Old adventure fiction vs. historical adventure fiction

[Agemegos]

A recent thread about RPG campaigns and adventures set during WWII got me thinking about the difference between stories and novels that were written in past eras with then-contemporary settings (on one hand) and historical fictions set in the same periods, but from a point of view in time that makes them seem strange and romantic (on the other hand). There are a lot of them (differences, that is) that have to do with presenting period features as quotidian or romantic (which might go one way with sword-fights and the other way with train travel), and with treating social and political issues as controversial (which they were at the time) or as universally agreed upon (which they might seem to be now). In the Sherlock Holmes story His Last Bow motor-cars and naval guns are technothriller exotica; now they are humdrum or even quaint. A work written in the actual Thirties that depicted fascism as vile, and shooting German state officials as heroic, would have been taking an extreme view in a global controversy; one written in 1980 but set in 1936 that does the same is expressing a consensus that enjoys unanimous lip service. Jane Austen's depiction of the lot of women in the upper class of late Georgian England is edgier than Georgette Heyer's.

I think in the case of those differences RPGs with period settings tend strongly to resemble the historical novels rather than the old novels, and that that is perfectly fine and as it ought to be.

Another difference that I notice is that historical fiction tends to deal with larger stakes than old fiction. For example, Sherlock Homes stories written in the late Victorian period deal with such issues as finding out who actually stole a sapphire out of an hotel-room, covering up the sexual past of a snobbish king, murders incidental to the nobbling of a race-horse or the kidnap of a schoolboy, or somebody being framed for a murder. The stakes are generally the reputation and fortune of an unimportant family, sometimes a bit of espionage, and at most a murder or a few murders. But when new Sherlock Holmes stories were written in the early 21st century the stakes were at least the massacre of the House of Lords by a technothriller terrorist, or a nefarious plan by the German Empire to cheat in WWI by starting it a year early, before everyone was ready.

It will come as no surprise to fellow habitués of this Pub that I think that grandiose stakes are best for special occasions and career climaxes, that for a steady diet in role-playing adventure it is preferable to deal with stakes that may be vitally important to the PCs and their clients or patrons, but that most NPCs can reasonably treat as secondary, or not their business at all. Besides, many players are not terribly keen to deal with issues that would be in the history books if real.

Perhaps that means that historical RPG has a natural or ideal or perhaps expected place that is uncomfortably in between examples from historical fiction and examples from old adventure fiction.

 

[AsenRG]

Perhaps that means that historical RPG has a natural or ideal or perhaps expected place that is uncomfortably in between examples from historical fiction and examples from old adventure fiction.

Yes, but it's actually quite easy to get the balance: strive to emulate the old fiction, and with your players being contemporary humans, the necessary parts of the historical fiction are going to sneak in by themselves...

 

[Lofgeornost]

Another difference that I notice is that historical fiction tends to deal with larger stakes than old fiction. For example, Sherlock Homes stories written in the late Victorian period deal with such issues as finding out who actually stole a sapphire out of an hotel-room, covering up the sexual past of a snobbish king, murders incidental to the nobbling of a race-horse or the kidnap of a schoolboy, or somebody being framed for a murder. The stakes are generally the reputation and fortune of an unimportant family, sometimes a bit of espionage, and at most a murder or a few murders. But when new Sherlock Holmes stories were written in the early 21st century the stakes were at least the massacre of the House of Lords by a technothriller terrorist, or a nefarious plan by the German Empire to cheat in WWI by starting it a year early, before everyone was ready.

I’m not sure this is the case. Since Holmes is such an iconic character, there is a temptation to do something splashy with him, something that you can’t find in Conan Doyle’s stories. That can be elevating the stakes, but it can equally well be focusing more on his private life—as in The Seven-Percent Solution, one of the more successful pastiches from the late 20th century.

For mysteries with historical settings as a general thing, I don’t find the stakes-raising to be normal. There’s an interesting series about a woman who is a private detective, and then sheriff, in early-20th-century New Jersey; the first is Girl Waits with Gun. They are all quotidian cases. Likewise, the extensive Murdoch novel series, set in c. 1900 Toronto, are straight mystery novels without particularly high stakes—very different from the TV series. The main contrast I’d see between older mystery fiction and modern historical mystery novels is that, sometime in the early 20th century, it became standard that novels have to be about investigating a murder, rather than just a theft. It’s not a universal rule, by any means, but 19th-century detective fiction was more open to investigations of various sorts of crime, while that written since 1900 or 1920 concentrates more on murders, I think.

