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Buried Giant: Themes and role-playing
Buried Giant struck me as, well, not very heroic for a story which is clearly grounded on heroic story-telling. At the same time, I don't think I would say it is about an anti-hero either. Quite a few of the characters are heroic, or are going to be, whether they are goodies or baddies. This is because the themes of our relation as patients of forgetfulness and extinction are not so often dealt with in this or any other genre. I think this thematic paradox explains in part how Ishiguro generated the tension that makes a good story work.
That said, how could these be played? What would it be like to role-play one of these characters in a game? Or is this book finally not a source for role-playing?
Comments
I thought the themes were the strongest part of the story - it's good to see ideas about memory, its transience and ability to become lost and subverted being explored. I couldn't really say much about gaming, but surely it would be difficult to GM? How do you tell your players that they have forgotten the background to something which they have already learned somehow? I wasn't drawn to identify with any of the characters here, and so (for example) wouldn't be interested in reading a spin-off story about any of them, presupposing that Ishiguro ever wants to do that... which I doubt
One can understand good stories as having three elements. There's the external, "procedural" actions that take place, the sorts of things that can be observed and recorded: a dungeon crawl, a conversation. Actions and obstacles. There's the internal beliefs of characters and how they change: world view, morals, relationships. Then there's the overall theme, what the story as a whole says about the reader's world.
RPGs traditionally emphasise the external actions, like fighting and talking. That's where much of the mechanics lies. The inner life of characters is often de-emphasised, sometimes neglected, so that the characters become mere pawns and the RPG similar to a boardgame. Theme is rarely addressed deliberately: there was some in discussion of Narrativism at the Forge, but that was mostly about discovering theme in play.
I'll argue that pulp novels emphasise the external actions and don't dwell on inner life that much. I think "genre fiction" fits near that end of the spectrum too. This book is all about the theme: I think the theme came first, and the characters and events were built as vehicles to explore that theme.
That means it will be very hard craft a play experience like this in a TTRPG session. Some of the Nordic-style larps would get closer. I don't know much about that space, but games like "Montsegur 1244" and "Rosentrasse" seem a middle ground that I'd like to explore. (These are games with fixed plots and characters, designed for short, intense periods of play. The sequence of scenes is fixed to address the games' themes. What happens in those scenes is decided in play.)
Having read the Wikipedia article about the book, I think Neil is right to conclude that theme came first in this book, and everything else second. So yes, the theme comes across strongly, and I think it's an interesting one, about memory, and how it plays with who we are, but also how who we are plays with memory.
You could definitely bring this about in an RPG, but most likely you'll only get enough legs from this to run a one-shot or maybe a 3-session arch. In fact, I've often had thoughts of doing something similar. Characters who don't remember who they are are best done as (a) pregens, made by the GM, who can periodically reveal facts about the character as play progresses, or (b) random generation, where at certain trigger points, the character 'discovers' something about herself (i.e. generates a new trait). I'm not aware of any games that specifically do this, but it can certainly be done.
You can also tie this in with personality. Personality mechanics do exist in some games, like the passions in Pendragon/Mythras, or the Pillars of Sanity in Trail of Cthulhu, for example. Personality traits are also often used in games with loosely-defined stats, like PDQ or Hero Quest or Fate.
To tie the two mechanisms together, each time a 'personality trait' is tested successfully, you could reveal a new characteristic or skill of the character - or even change the personality trait. We did something like this successfully in a Trail of Cthulhu scenario I ran set in India, in which one of the characters had the belief that 'There is a man for every job.' When this was tested by giving a very distasteful job, the player changed the trait to 'Some jobs are fit for no man'.
All that said, I generally agree with Neil that most games focus on the physical aspects, and that 'Adventure' (or sometimes 'Survival') seems to be the extent of the theme-mongering.
I wonder if this relation of the relative importance of theme and action is a profound, or structural, difference between listening / reading and playing. Or maybe a civilisational difference. While watching sports I don't explicitly think of the defender as listening to the attacker, and compliment them on their listening skills when they break the play, pitchers and batters etc., but it seems it might be there. The spectator who is tuned in to that is watching a different game from the person who watches the ball.
> . While watching sports I don't explicitly think of the defender as listening to the attacker, and compliment them on their listening skills when they break the play, pitchers and batters etc., but it seems it might be there. The spectator who is tuned in to that is watching a different game from the person who watches the ball.
You see this a lot in cricket (which I appreciate may not be the sport you most immediately think of
In the book we see this in the few sword fights, which are largely over in seconds because one of the assailants completely tricks the other into a faulty move - they lose the thread of what's happening and so lose the combat.
That idea of listening as a part of interaction is a basic technique of RPGs, I think. In Improv it's described as accepting offers and building on them, the "Yes, and" approach to interaction.
