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Propp was one of the most brilliant folklorists of all time, very knowledgeable about fairy tales, their meanings and, above all, the structure of their stories. As people in his day tried to classify stories by key features and elements, leading to hundreds of story types, Propp felt it would make more sense to examine story structure based on functions.

In his studies, Propp found 31 fairy tale functions, it was his claim that while not all of these functions were in any fairy tale, fairy tales were driven by these functions occurring in numerical order that he described for them from least to greatest.

While it can be argued that perhaps there are folk tales, especially those in other cultures, that do not exactly follow the scheme created by Propp, he certainly discovered something that is true most of the time, and when it comes to humans, it is usually the best. . can get, as humans have few or no rules regarding their imagination that hold true all the time. Therefore, it is advisable to use the Propp feature set as a tool for understanding fairy tales, rather than just working to discuss them, because if you try, you will find fairy tales that do not match, but you will find many more that do. they do. .

What does Propp mean for fantasy stories and role-playing games?

So what do Propp features have to do with fantasy RPGs and fantasy worlds? All, because it is the Propp functions that have shown the outline of most of the first fantasy stories, and certainly the most famous of such stories. By defining this story, Propp has not only created a tool for understanding fairy tales, but has also created one for writing them, and structured fantasy stories like them, and taking into account the power and timeless nature of fairy tales. fairy tales, this is undoubtedly a valuable storytelling tool. When creating a mission for your characters, this tool is invaluable in helping to generate ideas, many times the missions are simply a series of challenges rather than a story. Propp offers a more concrete structure for ideas. In this way, a game master creating a role-playing quest could instead of simply join challenges, join hero meeting events, receive magic items, and reveal the nature of the villains.

Of particular interest to those creating role-play missions includes violated interdiction (the players, or someone close to them, does something they were told not to do). Common in fairy tales, someone is told not to do something, so inevitably they must. In the case of a hero, this could be a good opportunity to use external characters to pressure him. Someone close to them annoys them until the moment they do what they were told not to do. Or PCs may be forced to choose between a known negative event and an unknown one, as they are chased by a dragon, poisoned, or driven to do something they would not normally do in order to survive. Because by fleeing from the dragon they enter the private realm of fairies and enrage it. To cure themselves of the poison they make a deal with a stranger. There are many other ways to steer the PCs toward breaking the interdiction, allowing you to prepare them for the fantasy quest.

Once the interdiction is broken, the PCs could find themselves in trouble, necessitating the help of the villain who at this point is disguised as a helper. One of the things that makes fairy tales so interesting is the way that the villains often start out as those who seem to help the hero characters. However, they do it only to cause some kind of damage or get something out of the hero. In your RPG, this duality of the villain character could add interest and, of course, a more story-like feel.

On the other hand, the hidden villain is the royal helper character, someone who provides magical help to the hero. Fairies play well in this role because they don’t have their own unknown reasons to help, and therefore can simply choose to be helpful if the player characters are friendly to them. What is important to understand in this is that these are not simply random events; it’s okay if PCs get miraculous help from an outside source in this story structure because this structure is well known to most people. After all, Propp’s structure is the structure that most of our fantasy stories are originally based on.

Propp’s role started with an initial situation of who, what, when and where, after this, the stories according to him would follow in order some of the following 31 roles.

1. A member of a family leaves home (the hero is introduced);

2. An interdiction is directed at the hero (‘don’t go there’);

3. The interdiction is violated (the villain enters the story);

4. The villain makes an attempt at recognition (either the villain tries to find the children / jewelry, etc., or the alleged victim asks the villain questions);

5. The villain obtains information about the victim;

6. The villain tries to trick the victim into taking possession of the victim or the victim’s belongings (deception; villain in disguise, tries to gain the victim’s trust);

7. Victim deceived by deception, unknowingly helping the enemy;

8. The villain causes harm / injury to a family member (kidnapping, stealing a magical agent, spoiling crops, looting in other ways, causing a disappearance, expelling someone, bewitching someone, replacing a child, etc. ., commits murder, imprisons / detains someone, threatens forced marriage, provides night torments); Alternatively, a family member lacks something or wants something (magic potion, etc.);

9. The misfortune or lack is made known (the hero is dispatched, a call for help is heard, etc. / the alternative is that the victim hero says goodbye, released from prison);

10. The Tenant accepts or decides on the opposite action;

11. The hero leaves home;

12. The hero is tested, interrogated, attacked, etc., preparing the way for his receiving magical agent or helper (donor);

13. The hero reacts to the actions of the future donor (resists / fails the test, frees the captive, reconciles the disputants, performs service, uses the opponent’s powers against him);

14. The hero acquires the use of a magical agent (directly transferred, located, bought, prepared, appears spontaneously, eaten / drunk, help offered by other characters);

15. Hero is transferred, delivered or taken to the whereabouts of a search object;

16. Hero and villain unite in direct combat;

17. Hero is marked (wounded / marked, receives ring or scarf);

18. The villain is defeated (killed in combat, defeated in contest, died in his sleep, banished);

19. The initial misfortune or lack is resolved (distributed search object, broken hex, resurrected dead, freed captive);

20. The hero returns;

21. The hero is persecuted (the persecutor tries to kill, eat, undermine the hero);

22. The hero is rescued from the chase (obstacles delay the pursuer, the hero hides or hides, the hero is transformed beyond recognition, the hero is saved from an attempt on his life);

23. Unrecognized hero, comes home or to another country;

24. False hero makes unsubstantiated claims;

25. Difficult task proposed to the hero (ordeal test, puzzles, strength / endurance test, other tasks);

26. The task is solved;

27. The hero is recognized (by brand, brand or thing that is given);

28. The false hero or villain is exposed;

29. The hero is given a new appearance (he becomes whole, beautiful, new clothes, etc.);

30. The villain is punished;

31. The hero marries and ascends the throne (is rewarded / promoted).