I suspect a lot depends on the writer involved. Some like to swing for the fences and focus on major plots or country-changing events; others like a more intimate focus. So John Buchan, in his contemporary thrillers like The Thirty-Nine Steps or Greenmantle dealt with big conspiracies, and did the same in his historical fiction, like The Blanket of the Dark, in which there is a conspiracy to unseat Henry VIII. Even Witch Wood, which has an intimate setting (a small village in 17th-century Scotland) has Montrose as a minor character.

 

[Nobby-W]

I think high stakes is a function of the ever-escalating spectacle of Hollywood blockbusters and their influence on popular culture. As a contrast, slice-of-life is a significant genre in Japanese media and there are loads of famous anime, novels and other productions featuring this type of story.

Traveller used to be quite good for low-key adventures as GDW's folks kept their focus on a bunch of ex-service adventurers having their mid-life crisis in space - perhaps due to the influence of Marc Miller. D&D came to embody the hero's journey trope with its levelling system, although I'm not sure the whole end-to-end thing was really intrinsic to it at the start (shades of the OSR there).

I don't think the epic struggle was quite such a thing in Victorian literature.

 

[PolarBlues]

Just speaking from a gaming perspective, it is easy to sell to the player characters why stopping an evil scheme to sink the island of Manhattan into the ocean is something worth doing, especially if that happens to be their home base. It also taps into that aspect of awe and wonder that many game thrive on. For better or worse, roleplaying games for the most part, draw on escapist fiction.

Getting player characters to care about some dude losing his farm to a crooked businiess man is a little harder. You need to establish a strong emotional connection between the characters and the farmer NPC (or against the businessman) for this to have any gravitas. And it's hardly escapist, that sort of thing still happens all the time. It can be done, and it can be very rewarding, but it takes more work and a slower build up.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Some more random thoughts on the issue: does genre-ish fiction with a historical setting today tend to have bigger stakes than similar stuff written at that particular time?

• From what I know, this isn't the case with Westerns at all. Most of my knowledge of modern ones comes from movies rather than novels--though I've read a few--but my impression is that the vast majority deal with the problems of a few characters or a smallish community--the town that the outlaws are threatening, or the valley where the ranch is, etc. Bigger issues are presented thematically, rather than by having the events of the novel affect the wider world very much.
• Mysteries with a historical setting are a mixed bag. Some do swing for the fences and bring in bigger stakes, but others don't. I've read relatively few modern mysteries with a 19th-early 20th century setting, but a good deal more with pre-1700 ones. Some of those do attach themselves to big historical figures and plots--e.g., S.G. MacLean's Seeker series, where the main character is actually a military officer charged with preventing conspiracies against the Commonwealth--but others don't. As best I remember them, most of the Cadfael novels keep a resolutely small-scale and local focus, as do many of the Owen Archer mysteries by Candace Robb, while some of Lindsey Davis's Falco novels deal with important political shenanigans and others are much smaller-scale mysteries.
• Military adventure fiction is the same, I think. I'm not sure what early-19th-century fiction about the British Navy at war with France was like, or if it existed. But it seems to me that a lot of the modern literature with this setting avoids the big battles to focus on smaller, often fictional, clashes between a few ships, where there may not be much beyond the 'table stakes' involved. A good deal of Patrick O'Brian's work would fit this description, as would at least some of Forrester's Hornblower tales, IIRC (it's been decades since I read them).

 

[Savage Schemer]

Some more random thoughts on the issue: does genre-ish fiction with a historical setting today tend to have bigger stakes than similar stuff written at that particular time?

I really need not look any further than Edgar Rice Burroughs or Alexandre Dumas to emphatically say, "nope. Not at all."

EDIT: Just to give a nod to the OP - the key thing to note with both ERB and Dumas is that neither were writing stories contemporary to their own time (or, in the case of ERB, place). They too were romanticizing either the past or far away, unknown places, or both. I think it's the tendency toward romance that tends to bring in higher stakes, more so than when it was written.

 

[David Johansen]

The fiction has more heaving bosoms and less syphilis.

