This is a copy of a thread I posted on BlueSky.

I'm doing some casual ✨narratology✨ (the study of storytelling) reading while thinking about D&D, and Y'ALL I know I hammer on about this but TTRPGs are absolutely buckwild narratively. Let me explain:

Stories have narrators: someone is using words to tell you, the reader, what's going on. Sometimes we know who the narrator is but often it's just kinda this disembodied voice, speaking to us from *the great beyond*. What this 🗣️voice knows & doesn't know varies by story.

Traditionally, there are 3 focalization (perspective) types in fiction:

  1. non-focalized/zero: narrator is omniscient & can read all minds
  2. internal: narrator is limited in space, but can read a main character's mind
  3. external: narrator is a witness, limited in space & can't read minds

In D&D, the DM at the table is the author, and their DM 💚persona💚 acts as the narrator: they tell you, the "reader", what's going on. They are almost omniscient: they know everything happening everywhere, and what everyone in the world is thinking, EXCEPT for the main characters.

The player, the guy sitting at the table, acts as the audience for this narration (if you're broadcasting you game that's DIFFERENT, you have a double audience and that's also wild). BUT WAIT, the player isn't JUST audience, they are also ~another author~.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

The player AND player characters have an ✨internal focalization✨. Meaning that in this weird scenario, this author, who is also the reader, has no more information than the fictional character in the story they are writing, and they gain that information through their role as reader.
WHAT?!

It's something that feels quite natural while we're doing it, but when you actually pick apart what's happening in terms of storytelling, this is some wild experimental dadaist shit. The more I think about it, the dizzier I get. This is so cool. Y'all are so rad.

I tried to make a diagram but I only got 2 levels deep before it got too complicated to understand 😅 Appreciate my little goblins and googly-eyed DM