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Nar not Sim!
May. 9th, 2006 09:42 pm25 Apr 06
Fool’s Fate - Robin Hobb - Voyager, 2003
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There is a website called The Forge that hosts a learned discussion on the theory of role-playing games. It defines three styles of play - gamist, where the aim is to “level up” or achieve some other metric of character development by overcoming in-game challenges; sim, where players attempt to simulate a working fantasy world; and narrativism or dramatism, where the purpose is to tell a satisfying story. The same analytical framework can, I think, be applied to books, and doing so provides an interesting explanation of the phenomenon of big-name fantasy author’s bloat that has afflicted the likes of J.K. Rowling, Gene Wolfe and now, I am sorry to say, Robin Hobb.
( Read more... )
Fool’s Fate - Robin Hobb - Voyager, 2003
* *
There is a website called The Forge that hosts a learned discussion on the theory of role-playing games. It defines three styles of play - gamist, where the aim is to “level up” or achieve some other metric of character development by overcoming in-game challenges; sim, where players attempt to simulate a working fantasy world; and narrativism or dramatism, where the purpose is to tell a satisfying story. The same analytical framework can, I think, be applied to books, and doing so provides an interesting explanation of the phenomenon of big-name fantasy author’s bloat that has afflicted the likes of J.K. Rowling, Gene Wolfe and now, I am sorry to say, Robin Hobb.
( Read more... )