The Making of Cleric Journal Part Three
Originally published at J.A. Pitts. You can comment here or there.
I dearly love role playing. I favor pen and paper, dice and miniatures in a room with friends, pizza and anticipation. I enjoy the problem solving and sleuthing nearly as much as the fighting monsters. I think that is the key to this ongoing tale. Take the things I love and make it into something more - a narrative that evokes the best of gaming with the complexity of a nuanced character in a believable world, facing situations we can all relate to on some level. One of the ways I wanted to accomplish this was to avoid D&D cliches by having the characters act/react like a normal human/lizard folk would without resorting to phrases like: 3rd level, spell slots, saving throw, experience points, etc.
I wanted to write this as if it was happening to me or you. What would I truly understand about this world if I was in it, rather than living outside it, referencing books, maps, charts, wiki pages, artwork, and my somewhat twisted imagination (okay, and the occasional die roll).
Pain is pain, loneliness is a reality, friends are sometimes hard to find and the way we wish the world to be, isn’t always the way it really is. How often in role playing do we skip the quiet moments? When was the last time your campaign worried about the state of your clothes, the amount of food you had, or the condition of your gear? What about the subtle moments between individuals that spark romance or hatred? Most people who game move from one encounter to another, counting experience points and gold before they get to the next puzzle to solve, or kobold to kill. Now, I know that’s an unfair comparison to some people who relish the role playing aspect over all else. These people care less for rolling dice and more about interacting with others. The combination is the sweet spot for me. That’s the place I want this story to live in. I want to show the drama of a living, breathing individual, facing real life (and extraordinary circumstances) in a way that feels honest.
Therefore, this story is about the expectations versus reality. The assumptions we make as adults that turn out to be either so true as to be painful, or so false as to be worse.
My daughter just turned eighteen and I’ve heard her say a thousand time: “now that I’m a grown-up…”. We perceive the world with the knowledge and experience we have and if we are astute and careful, we may be able to adjust our perceptions as we grow. Sometimes we carry mythology with us for decades before some assumption we have spent a lifetime nurturing, turns out to be false. Suddenly having to care about things outside our own heads changes us as people, and this is the growth I hope I’m showing with Useless. He’s a positive guy, full of good intentions and poor assumptions. As he experiences life, I hope to show that transition in a way that speaks to each of us.
We all want something: love, sex, acceptance, power, happiness, confidence, success (all of the above). We want to be perceived as successful to our mentors and as a role-model to our peers. Society tells us how we should act, who we should like, what we should eschew. As we grow (hopefully with wisdom) we set aside the illusions and build a life on positive dreams and aspirations tempered with life-lessons learned the hard way.
But I want this to be fun, you know, with laughter and hope. If I’m doing my job right, at sometime during this story, you will go to your kitchen and make some toast with butter and honey.
You will also evaluate the life you are leading and grant yourself the acceptance for the successes and failures, knowing they are all part of the evolution.
Or perhaps you’ll just be entertained for a few minutes a day. That’s the most I can hope for.