Jane:
> We've already discussed this, and I don't see the point you're
> trying to make here. In-Character writing to express internal
> feelings, such as "hate Lunars", "love mother", "easily unnerved
> by blonde women", whatever. Either it's internal dialogue, or
> you end up with someone standing there expressing their innermost
> feeling to some NPC, or to a wall, which probably isn't all
> that appropriate. "To be, or not to be", is great writing, but
> the realism is limited by the constraints of a stage. None of
> it would have been spoken aloud.
In cinematic format, the audience sometimes sees a short flashback to memories of the acting characters, but these again delivered in "Saga Style" - matter-of-fact depictions. Sometimes the camera switches to an ego perspective, but mostly it is total, too.
I suppose it depends strongly on the medium you're using for game-play, too. In face-to-face gaming, enjoyment depends on the pace of the game. Minor contests get resolved because the outcome may have an amusing or interesting influence on the game-flow.
In PBEM, both narrator and players attempt to keep the number of messages per scene as small as possible. The "why" of character behaviour becomes as important as the "how". Memory flashbacks, expression of emotions and attitudes get communicated which in face-to-face mode would interrupt game flow. In PBEM, the same snippets are meta-information for the narrator to extrapolate character behaviour.
>> One style of book, at least. You're assuming an omniscient >> viewpoint, I believe.
> No, most books I read the viewpoint is internal to one of the
> characters, possibly swaps between different characters. So
> you get the internal feelings of that one, plus the bias they
> put on the events they're viewing.
How do you communicate these in a face-to-face gaming situation? Most of the character doubts, fears or emotions remain unstated, only the action will be "on the table".
> Now swap viewpoints, get the bias of a different character on
> the same events, learn about both of them from it (and possibly
> about the events). That sort of thing.
> Assuming we're talking about fiction, not history, of course.
Even there a subset only - theatre plays, radio plays, dialogue based fiction all have little to no internal dialogue.
>> In any case, I will now confess that I make the campaign sagas. I >> only have time to do so during the game. And their purpose is to >> keep track of what happened.
> Yes, that was very clear. As I said at the start of all this, this
> is comment, not criticism, quite obviously in the case of your
> campaign chronicles they're not readable fiction because that was
> never their intention. They just mirrored the "Saga Style" so
> perfectly that they could be used as an example of it.
Then why are you asking about the purpose of a saga?
> In fact, they're heading towards the AngloSaxon Chronicle, in
> places. "And in this year XXX and YY fought at ZZZ, MMM died,
> and there was plague in Britain and Ireland." And one goes "huh?
> Who was on which side? Was the death connected with the battle,
> why, why...?" but the purpose is simply to remind the reader
> which year we're talking about, by reference to (then)
> well-known events.
"It happened when Cyrenius was governor in Syria..."
not limited to saga style, really. "Once upon a time" a bit less vague.
> Wonders to self - what was the purpose of those Sagas?
Remember who wrote them, in what climate. Sagas are the stuff to while away the long winter dark with. I imagine the written material was supposed to be interrupted by the audience with questions. Snorri makes a strong distinction between scaldic verses - not to be interrupted, of sacred or magical quality - and prosa recounting the facts.
Some sagas are teaching history or myth. Egil's Saga and Snorri's Heimskringla and Edda fall in this category. Settlement sagas (early Iceland, Greenland, Vinland) as well. In a way, this is Prosopaedia information wrapped into a narrative.
Some sagas are parables for the society that produced them. Gisli Saga and Njal's Saga are prime examples of how revenge destroys society. Interestingly, they are presented without any hint of "don't do this". Rather "if you do this, know what you might be facing". Laxdaela saga is a forerunner of the great family epics of 19th and 20th century literature (and cinema).
A few sagas are quite humorous, if in a queer way. Sagas invented famous last words:
: Then Thormod took the tongs, and pulled the iron : out; but on the iron there was a hook, at which there hung some : morsels of flesh from the heart, -- some white, some red. When : he saw that, he said, "The king has fed us well. I am fat, even : at the heart-roots;" and so saying he leant back, and was dead.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Heimskringla/haraldson8.html
: Gizur looked at him and said, "Well, is Gunnar at home?
: "Find that out for yourselves," said Thorgrim; "but this I am : sure of, that his bill is at home," and with that he fell down : dead.
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/epics/TheStoryofBurntNjal/chap76.html
All of them are meant to be entertaining, as well. If you spend the dark season in a wooden house without radio, newspaper or more modern means, gathering to a reading of sagas _is_ entertaining. Gossip does run out after a while. Grandfathers boasting does, too.
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