 

[AsenRG]

The fiction has more heaving bosoms and less syphilis.

Paging GRRM...

 

[SJB]

A work written in the actual Thirties that depicted fascism as vile, and shooting German state officials as heroic, would have been taking an extreme view in a global controversy

I think that Rogue Male (1939) was commonly admired. Admittedly, the Hitler analogue was lightly disguised.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I've been thinking a bit more about the idea that historical fiction tends to up the ante compared to fiction with a contemporary setting that was written in the past. It's not always true, of course, but I think it is common for historical fiction with a premodern setting to focus on famous individuals or situations, rather than small-scale 'slice of life' tales. There are exceptions, of course, like Harry Turtledove's Hellenic Traders series of novels, De Camp's Dragon of the Ishtar Gate, or--for another type of historical fiction--Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. But I think it's fair to say that those are outnumbered by novels where the main characters are the movers-and-shakers of the day, or which focus on well-known historical events. It's not hard to see why:

• Famous, important individuals are naturally attractive as focuses for stories, since they tend to be leading figures in significant activity, however that is defined: politics, warfare, artistic creation, etc.
• For many premodern periods, about the only people about whom we know very much are such individuals. So if an author was attracted to a particular period or event by reading history, it's natural that they might want to write about the famous. The same would apply to the audience for the books--'this is a novel about Caesar' is probably an easier pitch than 'this is a novel about a Ligurian bandit in the 10th century'.

Though it's not universally true, I'd guess that RPGs with a historical setting tend instead to focus on less exalted individuals than fiction does. Leading figures have more power, but in a way less freedom--they don't engage in 'adventuring' for the most part, or if they do, it is as the boss of a larger group. Their actions default more towards manipulating the levers of power, or other individuals, rather than more 'hands on' activities that are the bread and butter of most RPGs.

 

[xanther]

....It will come as no surprise to fellow habitués of this Pub that I think that grandiose stakes are best for special occasions and career climaxes, that for a steady diet in role-playing adventure it is preferable to deal with stakes that may be vitally important to the PCs and their clients or patrons, but that most NPCs can reasonably treat as secondary, or not their business at all. Besides, many players are not terribly keen to deal with issues that would be in the history books if real....

This.

As referee never do "the end of the world" or "save the kingdom" stuff. I mean an NPC may say those things and try to convince the PCs it's true, but a little simple thought on the players part will show this is just a sales pitch. Along with that, no PC or NPC is ever a "chosen one", heck they can believe they are and if they get to level 20 perhaps they are...by dint of hard work.

As a player I really hate "save the world/kingdom" adventures as they are almost guaranteed to be a railroad; after all if I don't do certain things by a certain time all is lost. So what if I do poorly, or heaven (or GM forbid) I do something else.

 

[sharps54]

If you don’t save the kingdom it falls, simple enough. I have a buddy that intentionally puts out more hooks than the players can do so they have to pick and chose carefully. He makes sure they at least hear rumors about the hooks they didn’t take, if you don’t try to find that missing girl today her father may have found what the wolves left of her tomorrow. Problem is you’ll have two or three other hooks at the same time as the girl, no right answers as the party can’t save everyone or get to every treasure before someone else.

 

[Voros]

I've been thinking a bit more about the idea that historical fiction tends to up the ante compared to fiction with a contemporary setting that was written in the past. It's not always true, of course, but I think it is common for historical fiction with a premodern setting to focus on famous individuals or situations, rather than small-scale 'slice of life' tales. There are exceptions, of course, like Harry Turtledove's Hellenic Traders series of novels, De Camp's Dragon of the Ishtar Gate, or--for another type of historical fiction--Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. But I think it's fair to say that those are outnumbered by novels where the main characters are the movers-and-shakers of the day, or which focus on well-known historical events. It's not hard to see why:

• Famous, important individuals are naturally attractive as focuses for stories, since they tend to be leading figures in significant activity, however that is defined: politics, warfare, artistic creation, etc.
• For many premodern periods, about the only people about whom we know very much are such individuals. So if an author was attracted to a particular period or event by reading history, it's natural that they might want to write about the famous. The same would apply to the audience for the books--'this is a novel about Caesar' is probably an easier pitch than 'this is a novel about a Ligurian bandit in the 10th century'.

