[JNL note: Just cleaning out some posts that I had been saving up.]
[JNL note: Just cleaning out some posts that I had been saving up.]
[JNL note: Just cleaning out some posts that I had been saving up.]
Novels, films, and stage plays are not the only story-telling media where narrative and drama are essential. Role-playing games—which were originally and ideally conceived as an open-ended alternative to win-or-lose games—work best as a sort of quasi-improvisational group theater using objective tools (dice and paper, or computer code) to maintain the integrity of the setting.
RPGs were corrupted almost immediately, however, by the same sorts of extrinsic motivations that corrupt our real lives, like wealth and power. In fact, many games we call “role-playing games” are really thinly veiled win-or-lose games, no less driven by the collection of points than a football game.
I don’t use the word “corrupted” to imply that there’s anything wrong with this sort of power-up adventure gaming. I compared it to football and I’m a football fan. Scoring points and defeating foes can be quite fun.
But, if “role-playing game” is to have any meaning, games that deserve that moniker need to be driven by playing roles, not scoring points. And playing roles has more in common with acting and writing than with sports. This is why anyone trying to run a game that is truly engaging and truly an RPG can learn a lot from the narrative and drama of novels, plays, and film.
Get this: A lone vampire wanders into a frontier town and, after killing the most dangerous gunslinger in the territory, offers to take over the overworked sheriff’s law-keeping duties … from sundown to sunup.
What is it? A weekly television drama set in the fictional western town of Naba, a silver-mine boom town where Sheriff Louis Journeyman wears the badge from sunup to sundown and Sheriff Sol Velasco wears it from sundown to sunup. When Velasco first arrives in Nabo, surviving three shots to the gut and taking down a notorious outlaw with his bare hands, the townsfolk are suspicious of this stranger’s unbelievable strength, speed, and stamina. But, the wealth coming out of Naba attracts a steady stream of crooks and gunfighters, and Sheriff Journeyman is more than willing to let someone else handle the town’s rowdy nights.
That steady stream of outlaws, of course, means a steady stream of food for Nabo’s new, undead lawman.
Pitch (Corny Version): It’s undead Dexter meets the Old West.
Working Title: Night Sheriff
FOLLOW-UP STUFF
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This is the twenty-third Free Fiction Friday, still going strong! Only thirteen left until I fulfill my 2015 pledge!
I intended this week to be a light-hearted break in the novel installments, with a brief retelling of a classic fable. But, the story really grabbed me, and I ended up nearly writing a novelette, significantly longer than the typical Free Fiction Friday offering.
I hope you enjoy this new version of “The Princess and the Pea.” (6300 wc)
