A novel with no main character.

[Select]

If you purely base things off of player interaction then what's the point in having a plot at all? It's just one interchangeable event after another that players react to, then interact. Is this a roleplaying game forum? I'm fine with it, it's just not what I expected.

[Hellis]

Game does not have in the slightest to do with narrative or plot to begin with. Game is something with a set of rules, a set of mechanics and player that utilize them. The very definiton of game works against the idea of aplot to begin with. Second, RPG on paper may have a plot, but is ultimately the players vs the GM's antagonist or the GM's setting. Roleplaying is not a movie, nor a book. A protagonist that alienates everyone for the sake of plot is detrimetral. A GM is there to help give direction and purpose. Be it trough events or plot. If one lacks to understand this, then one should just write a book.

[Select]

Thank you for explaining the concepts of narrative, plot, protagonist, game, and roleplaying. Concepts which I had no prior knowledge of.

[Hellis]

YOu bolded "game". Like it had importance to plot. I saw the most obvius context and commented on it. I also with as short of explenation I possibly could muster, explained why again, plot is in the end just a tool for the players to get their asses in gear if needed. There is an entire thread on that, wherein Brovo, a esteemed member of our community explains way better then I ever could. In the end you roleplay to write a character and dictate his actions. The game part is less relevant to these kind of mediums as this is forum where dice and what not really ttake to long. We freeform, meaning we do away with alot of the game aspect in that regard. Instead you have nothing but your character, within limited set of mechanichs, usually set by a GM. These restrictions become one of the things to help us shape fitting character for said GM's universe and general Idea. Different GM's do this differently. I cherish character interaction, i like to delve deep into the characters motivations and personality to see how others act with him. Never once since coming here have I tried to take center stage because to me, the players all must play equal part. They may root for their own character. But most time I find them take a liking to others characters due to the players being well written. So they interact in a effort that is essentially collaborative storytelling with me tugging the reigns ever so often to remind them of the big bad, or the crisis or what have you. The game aspect comes in the form or reactions and consequences that I determine from their actions and itneractiosn with the environment and the NPC's.

Everyone's a protagonist, everyone can relate, everyone interacts, everyone have a active part of the RP's outcome. That to me is by far the best way to enjoy a rp.

[Tzarima]

I see no problem with having a novel with no real main character where the characters are on more equal ground. I would actually like to see that, it sounds interesting. I tend to work the other way around myself, I try to make something like an adventure group like you have in tabletop RPGs but usually one or two chars become my favorites, the get developed more and the story gets a main character anyway and I have to put in an effort to keep the story about a group. Many of my own OC would work badly in rp for that reason, they are mains in their own setting, and a main character can get away with more before falling into 'mary sue' traps. DnD or any tabletop RPG has to be balanced because you have many heroes and if one is more important that is no fun for everyone else. A video game based on DnD (or any RPG video game) does not have to be because you have a main character for whom it's okay to be a little over powered. All of this is probably obvious and I don't think I've actually added anything aside from giving a one-sentence answer to your question. So yeah, I think an RP might work well as a book, and many equal characters may very well make it easier for readers to find at least one they identify well with.

[Kestrel]

If you purely base things off of player interaction then what's the point in having a plot at all? It's just one interchangeable event after another that players react to, then interact.

The connection between these events weave together the so-called 'plot.' If there's a predetermined idea, you can give people direction through various means. Take note however, that controlling were a story goes completely by oneself usually falls under railroading (when done by the GM) and/or godmoding. Railroading and godmoding are both frowned upon. To give a game 'direction,' it's important to know the difference between hinting and forcing someone's hand, so to speak. Of course, this also means control is limited. Or rather; a shared responsibility.

The reason things fold out like this is because that 'everyone wants to be the main character' concept touched upon earlier. We already have a greater demand of players and offer of games than the vice versa, so if no game would allow for a person to at least feel as their own main character... Well, crash and burn. 'tis a buyer's market.

