wildly different, for instance, or the player demands that the story go one way when every other player wishes it to go another, it can alter the experience in a way that is harmful.
Maintaining a tight distance is essential to a role-playing session that attempts to create a quality story. It’s worth noting that one doesn’t have to approach the game with such concerns in mind; it’s also a fun way to spend time with friends and let the imagination loose. That’s not an incorrect way to play the game, but approaching a session with the mind-set of an artist can result in some incredible experiences, and if that’s your goal, then keeping distance is mind may be worth your while.
Lessening Mental Distance, or Siderodromophobia
Because of the great amount of character agency within most role-playing games, mental distance is easier to lessen. In fact, as long as the story-teller makes it such that player choice matters to the fabric of the story, and thus that the players have some control over the destinies of their characters, then achieving empathy with a character is mostly the player’s job.
Giving that much control to the players in a game may seem easy enough at first glance, but it’s actually a difficult thing to maintain, especially if the story-teller plans ahead of time. If a story-teller generates quality components of a story, then it is only natural to want to steer the players toward that story. Such steering is ultimately okay, but there is a definite line that, if crossed, begins to harm distance. That steering, at its worst, is referred to as railroading, since no matter how the players might attempt to avoid the seeds of plot that the story-teller has sown, they cannot. At the worst, this can turn into an arms race in which the players pull out all the stops in an attempt to de-rail themselves from the story-teller’s plot, but the story-teller pulls in the King, the whole pantheon of the Gods, and the laws of the natural world to ensure that the party WILL be interested in this kobold-hunting quest, despite the fact that there are a slew of better-qualified, better-looking, and cheaper adventurer bands out there.
This ties into another and more insidious mistake that can increase distance. Verisimilitude is probably even more important in D&D et consortes than it is in other forms of art because multiple people are involved in its production, and if the story is suddenly weakened for a player (usually through a misstep by the GM), then the player’s contributions to the communal work suffer. There are few things which shatter the immersion of a game more than the unjustified reversal of a known fact of the game world. If a player has good reason to suspect that an organization that is known to protect elves from the oppressive government, and then that organization turns the player’s character over to said government because it was the “right thing to do,” that player’s distance will increase and he will find it harder to empathize with his character. This is because characters do not exist in a vacuum; rather, the fabric of the story as a whole maintain that character, and if that fabric begins to weaken, then the characters supported within that setting begin to weaken as well. I have played in a game where the world wasn’t dependable, and it squashed my desire to play a convincing character instantly. If the world is not dependable, then character decisions mean less, and the character means less.
Not a LARP
Now, obviously, sitting around a table and talking does little to lessen physical distance between a player’s character and the player. In the story, the character may be the stalwart, holding a gate from a horde of ice demons on a frozen tundra even though he’s bleeding from multiple stab wounds and is stunned from a compulsion spell launched on him by the lich who orchestrated this whole unlikely scenario, but the player is still seated at a table, and is no doubt warm, healthy, and fidgeting with dice. That’s a lot of distance. There are things that the DM can do to decrease this distance; the mind can imagine quite a lot given impetus. For instance, the DM can remind the player that his character’s lungs must be aching, and mention that the clouds of heated air that issue from his mouth with each ragged breath have a red tint to them. These methods are effective, but certainly difficult for an already over-taxed story-teller to generate all the time. Ultimately, physical empathy is much more difficult to create in a role-playing game, especially since it is so difficult to manipulate the senses of sight, touch and smell for the player’s benefits. Sound is easier, if you have a story-teller with creativity and the willingness to make a fool of him or herself.
That said, lighting and soundtracks are useful tools to bring the player that much closer to the experience of their characters. Lack of light can make certain moments in a horror game by allowing the imagination to run just a little more wild. Music can lend the proper mood to a scene. Props, used sparingly, can have a similar effect. But at the same time, role-playing games aren’t live-action, and great physical distance is a quality of the format. I would suggest that players are much more responsible for their own physical distance than their story-teller is, though an excellent story-teller won’t let that keep them from including choice physical details. Attempting to include such experiences in a game can only end well.
There You Have It
Distance in role-playing games is a topic worth further attention, I think. I will definitely return at a later date to discuss how players can influence their own distance from their characters, and how they can assist other players in lessening distance. I also think it’s worth studying how distance works between the story-teller and so-called non-player characters, and whether the responses of players affects that distance. See you all next week!
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