But just that, I think, gets you nowhere near theme-centric RPGs. In a theme-centric RPG, who defines the theme? Is it created before the game starts, or is it discovered in play?
Another game that could do theme-centric play is Microscope (and similar, like Kingdom and Downfall). In Microscope, you can direct elements of play towards themes, even if they're not articulated. Kingdom and Downfall are games directed at a particular theme. (Come to think about it, there are plenty of games that speak to a particular theme).
Primetime Adventures gives primacy to a characters' Issues, and you could connect them so the various Issues all address a particular theme.
Sorry, to clarify I meant listening on the part of the PCs, not the players. RPGs have a second layer of play over participant games and sports in that the the PCs are playing, and so are the players, and that makes a much more complex work to harmonise, especially as an improvised composition as maybe RPG play is. OTOH at least some musicians are capable of it, so with enough practice I suppose a group could over time become skilled enough to do it.
I think one of the reasons Ishiguro's book leaves a mark is because of how the harmony of the theme works over the length of the book. As @Apocryphal says it might not be feasible to make a theme other than episodic combat work over a long form. Maybe all themes need to have an episodic character to fit play-session length.
> Sorry, to clarify I meant listening on the part of the PCs, not the players. RPGs have a second layer of play over participant games and sports in that the the PCs are playing, and so are the players, and that makes a much more complex work to harmonise, especially as an improvised composition as maybe RPG play is. OTOH at least some musicians are capable of it, so with enough practice I suppose a group could over time become skilled enough to do it.
>
Wouldn't that be true of actors as well (stage or film/TV) - the characters are interacting, and the actors are also interacting?
I'm sorry, I'm obviously missing your point. How is "musicians collectively improvising a composition" not "jazz" (or "jamming")? Jazz and improvisation are not deep musical skills.
Similarly, actors improvise. The Monty Python "Cheese shop" sketch is a basic Improv exercise where the actors play a role and have a coherent conversation, but the exercise is actually about the actors attending to the other actor's portrayal of status and trying to match how it changes through the scene.
I'm fairly convinced you're saying something else here, but I don't know what.
I don't think it's a question of deep or shallow, it's a question of training and skill, with maybe some talent in the mix.
I think you grok what I'm saying. If the game mechanics are like an instrument, how many good musicians don't know the capabilities and techniques of the instrument? And isn't a good musician someone who can play any piece musically on their instrument, both respecting and transcending its limitations? So I guess the question I'm raising is whether RPGs just can't play the notes required, or if it's a question of the skill of the players.
Sure. But my analogy is more about the tripartite relation of players, PCs, and game system, which is like a tool to write a script, not a script itself. It's more about the difference between stage, movies, and TV, all of which are live action, but are different modes. My question is why are the RPG scripts made by and for the system seem to be always the same thing over and over, when what inspired it is so much richer?
> My question is why are the RPG scripts made by and for the system seem to be always the same thing over and over, when what inspired it is so much richer?
Ah right, I see better now. My guess is that it must vary a lot with the mood of the players. Most of my RPG experience comes from years ago, back in my teens or very early 20s. The way we approached gaming then was, to be honest, highly superficial, and I don't think we would have appreciated anything much richer than the same old thing.
That started to change as we explored different settings and more complicated backgrounds, but we didn't engage with any of the emerging systems that differed from beginning with half a dozen character traits, followed by lots of dice rolling with pluses and minuses against lots of tables. Part of the reason for stopping was an awareness that that mode of play was ultimately very unsatisfying, and as a group we failed to keep up with changes in approach (plus we all drifted apart with other life changes like university and such like).
All of which is to say that I'm sure players and GMs approach gaming in general, and a specific session in particular, with a wide range of inventiveness or the reverse, and that if you're pushed for time and energy, it's easier to follow a well-trodden path
I think RPGs, as a medium, can "play the notes requried". There are plenty of games (Nordic LARPs, and any number of games on itch.io) that are built around a particular "theme" or "play experience". If you play this game, it will address a particular idea. For instance, the game Campfire Memories is about making memories on a family camping trip then reframing them when you reminisce. Rosenstrasse is about marriage, gender roles, and love vs hate (it's a game of Jewish men married to gentile women in 1930s Germany, and how the men were arrested and the women got them released).
An issue with this style of game, that I see, is that these are tight games focused on a particular theme. If you want to explore that theme, play the game. If you want to explore a different theme, you'll need a different game.
What I've seen much less often are games that are about exploring themes, but allow the players to create that theme at the table. It could be that the chain of influence goes from surface actions to character goals to character issues and emotional needs to story theme, and RPGs so far have concentrated on those surface actions. Even older techniques like conflict resolution (that resolve goals not actions) aren't part of everyone's toolkit.