Role Playing

I recently facilitated a role-play game over three sessions set in my Lands medieval fantasy setting (the genesis of which was discussed here). It was supposed to happen over two sessions but I cannot run a disciplined game and why the heck should I? Seems that my chosen group of four players all enjoy a rambling game involving plenty of discussion. Also to some extent a complex setting makes this likely as there is always more to refer to in passing. Even confining the Fox And Hare adventure to three sessions took some work and a lot of preparation. Fortunately it was also a rewarding experience and Evil Sarah, Katrina, Marty & Varia are keen for more.

Wenches & Swains That Never Were

Playing drove me to fill in some of the informational gaps in my setting including rather mundane ones. For instance I had to decide what one would call both women and men who serve drinks at a tavern. The Lands tends towards formal equality of the sexes (for instance property and titles pass to eldest child). However it is also a world of cultural gender differentiation. In these enlightened times we use one term in English for the practitioners of a particular skill-set. In The Lands however they tend to have distinct words for both, so I needed serving wenches and serving swains. I felt that 'swain' was equivalent to 'wench' in that both terms are archaic, rustic, somewhat frivolous and slightly derisive. The thing to note here is that I was creating something fictitious while also giving it the flavour of something that seemed historical to modern players. Besides, words are fun to play with.

The Jagged Tooth That Stood Too Long

Fantasy is different from historical fiction even if it draws much of its feel from our perception of the recorded past. It is free from the restrictions of accuracy. If you can have magic in your setting then sure as heck you can make other changes. Nonetheless some research can be useful. Central to our adventure was exploration of an ancient ruined castle. I based my floor plan on the model of Norman castles (things predating those tended to be timber constructions and if they were of any size would be rambling rather than towering). And yet The Jagged Tooth ruin was over a thousand years old in what is nominally a medieval setting. A medieval world in which medieval castles have existed for millennia? This is okay as we were playing fantasy and anything goes as long as you can get away with it. Mind you the fact the castle was standing at all did need a bit of justification, which was provided in this written postscript to the game which hinted at a magical explanation (with the adventurers having removed a preserving magical artifact from the site).

The group have departed the Dire Swamp and are now traversing the vales between hills back to Muddy Gully. As they do York the Hawk decides to stretch his wings and take a proper flight. As he wheels majestically in the sky scanning for rodents and rabbits he glances back over the hills past the swamp towards the Jagged Tooth in the distance.

Suddenly he notices the entire structure of the ruined fortress crumbling in on itself and spilling a cascade of loose stones all over its hill. It is as if some force that was holding it together has left it. Suddenly the ruin is accosted by the returning ravages of time.

York is startled but is then distracted by a racing hare. By the time he is once more with the party he has forgotten this puzzling scene. Besides which even if he remembered he could never communicate what he had witnessed.

This bit of written storytelling only happened because I forgot to tell the players this in the game. The device of using a pet as a witness for something the adventurers never knew in some ways is cooler. Sometimes mistakes produce fun things in themselves.

Collaborative Creativity

Keeping track of everything you intend to do in a game is difficult and the more I got into narrating and refereeing the more I left my printed notes aside and improvised specifics. Ultimately this is more satisfying for the group and over the three sessions I think we all became more limber and agile role-players. I also think I cobbled together a good group who have a balance of both gaming experience (in some cases more in the form of acting than gaming) and freshness of perspective. They challenged my setting and story but in a playful and constructive way. In return I provided them with a few surprises to amuse or shock (apparently I’m adept at making ordinary things like mistletoe creepy). The result of these interactions is a form of collaborative creativity.

However there is also solo creativity in this game for me between sessions and in different media. I've drawn some illustrations, summarized sessions in written prose, and even selected tracks for incidental music (emulating 80s fantasy movies with a mix of orchestral and pop music rather than making any attempt at medieaval authenticity). I hope this will continue for a while, as exploring and expanding my fantasy setting has been rollicking good fun.

Update

Eventually that three-session quest turned into a massive campaign that lasted over four years (usually at one Saturday afternoon a month). It recently concluded and I blogged about it here.