Ah! But I’m getting a super interesting counterpoint in sidebar.

So in film and books, we are fundamentally outside the experience. We’re watching characters do things. Doing things might be advancing a plot, or it might be a way to illustrate the emotional arc of the character.

Novels are better at the internal stuff because you can have monologues, or omniscient points of view. Movies also, obviously, can and frequently offer character development as the main emphasis, the reason we’re consuming the experience. So I’m not talking about whether a movie can be character-driven or if a novel can be plot-driven. They can be both. Duh.

But! So we have an RPG, yeah? And I think we have a similar (oversimplified) kind of split. There are plot-driven ttrpgs: can you solve the problem, beat the monster, save the world? And there are character-driven ttrpgs: will the protagonist choose love over duty, will she find redemption or become a monster, etc.

Second but! But but! We also have a whole swath of games that seek to invoke specific feels: anxiety, fear, remorse, joy maybe. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that lots of games really don’t care about player feels. But that can only happen in the RPG medium, that intersection of agency and emotional state. I’m feeling bummed out reading Station 11 right now because I’m sad for the characters. But I’m not sad for me.

So I think it’s kind of misleading to degrade all of RPGs as “characters doing things.” I mean they are doing things, but why? Sometimes it’s to carry out a plot. Sometimes it’s to provide the player a chance to feel clever and accomplished. Sometimes doing things is to make you feel things.