Gaming Post: Storytelling Essay
Long post, but I had time to kill. Gamers, I hope you find it entertaining. :) Disclaimer: Your mileage may vary. This is what I've found on my side of the fence.
Groping madly as I've been to find a topic worth discussing here, I've realized I've never actually covered the dynamics of that gaming thing; this "Storytelling" thing (capitalized on purpose in most of their books) that the White Wolf folks were so hot about. This follows my adventures in running Vampire for so many years, Mage, and it's satellite games, all of which shared a common setting. So I'll make references to examples both good and bad as I go along to illustrate my point. I guess getting back in touch with some of my gaming roots has inspired the post to some extent, so what the hell. I'll pound out the keys. Besides, I plan to spend the next few days doing more Devil's Due, so I'll make up for the lack of substance for you non-gamers in short order. :)
First off, running any game in the industry is usually done behind some pretentious title unique to each game line. The worst and most wince-inducing is "Dungeon Master," which makes my teeth hurt every time I hear it. "Game Master" is the most common and generic, but I never cared for that, either. White Wolf focused on Storytelling over rules, and had very simple, easy to grasp rules (which made it a hit with me and so many others) and they called it "Storytelling." Pretentious, sure, but the difference is - let me be blunt - I got a lot more attention from the ladyfolk in the hobby (and enviable specimens at that, in my day) calling myself a Storyteller over a Dungeon Master. So there was definitely some subtle method to the madness.
All the same, some of the most important things you learn about running the show aren't covered in the books. Oh, they do their best to prepare you, with each core book having a section for you, the poor bloke who wants to run these stories. Some of their game lines have entire books dedicated to the art. And yes, it is an art. At its best, with the right people and the right Storyteller, this stuff is more immersive and intense than any movie, book or TV show, because it's your Story - a collaboration of minds in a mix of improv theater and round robin talespinning from any given campfire outing.
Sooooo. How do you get the most out of it, as a Storyteller or Player? Well, finally, I'll tell you what I've learned after running the show for the White Wolf system off and on for 15+ years. Take it for what you will.
Storytellers:
1. You are not the player's adversary/enemy. I've seen a lot of this. Doctor Evils, I call them. They have impossible "missions," they love death traps, they decide your every fate on a dice roll, throw ridiculous scenarios at you, the works. Bottom line: If you have to bully your players to feel good about your place in the hobby, you're doing something wrong. It's about telling a story - a collaborative art, a mutual undertaking; you're the Banker in Monopoly, not the Bank foreclosing on everyone in sight. Approaching your story like a partnership with the players is the best way to go about it. You're all there to have fun, and that means everyone's fun matters. If you're just there to lord it over them and punish their weakling mortals for straying before your godlike might, go play the Sims.
2. Very often, the most important thing you can say is "NO." Believe it. Sooner or later, someone is going to cheat their ass off, or come up with a character concept that doesn't belong in the chronicle, or who starts ripping your troupe (gaming group) apart with their juvenille antics. That, or they want to take some godlike or improbable power for their character. Hey, the list goes on. Remember: You are the guy running the show for everyone, so going in with the best interests of the entire troupe over the individual is always critical. The well being of the entire show may hinge on you standing up to some rude or self important player (or just one who doesn't quite know the lay of the land yet) and putting your foot down.
Sometimes they'll get irate, or quit, or do whatever. That's fine. Kick 'em. You still have your other players to worry about. Case in point; one of my worst nightmare gamers had a bad habit of disrupting every game he was in. He wanted to play Mage, everyone else was having plenty of fun playing Vampire. But he had to have his way, and thew countless tantrums in and out of character, even consciously trying to sabotage my games, in an effort to put his agenda above everyone else's. He would often want strange or unlikely advantages to be given to his characters, mainly because he had no idea how to perform a role - he played a power or a dice pool, not an actual, functioning character. When I cockblocked him on that, he'd get even more severe.
