Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games - Jennifer Grouling Cover [49]
However, modules can also be played in their entirety, and they offer some narrative passages within the preprinted text. Most modules have sections of text that are meant to be read aloud to players, and it seems that this might be a good place to look for a more narrative structure. Returning to the idea that in linguistic narratives the narrator takes a longer turn of talk, we might be tempted to say that these sections set aside for DMs to read aloud are narrative passages. An analysis of these passages finds that they are often almost exclusively description. The following excerpt from one of these passages in the module shows the detail often used in the description of space:
As you approach the Temple area, the vegetation is disconcerting— dead trees with a skeletal appearance, scrub growth twisted and unnaturally colored, all unhealthy and sickly looking or exceptionally robust and disgusting. The ruins of the Temple’s outer works appear as dark and overgrown mounds of gray rubble and blackish weeds. Skulls and bones of humans and humanoids gleam white here and there amidst the weeds. [...] Everything surrounding the place is disgusting. The myriad leering faces and twisting, contorted forms writhing and posturing on every face of the Temple seem to jape at the obscenities they depict. The growth in the compound is rank and noisome. Thorns clutch, burrs stick, and crushed stems either emit foul stench or raise angry weals on exposed flesh. Worst of all, however, is the pervading fear which seems to hang over the whole area—a smothering, clinging, almost tangible cloud of vileness and horror [Gygax & Mentzer, 1985, p. 35–36].
The deliberate break from gameplay for oral description calls attention to setting in the TRPG, but does it create a narrative?
Just as these descriptive interludes may be considered a break from normal gameplay in the TRPG, descriptive utterances have often been considered separate from narrative. This claim exists on the premise that description does not seem to need to follow a particular order, whereas in narrative there are causal connections between events. However, as Meir Sternberg (1981) points out, the relationship between description and narrative is extremely complex. According to Sternberg (1981), “description is no more doomed to disorder than a narrative of events” (p. 65).
Often, the descriptions given by the DM in D&D are chronologically organized. If we return to the story of the orcs from the Sorpraedor campaign, we find that the order of the description does establish a narrative order.
You approach the Blaze Arrow outpost. The bastion that guards the frontier of the city of Gateway is silent except for the distant cry of gathering carrion birds. You notice that the ground around the outpost has been scarred by the hobnailed feet of dozens of invaders. The three story tower is surrounded by a now broken gate. The smell of burning orcish flesh, the smell of death, profanes the air. As you enter the gate, you find the remains of a ballista that once defended the outpost. Another rests farther in, still fully loaded, its human operator dead beside it. All in all, twelve human bodies lie around, evidence of the attack that took place only hours ago. It appears the victors have suffered losses as well, but their dead have undergone the cremation rituals known to exist in orcish societies. There are also orc bodies piled up and smoldering. Yet the process seems to have been done quickly and was perhaps not completed. Some remains