Games are made of speech

TTRPGs, when they are played, are made of speech not writing. The quote below explains why this distinction is important:

One of the hugest things that I’ve learned from writing is how different oral language is from written language. They’re just two entirely different modes. The eye asks for different information in a different order, presented in different intensities than the ear does. The ear wants to hear things repeated again and again and again. It wants things to be reiterated; it wants things to come back in different forms. The eye wants the information once, quickly, precisely, and that’s it. It wants to go on to the new thing. You may want to bring up a tone of voice in writing, but it’s a whole different medium.

Samuel Delany, interviewed in Algol 26 Porter 1976

So, we have two premises. First, games - the events that occur at physical or virtual tables - are made of speech. Second, speech is a fundamentally different thing to writing.

But what about the game books? They’re made of written language, and they are obviously part of the game. How is this possible, when the game-event and the game-book exist in entirely different modes?

Thomas Manuel’s concept of interpretive labour tells us how, here:

As the GM, I’m looking at what the game is giving me and figuring out how to make play happen.

It’s the GM. I think that 'figuring out how to make play happen' means 'translating writing into speech'.

By translating, I do not mean 'they are reading'. When a GM reads at the table, it is preamble, not the game itself.

Instead, the work of translation is about taking the writing in the book and cutting it up (intentionally or accidentally via the normal working of memory) into fragments that can be engagingly spoken: into prompt, reminder, illustration, direction, and more. It is also using written instruction to build speech-constructs, like NPCs.¹ It is also, as Manuel describes in his example of prepping for Blades '68, figuring out what parts of the written game will not produce good conversation at the table, and deciding not to speak them. This, and other methods, is how the mode difference between book and table is overcome.²

So, what will I do with the ideas above? Well, I have several vague ideas which I don't have time to discuss today. But I do have one concrete plan. I am currently running a Slugblaster campaign for some friends, and I will use it to test Delany’s claim that the ear needs repetition more than novelty. When I prep characters, locations and conflicts for this campaign, I will do so with the expectation that they will recur.

This will be, I am realising, a departure for me. My prep tendency is to plop my players down in a series of entirely new spaces, filled with new NPCs, neither of which I plan to revisit once that specific adventure is over. People and places have repeated in my campaigns, but that repetition has often been unintentional, and looking back, that might have have made these sessions less interesting than they could have been. I am therefore excited to see what impact, if any, planning for recurrence, and (in Delany's words) causing 'things to come back in different forms' will have at the table.