[Unlit]

I understand why most novels have a single main character, it gives the reader an easier time connecting with the character, but why is there not a larger market for books where the plot is the main object and a cast of characters is used to tell the story of the plot? Also, do you think it would be easier or harder to write a successful book with no main character? (Note: I do not think my book will be successful, or even finished. I have a habit of only sticking with solo projects for a month or two...)

A second point is that RPs, while obviously inherently different from novels or other written mediums, often have pretty amazing and well thought out plots. While an RP would not be suitable to release as a novel without major editing, do you think that a novel based on the general plot and characters of an RP could work? Obviously this would be a story with no main character, which is why I am including this question here.

To begin with, I wonder if you'd allow me to adjust your way of thinking just a bit. Instead of viewing it as "one main character or no main characters," would it be unreasonable to think of it as "one main character or several main characters"? Or even better: "one point of view or many points of view."

Kind of ironically, I started a creative writing class this semester, and one of the first things tasked to read about in the textbook was Conflict in Fiction. In that section was also the impact of multiple main characters on the conflict of the story. Now this author of this textbook believes that for every main character you have in a story, you also need conflict, a crisis, falling action, and a resolution for each character. So... for every additional main character you add, you quadruple the amount of threads you need to keep up with.

Using Game of Thrones, for example... all the rising action in the books lead to certain climaxes for each character.

Spoilers below, if you've never read the first book.

The climax for Arya - seeing her father die.
The climax for Jon - running away from the Night's Watch, only to come back and accept his duty
The climax for Daenerys - being burnt and her dragons being born
The climax for Catelyn - seeing her son declared King in the North
Etc, etc.

So writing for many points of view is probably always going to be a little more intensive than writing for just one. Just how it stacks up. More to keep track of. Evidently, readers will expect to see progressions of conflict and climaxes for all the points of view. However, I don't think one point of view versus many points of view impacts the success of a story at all. That's all dependent upon how entertaining these points of view are and how well you write them.

And I, personally, don't think you should feel hesitant at all comparing the plotting done in roleplay to the plotting done for a personal story. What is entertaining for a group of roleplayers also has a chance of being entertaining to a group of readers (as in... textual roleplayers are also readers/writers - if they were not entertained by what they read and write in a game here, they'll go somewhere else, right?)

Here's one article relative. Roleplaying for Writers. One quote in particular I thought should bolster the sense you are on a favorable track here...

When you’re writing a story, you take on the role of both the player/s and the Storyteller. You design the premise, plot and antagonists as well as the character/s. Then you build all the elements into a story.

Role-playing lets you practice each of those roles individually, which in turn helps you think about them as individual roles when you’re writing.

Here's another couple of links about some roleplayers that went on to publish some things. Roleplaying and Self-Publishing and From Role Playing to Author. Take a look at some of the work these people had to go through to adopt roleplaying ideas to novel writing. And then realize that it's silly to assume that you could just take a roleplay from somewhere like this forum and publish it as a novel. Just as it is silly to assume that I could take some story I threw together on a whim for myself and make it into a novel. In the same way a typical author has to extensively plan and edit his/her writing to make it adequate for a novel, these roleplayers had to plan and edit their roleplaying into a cohesive story, editing in their case that included weaving the parts that were roleplayed seamlessly into the parts that were not.

But anyway, there's a little food for thought, as well as my opinion. I've got a ton of links relative to this kind of thing stashed away if you're interested enough to want to see more.

Game does not have in the slightest to do with narrative or plot to begin with. Game is something with a set of rules, a set of mechanics and player that utilize them. The very definiton of game works against the idea of aplot to begin with. Second, RPG on paper may have a plot, but is ultimately the players vs the GM's antagonist or the GM's setting. Roleplaying is not a movie, nor a book. A protagonist that alienates everyone for the sake of plot is detrimetral. A GM is there to help give direction and purpose. Be it trough events or plot. If one lacks to understand this, then one should just write a book.