This culminated in the time we all finally played Mage. Everyone in the troupe was contributing to the theme, mood and atmosphere brilliantly, and they really brought the setting to life. Naturally, Captain Fantastic (my sarcastic name for him) had to play the most disruptive character possible. Absolutely no thought at all went into Randon the Magnificent other than the player's need to destroy the experience for everyone else present, babbling jibberish instead of saying anything useful, throwing tantrums in and out of character, injecting absurdity and stupidity into the game at every turn.
Now, I warned him several times to stop and go with the flow. His answer was the protest that it was his character, dammit, and that's the end of it. What he missed was that his character was in my story, with everyone else's character, and he was destroying the experience - very rudely - for everyone involved. In the end, after a particularly humiliating episode where he shouted the word PI-KA-CHU in character while casting a spell, I halted the game and the players all begged for him to be ousted. The game was resumed a week later somewhere else and none of our troupe ever gamed with him again. Moral of the story: I should have shredded his character sheet sooner. Learn when and how to say NO and say it with conviction. If they don't understand how this whole thing works, support the players who do and save all of your troupe the grief of episodes like this.
3. Encourage players to be Storytellers in and of themselves, to a point. Bear in mind that your word is final; you're the adjudicator. But if a player comes to you and says something like, "I have something from my backstory I'd like to explore" or "I'd like to know if you can introduce me to this challenge," do what you can to incorporate the idea into the story. These games, these White Wolf things, they're about character, about the who and why of your characters above their dice pools or powers; whenever a player came forward with ideas to explore their character, I embraced them as far as I could within reason.
One example is an extremely ex-friend of mine. Some of you know him. We are going to separate his evil from this example because, well, we have all ranted good and long (and with just reason) about his shit, so bringing it up in an unrelated essay is redundant and off base. Let's just stick to the example at hand.
We were playing a one on one Mage game that lasted several years, probably the best game I've ever run. Him, the player, me the Storyteller, meeting over Pizza and Mountain Dew whenever it felt right and throwing dice in a really epic story arc. More on that as we go on. As new sourcebooks came out for Mage, we'd review them and discuss what we should incorporate.
When The Infinite Tapestry came out, he came across an entry for an umbral spirit called the Blue Lady - based, incidentally, on an actual urban legend, and an interesting one; look her up. A theme of protecing the young and sheltering youth from harm became a major through line for the entire epic saga, something that just happened to evolve through storytelling, and the Blue Lady was the patron saint of children who needed love and protection. He also read of Oatis-Ra, an Egyptian spirit that was the Blue Lady's enemy. He informed me he wanted to play into that, given our chronicles themes, and I agreed. We did an entire story arc where he quested to meet the Blue Lady, received an upgrade to his dedicated magic device (a sword - very Arthurian Legend thing there) and a ban from the Blue Lady to help children at all times. The Oatis-Ra connection segued with a lot of the Egyptian themes we occasionally tapped in other corners of the chronicle, and it gave me the opportunity to throw him curve balls in the form of occasional episodes where he had to do service to the Lady. Because the player opened up this door to his character development, we were able to do a number of awesome story arcs within the main saga that enhanced the character and story alike - not to mention, anything that brings more story ideas doesnt suck.
4. Let the players know what the hell is going on, and be partial to suggestion. Simply stated, this is about telling your players the nature of the chronicle off the bat. Tell them it's a chronicle that starts street level and features a group of players gaining power as they move up in the world. Or as with the Mage player above, who told me at the very start of the entire epic that he wanted to guide a Mage from a newbie to a respected elder Mage. The advantage to getting everyone on the same page is that presumably you'll all be in sync with the nature of the story. If everyone makes a believable vampire and you've got Captain Fantastic playing Gilligan on Crack, well, Captain F. can only blame himself when he's not having a good time and not being responsive to the chronicle's themes. It's good to ask players as you design a chronicle what they'd like to be challenged with or experience, how dark they like their story, but remember to refute idiocy like the ones I brought up in the first two points above - Know when to draw the line, and keep the overall integrity of the story intact.
