Behind the Lines: Mythbusting… and Mythbuilding (#36)

[eskemp]

"There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt."
- Audre Lorde

One of the things that fascinates me most about building and playing RPGs is the aspect of myth. We talk quite a lot, justifiably so I believe, about Storytelling - that a game is telling a story, and one that grows organically as the characters react to things

Comments

[eskemp]

It was in Guildbook: Masquers, the backstory of one of the notables. It is hardly literary, in retrospect: just one of those little self-indulgences we partook of, like making Moliere one of the Guild as well.

[anonymous]

Out of curiosity, how do the developers of WOD feel when their version of a mythical thing becomes more definitive than the original myth? Amongst my geeky gamer buddies, the rules in the Vampire books are pretty much as close to a definitive source as far as we are concerned.

[eskemp]

It's flattering! Of course, we have the advantage of writing for continuity, which many original myths didn't, so that may give us a slight edge in some ways. But being ranked among the originals is pretty impressive.

[dawngreeter]

Hell, never mind Vampire, I always thought Demon did a better job of explaining Judeo-Christian concepts of Genesis, the Fall and such way better than Christianity ever did.

[eskemp]

That's a tricky one, and would probably vary widely depending on who was doing the running. If it were me, I don't know if it would look too different, because the heart of the myth is usually key to its appeal to me. (Unless I don't like the myth at all, in which case I don't think my game line would go terribly far.)

[eyebeams]

There's never just "a myth." When writers get together, for example, the images, ideas and sense of what's essential differ quite a bit from person to person.

I mean, if you had to, say, describe exactly what a demon is, in such a way as it could work in an RPG, how much similarity do you think you'd find in somebody else's idea? Not none, but not 100% - and in a game there needs to be room for interpretation, but not so much that the concept doesn't commit to anything at all.

[sim_james]

There's been some rather noteworthy changes -within- the oWoD cosmology, of course:

* The Triat dethroned an assumed Christian cosmology when Werewolf was released;

* Followers of Set changed from Yig Cultists With Fangs to gnostics;

* Malkavians changed from blessed-chaos sacred jesters to Actual Insane People Who Just Got Creepier;

* The Sabbat (and the Black Hand) went through more changes than a mutant butterfly.

A lot of the greater mythological revisions came about during new game launches or changes in edition (ah, Revised flamewars), so it should have been no surprise that an entirely new game universe would see even more dramatic change.

[1sinfutureking]

For some, the Uratha (and the Garou before them) go "too far" from ordinary werewolf myth

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise - Werewolf: the Forsaken is as fine a WoD game as any you've put out, Old or New.

I think that any storytelling, myth or no, kind of depends on introducing something new. Take Watership Down, for example: there are plenty of exodus stories out there, and plenty of underdog stories as well. When you introduce rabbits, then things turn from solid to awesome.

As a result, Watership Down is one of my most favoritest books in the history of ever, and is hailed as an enduring classic. It's what makes storytelling good (having a strong focus on memorable characters helps, as well - characters are key, but slightly less...central when designing a mythological framework in which to place your characters.)