Though it's not universally true, I'd guess that RPGs with a historical setting tend instead to focus on less exalted individuals than fiction does. Leading figures have more power, but in a way less freedom--they don't engage in 'adventuring' for the most part, or if they do, it is as the boss of a larger group. Their actions default more towards manipulating the levers of power, or other individuals, rather than more 'hands on' activities that are the bread and butter of most RPGs.

This true but a lot of fiction is historical without being identified as 'historical fiction' for a whole host of commercial, aesthetic and good ol' snobby reasons.

For instance, the vast majority of the great Cormac McCarthy novels are not set in the modern day but I've rarely seen them referred to as historical fiction.

Hell, many a literary classic, from War & Peace to Sentimental Education are really historical fiction as they are set in the past of when they were written but often that fact is lost with older fiction where the average reader assumes they are narrating contemporary events, somehow.

 

[Voros]

This.

As referee never do "the end of the world" or "save the kingdom" stuff. I mean an NPC may say those things and try to convince the PCs it's true, but a little simple thought on the players part will show this is just a sales pitch. Along with that, no PC or NPC is ever a "chosen one", heck they can believe they are and if they get to level 20 perhaps they are...by dint of hard work.

As a player I really hate "save the world/kingdom" adventures as they are almost guaranteed to be a railroad; after all if I don't do certain things by a certain time all is lost. So what if I do poorly, or heaven (or GM forbid) I do something else.

I don't see how 'save the world' adventures are any more likely to be railroads.

One could say that they're played out and should only be used sparingly or they lose their sense of gravitas but I'm not seeing why they would need to be a railroad unless one so strictly defines a railroad as presenting any kind of goal to the PCs as a railroad.

 

[AsenRG]

I don't see how 'save the world' adventures are any more likely to be railroads.

One could say that they're played out but I'm not seeing a railroad unless one so strictly defines a railroad as presenting any kind of goal to the PCs as a railroad.

The logic, which I tend to agree with, is that in this kind of game the GM wants to guarantee a specific outcome, and the easiest way about that is, as we all know...

 

[AsenRG]

This true but a lot of fiction is historical without being identified as 'historical fiction' for a whole host of commercial, aesthetic and good ol' snobby reasons.

For instance, the vast majority of the great Cormac McCarthy novels are not set in the modern day but I've rarely seen them referred to as historical fiction.

Hell, many a literary classic, from War & Peace to Sentimental Education are really historical fiction as they are set in the past of when they were written but often that fact is lost with older fiction where the average reader assumes they are narrating contemporary events, somehow.

Walter Scott comes to mind as well.

 

[Voros]

The logic, which I tend to agree with, is that in this kind of game the GM wants to guarantee a specific outcome, and the easiest way about that is, as we all know...

Still not seeing it. In a save the world campaign the PCs could succeed, fail, or ignore it. If the latter either someone else saves the world or the world isn't saved and the PCs have to deal with the fall-out in a Midnight or post-apocalyptic campaign.

Two iconic OSR adventures that have can have apocalyptic endings are Death Frost Doom and Deep Carbon Observatory, neither are railroads.

I've seen bad GMing in all kinds of campaigns: tedious sandboxes, railroaded dungeoncrawls, etc.

In my opinion, the issue is bad GMing, not any one campaign or adventure premise.

 

[AsenRG]

Still not seeing it. In a save the world campaign the PCs could succeed, fail, or ignore it. If the latter either someone else saves the world or the world isn't saved and the PCs have to deal with the fall-out in a Midnight or post-apocalyptic campaign.

Two iconic OSR adventures that have can have apocalyptic endings are Death Frost Doom and Deep Carbon Observatory, neither are railroads.

I've seen bad GMing in all kinds of campaigns: tedious sandboxes, railroaded dungeoncrawls, etc.

In my opinion, the issue is bad GMing, not any one campaign or adventure premise.

I tend to agree that the overarching issue is bad GMing. But what leads to it?

Thus, I also suspect that a GM that likes running a setting wouldn't want to trash it just because a given group was bad at dice rolling, strategy, avoidance, or whatever other failure of Player Characters might be encountered. The setting is the GM's "PC", after all, and we all know some people get really attached to their PCs...

So, it's not that the issue isn't bad GMing. The issue is "what style of campaign is more likely to make Bad GMing a tempting proposition"!