Many years ago I ran a vampire game that ran from 1497 France to 1997 America, crossing about two and a half to three years of real world, once a week game time. This chronicle started with me telling the players to make mortal characters and to trust my direction; a historical chronicle that would be heavy on mood and texture appropriate to the varied time periods. Because I was able to tell them off the bat where things were going to go and they mostly got on board, the chronicle was highly successful.
Of course, every garden has its serpent,and this one was Captain Fantastic. I've often wondered how much better that saga would have been if I could take the energy I spent wrestling his ego to the ground and applied it to an even better presentation of the story. Around 1776 America, about two years into running the game, I wanted to take a break and he wanted to run it for a couple sessions. I figured, well, everyone's seen what the story's about, what the point is, what the theme and mood and all that is, so he couldn't screw that up, right?
And so came the infamous account of the Lightsaber wielding Lasombra of colonial America, a story of bad gaming judgment so insidious I've shut down entire threads in the forums with the story about it; the last word in nightmare gaming. As stated, Captain Fantastic allowed a player to run an absurdly powerful Lasombra vampire Elder and topped it off by giving them an actual Star Wars lightsaber in colonial America.
Now, this player actually thought I'd be jealous that I didn't think of it first and chided me about it non-stop up until the big reveal. Naturally, I was completely horrified. I cancelled the session the following week and explained in no uncertain terms that it was ridiculous to include such a thing in a historical chronicle; naturally, Captain Fantastic argued it into the ground until i shut down the discussion. Moral of the story: Get everyone on the same page, as stated, and know when to say NO for the sake of everyone else in the story.
5. Don't bring a gun to a knife fight. Let me explain; when I very first started in on this White Wolf thing, one of my best friends at the time, Jason, and I were invited to game with a guy named Ramses (that's his actual name) who invited us to make vampires. Ok, fair enough. Problem was, Ramses was running a Werewolf game, and for those who just turned in, vampires and werewolves violently attack each other on sight in the old setting. We also had no idea it was werewolf we were stepping in to.
Ramses ran the game for - I shit you not - three hours while Jason and I sat nearby, literally doing nothing, until he finally introduced us to the story. After five minutes some magic power makes us human. We got about 45 minutes of game time in, total. Needless to say, we never, ever went back.
As a Storyteller, you're perfectly in your right to run a Vampire game if you say you're running Vampire. Or Mage, or Werewolf, or whatever. If everyone makes a vampire and one guy shows up wanting to play a werewolf or mage in the group, for fuck's sake, say NO. Each setting in the WoD has its on themes, flavor, feel, texture and intent, and mixing them together (and the conflicting rules they had back then) will make far more headaches for you than you should deal with. Not to mention, its rude of the player to know the lay of the land and deliberately go out of his way to bring in his pet supernatural instead. That does, in my opinion, show a certain disrespect for the integrity and storyline run by the group. If you authorize that sort of thing, know what you're getting into, and know how crossover can affect the overall feel and flow of your storyline.
For the long term Mage game I mentioned above, I actually avoided crossover at almost all times, even forsaking game systems I really liked because the flavor and mood of Mage would change dramatically if I segued into another game's exclusive territory. Although the player did meet werewolves once in a while, and one of my chief exposition pieces was an immortal Mummy character whose divination and long view helped move story along from the background, they were controlled by me and used through the filter of the Mage game's exclusive perspective. Because of this, the game really kept its head of steam going and felt like a really authentic Mage chronicle - exactly what we were after.
This plays back on the first point, but I felt it was worth clarification.
6. Challenging the players/characters is the heart of the system. I've met players (like Captain Fantastic and several others) who believe that gaming is about having more money than god, getting away with murder, and never having to say you're sorry. These are people that think a Mummy vampire Bastet with True magic spheres ranked at 5 across the board is somehow brilliant.
See, the heart of any story is conflict, and matching the conflict with setting and characters on both sides appropriate to the challenge at hand. (writer moment). You know what makes Superman interesting?