Well... Super Mario Brothers has a plot. Halo has a plot (I think, never played it). Skyrim, a plot. Most games I can think of are riddled with plot, actually. Unless you're thinking of games like tic-tac-toe or Monopoly, but I don't believe they can be compared to forum roleplaying. And then, consider 1x1 roleplays. If you're trying to compare a 1x1 roleplay to a game, the comparison fails. A 1x1 is typically two writers writing a story together, not competing against a GM or other players or whatever.

Plot isn't anything you can get away from in a written roleplay, really. It's not an on/off switch. It's not optional. It's the other side of the coin to Character. Characters are irrelevant without plot, just as plot is irrelevant without characters. But to clarify, I see two kinds of plotting in roleplay. There is the pre-determined plotting that a GM does, typically milestones or whatnot set for players to work toward. Then there is plot that unfolds, created and determined almost post by post by the action of the characters. Many games utilize both. Plot is the question of "So... now what?" that a GM or player answers by progressing the story. I don't see how a roleplay can function if that question is never addressed at some point.

[guinness]

Unlit those links are pretty awesome. Would you mind pming me any other links on the subject?

I understand why most novels have a single main character, it gives the reader an easier time connecting with the character, but why is there not a larger market for books where the plot is the main object and a cast of characters is used to tell the story of the plot? Also, do you think it would be easier or harder to write a successful book with no main character? (Note: I do not think my book will be successful, or even finished. I have a habit of only sticking with solo projects for a month or two...)

Personally characters will always make a break a story for me. A plot can be fantastic, but if the characters are dull or flat then I have a hard time caring about it. The plot itself can really only get you so far, the characters have to make it come alive, creating a connection with the reader. This can be down without a main character, Dean Koontz as an example has done it quite a few times in his stand alone works.

How easy it is to write really depends on you, but I imagine it would be far harder. The reason being that a majority of the characters or view points you present need to be well rounded and interesting. If they are bland or mere plot devices to forward the plot than the reader is more than likely going to become disinterested.

A second point is that RPs, while obviously inherently different from novels or other written mediums, often have pretty amazing and well thought out plots. While an RP would not be suitable to release as a novel without major editing, do you think that a novel based on the general plot and characters of an RP could work? Obviously this would be a story with no main character, which is why I am including this question here.

I can't see why it can't be, provided you tweak it like you said. The problem with adapting a rp into a novel is that you may not be able to portray some of the characters as well as the person that created them.

[Hellis]

Unlit: You Missed the point of the post in its entirety. She highlighted game. As If plot was relavant to games. It is not. in the slightest. Vedeogames are unique medium, thats a blend of different media while on top of that being a game. It is not pure gameplay, or atleast. Very rarely. A Game however, always refers to the component of a Roleplaying GAME or a Video GAME that is all mechanichs and Gameplay. Plots come into the Roleplaying part, as they tend to work as motivation for characters. Its still irrelavant to the GAME part.

[Ellri]

We've also been working on a book-level story for a while now. We too did not go with a single protagonist (not yet at least), but part of the goal is for the reader to experience a lot of "I"'s. Some will no doubt end up being more frequent, some might be killed off, but reader will see a lot of point of views (PoVs). (even some parts written from antagonists' PoV.)

The important thing for a story to catch on in our opinion at least isn't that there's a single character they see everything through, but rather that they can see it through character(s). An impersonal, historical account won't engage the reader. Sure, some might read it and enjoy it, but it is not likely to hook as many readers. Thus the use of first person view (or occasionally second/third person).

In novels one can include the thoughts of the PoV character(s) to help give them life and for the readers to comprehend them. When people adapt books to film conveying the same is one of the great challenges they face. We at least feel that portraying thoughts are one of the strongest tools available in stories, be they single- or multi-protagonist stories.