 

[Agemegos]

Hell, many a literary classic, from War & Peace to Sentimental Education are really historical fiction as they are set in the past of when they were written but often that fact is lost with older fiction where the average reader assumes they are narrating contemporary events, somehow.

Another example is The Three Musketeers, written about 1844 but with a (sketchily researched) setting in about 1625–28. It's famous as an adventure story and swashbuckler, and people seem now not to know or care that there were any significant differences between 1625 and 1844.

 

[Allen Varney]

In the first decade of the 20th Century there was a vogue in pop fiction for swashbuckling historical romances, often set in medieval France during the War of the Three Henrys (1585-89). The best and most popular of these were by English writer Stanley J. Weyman (1855-1928). I looked into the Weyman novels with an eye toward adapting and modernizing them, but I lost hope. Though Weyman was a skillful writer, he wrote with constant unconscious snobbery. I daresay no servant or lower-class character ever got a line of dialogue. Weyman's example shows how "historical" fiction is as much a product of its era as is fiction set in the author's own time.

FYI, the stakes in these swashbuckling novels were typically quite high, along the lines of Dumas and many roleplaying adventure. This was probably inevitable in stories concerned entirely with the fortunes of individual aristocrats.

 

[AsenRG]

In the first decade of the 20th Century there was a vogue in pop fiction for swashbuckling historical romances, often set in medieval France during the War of the Three Henrys (1585-89). The best and most popular of these were by English writer Stanley J. Weyman (1855-1928). I looked into the Weyman novels with an eye toward adapting and modernizing them, but I lost hope. Though Weyman was a skillful writer, he wrote with constant unconscious snobbery. I daresay no servant or lower-class character ever got a line of dialogue. Weyman's example shows how "historical" fiction is as much a product of its era as is fiction set in the author's own time.

FYI, the stakes in these swashbuckling novels were typically quite high, along the lines of Dumas and many roleplaying adventure. This was probably inevitable in stories concerned entirely with the fortunes of individual aristocrats.

Well, the fortunes of an individual aristocrat seldom count as "big stakes" for a PC party...

 

[Lofgeornost]

This true but a lot of fiction is historical without being identified as 'historical fiction' for a whole host of commercial, aesthetic and good ol' snobby reasons.

For instance, the vast majority of the great Cormac McCarthy novels are not set in the modern day but I've rarely seen them referred to as historical fiction.

Hell, many a literary classic, from War & Peace to Sentimental Education are really historical fiction as they are set in the past of when they were written but often that fact is lost with older fiction where the average reader assumes they are narrating contemporary events, somehow.

That’s definitely true and you can also find works that are clearly and defiantly historical, like O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin series, where mainstream reviewers are keen to say, ‘well, it’s got a historical setting but it’s not a historical novel…’ to avoid the taint. Also, there is naturally a sort of grey area of the recent past, or novels that follow a character’s life over decades ending now-ish.

Walter Scott comes to mind as well.

Another example is The Three Musketeers, written about 1844 but with a (sketchily researched) setting in about 1625–28. It's famous as an adventure story and swashbuckler, and people seem now not to know or care that there were any significant differences between 1625 and 1844.

This is no doubt an example of déformation professionelle on my part, but my mind boggles at the idea that anyone would not consider Scott’s works, or The Three Musketeers, to be historical novels. Scott did write at least one novel with a strictly contemporary setting and another with a very recent one (The Antiquary, which also had an author expy as a character), but beyond that all were set in the past and his reputation certainly was as a writer of historical fiction, in a day where that was not considered a bad thing. And even if The Three Musketeers is not well-researched (though Dumas did have the fictionalized memoirs of D’Artagnan to draw on) its world is so clearly not that of France in the 1840s that I can’t imagine mistaking one for the other.

 

[AsenRG]

This is no doubt an example of déformation professionelle on my part, but my mind boggles at the idea that anyone would not consider Scott’s works, or The Three Musketeers, to be historical novels. Scott did write at least one novel with a strictly contemporary setting and another with a very recent one (The Antiquary, which also had an author expy as a character), but beyond that all were set in the past and his reputation certainly was as a writer of historical fiction, in a day where that was not considered a bad thing. And even if The Three Musketeers is not well-researched (though Dumas did have the fictionalized memoirs of D’Artagnan to draw on) its world is so clearly not that of France in the 1840s that I can’t imagine mistaking one for the other.

