Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games - Jennifer Grouling Cover [37]
Another computer game player articulates the story in these terms:
The Temple of Elemental Evil is a story in three parts. The first part is when the party arrives at this town marauded upon by bandits. The bandits, it turns out, are minions who are working for this cult, who are raising missing people into zombies. The party explores and defeats the bandits in the ruins of a castle and discovers a link to an ancient temple. This temple is the nexus point of the next story. The players travel into the swamps where they find a town full of corruption that they can rest in when not adventuring inside the temple. The temple itself is a multilayer death trap filled with bandits and unique monsters, and is gathering energies from four separate groups of cultist all worshiping the promise of power that a demon in its depths brings. The party eventually defeats the cultists, but in doing so, they accidentally unleash the demon. In order to stop the demon they must travel to four pockets of elemental evils to gather the items that can rebind and destroy the demon forever. And really, that’s it in a nutshell.
Despite both of these participants having played the CRPG version of Temple, these accounts seem to have little in common with each other. The first focuses almost entirely on the back-story of Zuggtmoy’s capture and the evil forces of the temple regaining power. The second entry begins with the player character’s entrance and follows their progression through the events that happen in the videogame from the bandits in the moathouse, to the temple itself, and on to the exploration of the four elemental nodes that leads to the defeat of Zuggtmoy. Yet, both bring up key locations and characters that repeat through the Temple texts. Interestingly, none of the accounts point to the possibility of multiple endings. In the computer game, for example, the player has the choice to join Zuggtmoy rather than defeat her. In the re-telling, all accounts erase the traces of interactivity and the choices involved.
Although not all players could relate the story of Temple, only a few had never heard of it. Since my survey did not target D&D players specifically, but role-players in general, it may be that these players were more familiar with alternative TRPGs. Even so, it was a small percentage. In the world of D&D players, it could be said that knowing Temple carries a certain amount of social capital. It signals gamers who have been around awhile, since the original module was released nearly twenty-five years ago, and those who are familiar with the lore of the D&D universe. Being familiar with Temple does not necessarily equate to a nostalgic view of a great legendary story, though. Multiple survey participants expressed a dislike for the early module, and some for D&D in general. A participant who had only heard about Temple states, “My fellow told me horror stories about the excruciating deaths that happened as he played through the Temple module. I have no desire to play it.” Another player who had only heard of it, says, “It’s just Gygax being the party-killing GM he’s always reported as being.” Another, who had played both modules and the computer game, goes so far as to say, “It was D&D—a mechanics hackfest, not role-playing.” Even some who refer to it in more positive terms seem to emphasize the combat aspects over the narrative. A player who was familiar with both modules and the computer version called Temple “a multi-part adventure that culminated in one of the best dungeon crawls ever.” Temple seems legendary for the challenges it presented in terms of game combat, perhaps even to the point of being the type of adventure where survival of a character is a legendary accomplishment in itself.
Nevertheless, the survey shows a variety of responses, some of which do focus more on plot, characters or setting. One participant who had not played Temple in at least 20 years did not recall the overarching story, but did recall losing a