Nothing. Nothing at all. He's obscenely powerful, has an indestructable moral center, and the best you can do to screw with him is wave a rare green rock in his face. Barring his geo-allergy he's godlike on all levels. And that's just not interesting or cool. Writing a Superman story is writing a symbol, not writing a character; the character is iconic of what we want to embody in ourselves, but he has no real limitations or shortcomings to overwhelm - or he always does so flawlessly.
Where's the fun in that? Now, Sean Connery gave up the role of James Bond because instead of being the clever, ruthless, cunning agent he originally was, he became overly reliant on bad dialogue and hugely improbable devices from Q division. Daniel Craig's recent Bond is a fantastic return to form, the original intent of the Connery Bond. Prior Bounds could be beaten to a pulp and not have scratch. Craig's gets beaten bloody, shows it, and above all, he has human failings and weaknesses in spite of himself. Craig's Bond is the more interesting over Superman Bond any day of the week.
I not only like to encourage players to run starting level characters and ramp up to the power levels of feared night stalkers (or mages or whatever) I've been known to start them human, which is a fantastic way to get them to respect the depth and mood of the setting from a human point of view - especially they special beings they become. Then, I want to challenge them morally, spiritually and not just physically. I want them to make choices, face ideas, and struggle with themselves and the world around them instead of being paper cutouts that walk through hails of gunfire with a smirk. The resonant emotional depth that comes from facing and overcoming a real challenge is far deeper than "I used my powers to destroy an entire room full of (X) and they couldn't touch me!" One makes for an interesting story to recount to people. The other...well, yawn.
Bear in mind, the challenges can be scaled to the tastes and hope of the player and his/her intent. But challenging the protagonist is the heart of a story. Without it you have the most boring level of a hack and slash video game set to EASY.
7. Promote Character! This plays into the above points. Encourage them to know who their characters really are. If they feel a certain bit of costuming - a ring, cane, or anything else - gets them in characters better, tell them to bring it along. If they want to write character journals or do paintings or drawings in character, give them the extra xp they deserve. If they draw floor plans for their chantry, haven or otherwise, set scenes in there to make it feel like home.
Mage player from above designed an entire chantry down to the floorboards, a lavish gothic place in the woods of the American East that felt like a school and library, a la Xavier's School from the X-men movies with a more Magely, WoD bent. He drew this place down to the floorboards and could go as far as to describe the smells of each room. So the chantry became the base of operations and the setting for most of our more emotionally resonant scenes in his personal life and the lives of his young wards. We did entire sessions of him simply relating to the students in the chantry personally and as a teacher, or doing research on various leads in his study while wearing a comfortable robe and sipping tea. That kind of depth and range is the holy grail of the hobby - a real sense of character and purpose that makes the whole thing come to life. Never, ever miss a chance to reward a player's investment in your story and their character with right kind of payoff.
8. Game once a week tops. TOPS. It's very flattering when the players think so highly of your gig that they ask to do it two or three times a week. I used to get that and I drew the line. You have to be fair to yourself and your real life; you need to function in your own real world and that means keeping game on game night. I recall a guy who was getting into one of my earliest games, the Judas saga for those of you were there all the way back at Sheila's place, who approached me about running three times a week; I shot it down on the spot. Or this other guy I knew named Dale who wanted to game at the drop of a hat whenever he was bored, as often as he could during the course of a seven day period. Or a guy named Joe who never came to our scheduled games but urged us to game anywhere and anytime he was in the mood without warning.
In this, the game is like Bridge or Card night or bowling or whatever. Do it once a week tops, every other week if it pleases you. Many larps I knew only met twice a month. That's perfectly fine. You can invest yourself in the story and not lose yourself in a life of non-stop gaming. It's very important to be a real person, functioning in the real world; I can't say that enough. Again, this goes back to knowing when to say NO. But it's also about avoiding burnout and not cluttering your schedule with play when work may be more important. A definite point to keep in mind.
More on a later date, that's enough for now. Gamers among you, hope you were amused. :)