**Stares at roleplaying game in AWE**
Jul. 16th, 2006 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaDude. I just so love dungeons & dragons. Or, rather, roleplaying games. D&D has a large, and somewhat deserved, reputation as being nothing but a series of dungeon crawls. *So* not our game.
Three and a half years ago, we started a game. We're still playing it. For about a year and a half or two years of that time, we weren't even able to play regularly (like once every couple of months), but we're finally kicking this game into gear again. Anyway, three years ago, my character met a devil (succubus) she accidentally freed and who she accepted a gift from which kicked off a while wad of trouble and my character ended up embroiled in a complicated and deadly "game" of, well, symbolic human power chess which she had no hope of winning.
Anyway, what followed was a series of twists and turns and identity reveals that kept our head spinning and one of which was, until today, LEGEND among our group of friends. Like I said, until today. When we discovered that actually there was a reveal inside a reveal. When she was alive, she wasn't the mother of the twins we ended up taking care of, like we thought and were SHOCKED BY three years ago, she was actually my character's doppleganger.
(It's a classic and almost cheesy idea, but one that our game is making use of. And I THOUGHT I knew who mine was - you know, the alternate, mirror-image "me". But apparently not. Which is a whole 'nother can of worms).
And Kev's been sitting on this reveal (and has had it planned) since the first freakin' day of the game. And it's awesome cos it wasn't designed to screw the players over (like RPG conspiracy theories are always claiming, GM vs. Players crap and stuff). It was designed to entertain, for there to be a point. To shed a whole new light on so many of her actions.
It's amazing because of the unplanned synchronicity of my character having been sucked more and more into Saris' (the devil's) world and beginning to consciously emulate her and take on her attributes.
It's awesome because one of the side-effects in this world of spending too much time near alternate "yous" is that one or both of you tends to go a bit nuts. And I THOUGHT that last time I saw her she was screwing me over in a slightly different way than usual and was acting a bit out of character. It's freakin' amazing that I was RIGHT, that I could tell that - that the unspoken rules of the weird power-chess-game me and her are playing are that well formed (although unexplainable) in my mind and in Kev's and we both UNDERSTAND them.
And now we're planning the most audacious auction of all time, where we're stacking the deck against her winning, and letting her KNOW that, but she'll have to arrive anyway, because if she doesn't she'll need to admit she's avoiding me so as not to be nuts, and that'll make her look weak, or would reveal that she's sort of me, which she doesn't know I know. OOOH IT IS TRICKSY AND SNEAKY.
Oy. It's gonna RULE. Or be terrifying. I can't decide which. But it's so much better than TV. There's no TV show I can discuss like this with my friends, no TV show where if I get really invested in a character, I can't be sure it'll screw over the development or go in a direction I don't like. I get plots and character twists and character development as interesting and shocking as anything I've seen in TV or film. I get a story I'm not controlling, and the joy of seeing it revealed, but I also get to be in charge of the direction of my character, and watch and discuss the direction of my friends' characters. It really is amazing co-operative storytelling.
Kev says it's surprising how often the story tells itself, or synchronicity like the Skai trying to be like the Succubus who's really her thing, occurs. It's like, he knows the plot, but the players really change the way in which it's revealed, the orders of things, and really surprising things grow out of that, things that he never planned for, but still fit into the greater backdrop and ideas and twists of the story.
I'll stop gushing now, but I'm tired, and excited, and I still long for the day when roleplaying is the norm, and talking about the amazing plot twist of your last game session is more common than chatting about the eviction of the latest Big Brother contestant. I really think the world would be a happier place.
Three and a half years ago, we started a game. We're still playing it. For about a year and a half or two years of that time, we weren't even able to play regularly (like once every couple of months), but we're finally kicking this game into gear again. Anyway, three years ago, my character met a devil (succubus) she accidentally freed and who she accepted a gift from which kicked off a while wad of trouble and my character ended up embroiled in a complicated and deadly "game" of, well, symbolic human power chess which she had no hope of winning.
Anyway, what followed was a series of twists and turns and identity reveals that kept our head spinning and one of which was, until today, LEGEND among our group of friends. Like I said, until today. When we discovered that actually there was a reveal inside a reveal. When she was alive, she wasn't the mother of the twins we ended up taking care of, like we thought and were SHOCKED BY three years ago, she was actually my character's doppleganger.
(It's a classic and almost cheesy idea, but one that our game is making use of. And I THOUGHT I knew who mine was - you know, the alternate, mirror-image "me". But apparently not. Which is a whole 'nother can of worms).
And Kev's been sitting on this reveal (and has had it planned) since the first freakin' day of the game. And it's awesome cos it wasn't designed to screw the players over (like RPG conspiracy theories are always claiming, GM vs. Players crap and stuff). It was designed to entertain, for there to be a point. To shed a whole new light on so many of her actions.
It's amazing because of the unplanned synchronicity of my character having been sucked more and more into Saris' (the devil's) world and beginning to consciously emulate her and take on her attributes.
It's awesome because one of the side-effects in this world of spending too much time near alternate "yous" is that one or both of you tends to go a bit nuts. And I THOUGHT that last time I saw her she was screwing me over in a slightly different way than usual and was acting a bit out of character. It's freakin' amazing that I was RIGHT, that I could tell that - that the unspoken rules of the weird power-chess-game me and her are playing are that well formed (although unexplainable) in my mind and in Kev's and we both UNDERSTAND them.
And now we're planning the most audacious auction of all time, where we're stacking the deck against her winning, and letting her KNOW that, but she'll have to arrive anyway, because if she doesn't she'll need to admit she's avoiding me so as not to be nuts, and that'll make her look weak, or would reveal that she's sort of me, which she doesn't know I know. OOOH IT IS TRICKSY AND SNEAKY.
Oy. It's gonna RULE. Or be terrifying. I can't decide which. But it's so much better than TV. There's no TV show I can discuss like this with my friends, no TV show where if I get really invested in a character, I can't be sure it'll screw over the development or go in a direction I don't like. I get plots and character twists and character development as interesting and shocking as anything I've seen in TV or film. I get a story I'm not controlling, and the joy of seeing it revealed, but I also get to be in charge of the direction of my character, and watch and discuss the direction of my friends' characters. It really is amazing co-operative storytelling.
Kev says it's surprising how often the story tells itself, or synchronicity like the Skai trying to be like the Succubus who's really her thing, occurs. It's like, he knows the plot, but the players really change the way in which it's revealed, the orders of things, and really surprising things grow out of that, things that he never planned for, but still fit into the greater backdrop and ideas and twists of the story.
I'll stop gushing now, but I'm tired, and excited, and I still long for the day when roleplaying is the norm, and talking about the amazing plot twist of your last game session is more common than chatting about the eviction of the latest Big Brother contestant. I really think the world would be a happier place.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 04:48 pm (UTC)...You have no idea how often I rely on that...
But seriously. Tabletop Roleplay Games. They rule. It's like...if our game was Pirates of the Caribbean, then Kevie (the gamesmaster) would be Jerry Bruckheimer, I'd be Captain Jack, Addy would be Will and Danny would be Elizabeth. But with more sex, violence, stolen children and places like Tortuga.
Although we've got, like, love in wine bottles instead of hearts in jars of dirt. And after the latest fiasco with love getting mistaken for booze, comparing Adrian and Danny to Will and Elizabeth works a little too well... ARGH!
(Yes, I am expecting you to be more confused now. But it's okay. You'll just smile and nod, and I'll feel vindicated in my skewed view of the world...)