As I said in another thread, I stopped saying "nobody would be fool enough to believe this" a couple years ago, when I found out about a certain society of like-minded individuals...

 

[Agemegos]

As I said in another thread, I stopped saying "nobody would be fool enough to believe this" a couple years ago, when I found out about a certain society of like-minded individuals...

Yesterday, while I was waiting for my turn to get my hair cut in a barbers’ shop, I got to llisten as a customer ahead of me went on at length (well, repetitiously) about how the fact that the stars aren’t different at different times of year disproves the heliocentric theory and proves that Earth is flat. When I got to a chair one of the barbers asked if I could explain why the stars aren’t different in different seasons. They are.

 

[AsenRG]

Yesterday, while I was waiting for my turn to get my hair cut in a barbers’ shop, I got to llisten as a customer ahead of me went on at length (well, repetitiously) about how the fact that the stars aren’t different at different times of year disproves the heliocentric theory and proves that Earth is flat. When I got to a chair one of the barbers asked if I could explain why the stars aren’t different in different seasons.

I see that 1) you guessed which like-minded individuals I mean and 2) your barber knows you to be an intelligent man!

 

[xanther]

I don't see how 'save the world' adventures are any more likely to be railroads.

Well failure is usually not a acceptable outcome to a GM. I have never been part of a game where tis was a "save the world" scenario where failure was an option. Plenty of dues ex GM to hand wave away failures that result in the world end. Also, was in a game once where there were other worlds, other planes, we as players thought well this world is done, on to the next, too much work to save it. None of that ever went over well, we had to save the world alternative reactions to this were nerfed...needless to say neve know if those worlds ever got saved as just stopped playing in those games.

In theory, no reason it needs to be any more of a railroad than any other goal. In practice, not really...and for reasons below.

One could say that they're played out and should only be used sparingly or they lose their sense of gravitas but I'm not seeing why they would need to be a railroad unless one so strictly defines a railroad as presenting any kind of goal to the PCs as a railroad.

I'd say there is no gravitas, as there can't be. Gravitas requires investment in the outcome.
If the setting/world matters to the GM (they are invested in it) they put their thumb on the scale, if the setting/world is throw away then the GM is not invested. Now it could be the players are invested in the world but the GM is not, but if the GM is not invested I 'm not going to be invested.

The difference with goals with lesser stakes is the GM does not need to be invested for them to matter. The GM is invested in the setting writ large, the players invested in doing things within it. In this way the GM does not have any incentive to tip the scales or even steer the players to achieving their goals, and in this way the players can know if they achieve their goals they did it by dint of their ability and their plans.

 

[Ravenswing]

Perhaps that means that historical RPG has a natural or ideal or perhaps expected place that is uncomfortably in between examples from historical fiction and examples from old adventure fiction.

A very interesting OP.

A good part of the dichotomy, of course, is that getting your work sold -- whether it be fiction or gamewriting -- needs to appeal to contemporary audiences. David Drake's fielded criticism of more than one work of his for (for instance) having Roman soldiers using English idiom with the retort that few of his readers and none of his editors speak classical Latin. A contemporary British work written in the 1930s might address the relative popularity of fascism and communism, and reflect the pervasive premise that the lower classes were inferior by definition ... something that wouldn't play to today's audience.

 

[sharps54]

Well failure is usually not a acceptable outcome to a GM.

Sorry for your experiences but I while I know some GMs that like to tell stories for the most part the groups I play with are fine letting the PCs fail

 

[PolarBlues]

Well failure is usually not a acceptable outcome to a GM. I have never been part of a game where tis was a "save the world" scenario where failure was an option.

Maybe utter failure isn't an option, it doesn't mean that there aren't meaningful choices, setbacks and loss along the way. In a normal game, as it sports, the end result is what really matters. Sure it helps if the match is also entertaining, but in the end it is a result orientated activity. Roleplaying games are a strange hybrid. They operate in a fuzzy no-man's land in which the end result can be as important to a player as a inconsequential conversation with a minor NPC. These priorites will vary from player to player.

