I thought I’d talk a bit about Drama vs Melodrama and how the two function in an RPG. This subject came to mind when reading “Hooked” by Les Edgerton, a book which I would not recommend for most aspiring authors because the author defines “good writing” as something suitable only for general fiction and posessing certain characteristics. Not only do I disagree with the content on a number of issues, the advice that he offers is of absolutely no value to the writing of Scenarios, and Scenes, and so on, in a gaming context (which is why I’m not providing a link to the Amazon product page). But one of his main points early on in the book is about the difference between the two and his assertion that Drama is Good and Melodrama Bad – to oversimplify his point outrageously.

Drama

Drama can be described as “Meaningful interaction between two or more characters with intimate personal significance for at least one of the characters.” Drama doesn’t have to mean battle, or conflict, or even arguement.

There are a number of loaded assertions in that description that are worth clarifying.

• “Meaningful interaction” means that what one character is saying or doing or emoting affects the character feeling the significance – for now, let’s call him the protagonist – affects the protagonist in some way that he cares about. Drama is not a discussion about a lunch menu, or the latest football scores; it’s not trivial, it Matters, it’s Meaningful.
• “two or more characters” …it’s normal for a scene to revolve around just two characters, with the others more or less along for the ride, but groups can be involved in a drama, either as the source, or as individuals who are all personally affected by the events / dialogue / action in some way (and not necessarily all in the same way). If the drama source tells the group of PCs that one of their friends has been found dead, or is missing, that’s dramatic for the entire group, though past histories and individual relationships with the missing character will mean that they will each react just a little differently (or a lot differently) to the news. One way or another, though, it will matter to the group.
• “intimate personal significance” verges on tautology but conveys that the dramatic event is important to the individual protagonists and not merely to the group as a whole, and that this importance is a function of the personality (-ies) of the protagonist(s). Or to rephrase into an RPG vernacular, the drama requires the character to roleplay some sort of emotional nuance or reaction as well as responding with dialogue. A good actor would choke up while delivering his dialogue in reply; an average actor might clear his throat or announce that he is feeling ‘choked up’ or ’emotional’ or ‘worried’ or whatever before deliving his dialogue; a poor actor will simply deliver the reply in a monotone manner. A great actor can convey the emotional overtones without detracting from the clarity of the dialogue. The same is true of roleplayers.

Put all of these elements together and you have a scene which conveys some sort of reaction from the protagonists, whether there is one of one hundred of them.

Drama by Proxy A quick “sidebar”: the source of drama can be something impersonal, provided that it is a means of communications. A woman crumpling bonelessly to the ground in a dead faint after opening a telegram is dramatic. A clearly-depressed man crumpling his tax return forms in one hand while drinking from an open whiskey bottle in the other is dramatic. In both cases, the source of the drama isn’t actually the prop in question; the prop is just a vehicle for the drama, functioning by proxy as the “character” who is the source of the drama.

Melodrama – Dissection of a definition

There are multiple definitions of ‘Melodrama’ out there. My dictionary talks about ‘crude appeals to emotion’. The Edgerton book talks about Melodrama being the firing of a gun, or an explosion, and tries to imply that in ‘good writing,’ melodrama is only acceptable when it is the inevitable outgrowth of previous drama. The example to which the author returns, time and time again, is Thelma & Louise, which – to go by the gushing praise lavished on it – must have been the best-written movie ever made.

It is only towards the end of the book, where the author is lamenting the shrinking market for “General Fiction” and relative growth of what he describes as “Genre Fiction” at his local bookstore that I percieved the necessary context in which to interpret his statements about melodrama – to wit, the books that were selling like dinosaurs were those which accepted his definition of melodrama, while those that were crowding them off the shelves (and out of the cash registers) were those which routinely utilised what he would term melodrama.

An Alternative

So I reject his definition as both self-serving and unhelpful. We’re talking about an RPG, which by definition includes stylised representations of some form of violent conflict, usually protracted – and within which, such activity is not only acceptable, it is gosh-darn-it necessary.

That means that we need an alternative, one that distinguishes and defines Melodrama as distinct from ‘Hyper-drama’, which is acceptable or even essential, under certain conditions, which form part of the definition. So here it is:

Melodrama is action which has been unjustifiably escalated in excess of the game’s story needs. Anything else is acceptable.

Once again, a definition full of loaded assertions.

• “unjustifiably” implies that any action that the GM can justify in terms of substituting for exposition is acceptable. In other words, instead of telling the players that the region they are entering is populated with dinosaurs, a minor combat encounter with small ‘saurs is a better approach – and should put the characters into the right frame of mind for a later encounter with a T-Rex or whatever. A wandering monster should never be a meaningless random selection from a table – unless that table is specific to the region or environment, in which case it can serve as reminder, or new exposition. Whenever the dice indicate a wandering monster, the GM should view it as an opportunity for the players to discover something new about the world – even if that’s only that it’s even more dangerous than they thought!
• “escalated” and “in excess” suggest that there is some less violent way of resolving the situation; this is the crux of the ‘official’ definition. It means that you shouldn’t have a mild-mannered reporter whip out a 44-magnum in the middle of an arguement with his editor, because it’s out of character. The reaction is too strong for the character and circumstance that’s been established. It means that the bad guys don’t perform acts of superfluous violence just to show that they’re evil – they should always arise out of some need or desire of the character, and hence inform the audiance (the players, in this case) of the character’s personality, even if they don’t have the context (yet) to understand them. And the level of violence should always be the minimum that is appropriate to the situation.
• “the game’s story needs” – there are those GMs who treat themselves as authors, and the PCs as his literary monkeys. I’m not one of them; I consider a game to be a collaboration, in which the GM puts the PCs into an interesting situation, lets them find their own way out of it, then uses the ramifications, implications, and consequences to generate a new interesting situation. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a story; it just means that the players are co-contributors, and that the ‘protagonists’ have a ‘life’ of their own. There is a marvellous quote in the the Commentary (I think) to the Fellowship Of The Ring from Fran Walsh, in which she states “We found that it wasn’t necessary to tell the audiance about Dwarves; you simply hire John Rhys-Davies and he’ll show you what Dwarves are all about” (or words to that effect). That’s the position of the players – experts brought in to bring life to a central character beyond what the GM could do on his own.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Well, we’ve established that a game consists of drama, ‘acceptable’ melodrama, and filler – the latter including trivia, ephemera, background, narrative, and exposition (naturally, you want the bare minimum of filler to connect one dramatic scene to another). We’ve established what Drama is, in an RPG context, and what ‘acceptable’ melodrama is – and, by implication, what is not acceptable. Sounds to me like we’ve covered the topic…