And it's not even a question of scale. Failing to save the world can be as unacceptable as failing to rescue the children from a burning orphanage. I know with most characters I play while I may be comfortable turning down the opportunity to rob a tomb I am not sure if I want to be the character that left the orphan kids burn to death. And if I were to GM such a scenario, I'd certainly assume the kids would not get burned to a crisp but plan some alternate cost if the players struggle with the rescue.

 

[sharps54]

Maybe utter failure isn't an option, it doesn't mean that there aren't meaningful choices, setbacks and loss along the way. In a normal game, as it sports, the end result is what really matters. Sure it helps if the match is also entertaining, but in the end it is a result orientated activity. Roleplaying games are a strange hybrid. They operate in a fuzzy no-man's land in which the end result can be as important to a player as a inconsequential conversation with a minor NPC. These priorites will vary from player to player.

And it's not even a question of scale. Failing to save the world can be as unacceptable as failing to rescue the children from a burning orphanage. I know with most characters I play while I may be comfortable turning down the opportunity to rob a tomb I am not sure if I want to be the character that left the orphan kids burn to death. And if I were to GM such a scenario, I'd certainly assume the kids would not get burned to a crisp but plan some alternate cost if the players struggle with the rescue.

Sure there is always the chance Mighty Joe Young will happen on the fire and save the orphans but it seems to me you are cheating the PCs if you don’t allow them to fail. Going to your first comment why does the end result matter? What should matter is the emerging story around the PCs choices which may be totally different than the GM envisioned.

Take the orphanage. If the PCs don’t prioritize it or if they try and fail that will help the emerging story, although it may be a dark one with them being local outcasts. If the GM isn’t willing to let an orphanage burn up with the kids inside they shouldn’t introduce it in the game.

Edit to add what I mean isn’t you aren’t going to let those kids burn up don’t introduce it in the game because that predetermined decision is cheating the PCs and making them just pawns in your novel

 

[AsenRG]

Maybe utter failure isn't an option,...

I know with most characters I play while I may be comfortable turning down the opportunity to rob a tomb I am not sure if I want to be the character that left the orphan kids burn to death. And if I were to GM such a scenario, I'd certainly assume the kids would not get burned to a crisp but plan some alternate cost if the players struggle with the rescue.

...thus proving xanther 's point.

If the GM isn't willing to let an orphanage burn up with the kids inside they shouldn't introduce it in the game.

Yeah, this - or at least, don't have it catching fire!

Or, you know, make it clear from the beginning that it's not only the PCs who are moved and are going to try and help. Competing with other adventurers to see who's going to save more kids? Totally fine.
"You failed to save the kids? Ah well, the party of Mighty Psion* appears and saves them instead single-handedly" is, however, both cheating them of an outcome, and potentially worse: lame!


*Because there's no wizards nor clerics in this setting!

 

[PolarBlues]

Edit to add what I mean isn’t you aren’t going to let those kids burn up don’t introduce it in the game because that predetermined decision is cheating the PCs and making them just pawns in your novel

It's not cheating in my view because I am open about the stakes. I am not tricking the players into believing that the orphans will all die a horrible death. I will assure any player who is anxious about it that the kids will be OK regardless. It's more a question of the longer it takes, the more damage/fatigue the characters take or some other consequence, depending on the system and situation.

I am a soft GM. I tend to run non-gritty superhero and general comedy/adventure sorts of games. I am also a very transparent GM, with dice rolls in the open and I set out where necessary clear stakes for any challenging situation so that success and failure are never empty results. They just don't tend to include crispy, burnt orphans which sometimes means thinking about the situation more laterally. But that's me. If others prefer the intensity of games where the brutal boot of reality kicks you in the family jewels, that's cool too.

But whole point of the example is to show that unacceptable outcomes are not tied to scale (i.e. saving the world).

 

[AsenRG]

It's not cheating in my view because I am open about the stakes. I am not tricking the players into believing that the orphans will all die a horrible death. I will assure any player who is anxious about it that the kids will be OK regardless. It's more a question of the longer it takes, the more damage/fatigue the characters take or some other consequence, depending on the system and situation.

That's cool by me. It's still limiting the range of outcomes, but at least it's honest.

But whole point of the example is to show that unacceptable outcomes are not tied to scale (i.e. saving the world).

Actually, you proved the opposite in your previous post, sorry. Because saving the world gives you an automatic unacceptable outcome - which isn't the case in a lower-scale campaign!

I mean, both can have a burning orphanage sidequests, but only one of them starts with a core task that already has an unacceptable range of outcomes.
Whereas, if you start with a lower-scale premise, you can just avoid having sidequests with unacceptable outcomes, like the aforementioned orphanage. And it's not even giving plot protection to the orphanage... Maybe the fucking orphanage even did burn down, and the locals saved the kids off-screen, while the PCs were away!

 

[xanther]

Sorry for your experiences but I while I know some GMs that like to tell stories for the most part the groups I play with are fine letting the PCs fail

No need to be sorry for my experience, it be only a game... I played with many a game where the GM let's the PCs fail, and would say that all the GMs I played with are happy to let the PCs fail. What many GMs are not OK with are letting their story fail, which can take many forms from saving the PCs to killing them. That's the distinction.

When the GM becomes invested in the story they have for the PCs, when the GM has a pre-conceived outcome they are invested in (it doesn't need to be don't let my campaign setting be destroyed by this world ending plot I've crafted) then it's "all aboard the railroad express!"

I exaggerate, but not much. A "save the world" plot is almost guaranteed to have the GM seek to avoid failure of their story, but I've also seen it with commercial adventure paths, after all they spent all this money and time on this thing so we are getting to the final act by hook or crook.

 

[xanther]

.... I am not sure if I want to be the character that left the orphan kids burn to death. And if I were to GM such a scenario, I'd certainly assume the kids would not get burned to a crisp but plan some alternate cost if the players struggle with the rescue.

If such a situation arose organically sure, but would never set it up, i.e. there is going to be a fire and the orphans will be in danger and the PCs are their primary means of rescue. I find that kind of cheap and contrived, at best, and any cost if such a situation arose organically and they failed would be what the setting would impose.

 

[xanther]

...If the GM isn’t willing to let an orphanage burn up with the kids inside they shouldn’t introduce it in the game.

Edit to add what I mean isn’t you aren’t going to let those kids burn up don’t introduce it in the game because that predetermined decision is cheating the PCs and making them just pawns in your novel

Exactly

 

[Triumvir]

To the extent there is a difference in theme between old fiction and historic fiction, I suspect this is because historic fiction is likely to be genre fiction, in a similar way to fantasy or scifi. Meaning the focus is more likely to be on concrete events rather than exploring the characters' inner worlds. So, it's natural for the writer to choose for those events to be on a grander scale.

Having said that, I can think of historic fiction that is done on a smaller canvas. To take a random example because I happen to have read it recently, CJ Sansom's "Winter in Madrid". The period choice might reflect a variety of artistic considerations. In this case, as an interesting setting for a fairly small-stakes thriller.

Or the author might choose to set a more literary tale in the past because they are interested in the inner worlds of people who lived at that time, as Tolstoy did in War and Peace.

But... not sure what any of this adds up to for RPGing. While I won't say no-one has ever set up a campaign to emulate literary fiction, it must be vanishingly rare. As in, a game in the Napoleonic Wars in Russia is likely to be about cavalry charges and spying on Napoleon rather than an incredibly insightful exploration of a young girl's feelings at her first grand society ball.

 

[PolarBlues]

If such a situation arose organically sure, but would never set it up, i.e. there is going to be a fire and the orphans will be in danger and the PCs are their primary means of rescue. I find that kind of cheap and contrived, at best, and any cost if such a situation arose organically and they failed would be what the setting would impose.

That's OK. "Cheap and contrived" is my stock-in-trade. But as I said before, I am transparent about it. There is no illusion, trick or cheating involved.

 

[sharps54]

That's OK. "Cheap and contrived" is my stock-in-trade. But as I said before, I am transparent about it. There is not illusion, trick or cheating involved.

And honestly, if that’s the kind of game you and your group likes that is what you should be doing! Don’t let us tell you that you are playing wrong, we aren’t even there.

I’m in a group that is playing through Wrath of the Righteous, a railroad if there was ever one, and we have been playing for over a year. That said the group is great, the GM is dynamic and we enjoy the time spent together. Plenty of people would poo poo Pathfinder (including me for character creation and advancement) and the railroad of an adventure path but the fun at the table is the thing and it’s worth it to us.