Advocacy by the Throat

Juilan Michels, creator of the Open Circle Story method for storyjamming, asked me to write about my thoughts on “character advocacy and suspense,” following a conversation we were having in person. Julian’s said in the past, “I don’t advocate for the character, I advocate for the story.” I’d like to dig into how I feel about that. And what does it have to do with suspense, anyway?

The basics: Character Advocacy is discussed by Jesse Burneko on his blog Play Passionately, and is about a player representing the fictional interests of a particular protagonist, where another player (“Gamemaster,” usually) is responsible for creating adversity and challenging those interests. In a sense this is merely the central and often unexamined tenet of roleplaying for decades–”the GM plays the world, the players control what their characters do and say.”

But for Story Now play there must be a particular focus: a player who advocates for a Protagonist must be free and willing to address problematic human issues through the lens of that character. It’s that player’s job to show us who that character is under pressure.

So why is Character Advocacy so important? Can’t you, as Julian says, “advocate for the story?” It’s collaborative storytelling; surely we’re all mature and sophisticated enough to shed these archaic character-ownership notions and just make story together…right?

Well, Character Advocacy isn’t the only way to make story together, to be sure. But the reasons I find it so powerful are:

1) It’s dead simple. That may seem trivial, but actually having procedures that are intuitive and obvious is very helpful for creative flow. I don’t have to guess what I should be doing at any given point in the storyjam. I don’t have to address a nebulous concept like “what’s good for the story?” with all the attendant self-doubt and hesitation. I can just advocate for my character, with the person across the table providing adversity, and trust that from this a “good story” will emerge. Because we’re sure of our roles, we can each devote ourselves to performing them well and gracefully.

2) It maintains tension. Yes, I am perfectly capable of imagining a character and deciding what happens to her, good and bad. It might even make for a great story; writers of all media and genres do this every day. But the primary strength of roleplaying/storyjamming as an artform, is collaborative story creation. And that means we have a powerful tool for maintaining tension around our circle, by surrendering some control over our characters’ fates to another player. “There once was a girl, and she was an orphan, but she was adopted by a king and queen, but a monster menaced the kingdom, but she defeated it, the end.” Spoken by one person, it may or not be a great story, but it’s not a conversation. There’s where “suspense” comes in–when we enter a back-and-forth of action and reaction, then we have a chance to enter into a realm of spine-tingling anticipation over what happens to the girl: what challenges she’ll face, how she’ll respond to them, and what it will cost her.

3) It fosters emotional investment. Character Advocacy requires you to care about a particular character in a unique way. Not to insist that they are always victorious or have a happy ending, not even to necessarily like them. But to care enough to advocate for their goals, to provide something for an adversary to push against. Enough to be unwilling to “throw” the match, to say “you know what? This guy’s a bastard, hell YEAH you cut his head off and violate the corpse.” Because the character is fictional, he needs a real person who’s going to represent him in the proceedings, to give him a fair shake, even at being a bastard and getting away with it. And because we all emotionally invest this way, we have a chance at being truly moved by the results.

So Character Advocacy isn’t the only widget in the Story Now toolbox, and various games will use it to varying degrees and in various ways. I sat in on an Open Circle Story, which doesn’t formally use the technique at all, and was quite pleased with the results. But Advocacy is a powerful technique for dynamic, emotionally invested group  storytelling. I won’t be abandoning it anytime soon.

Peace,

-Joel

Free, Affirmed, Expressive, Consequential

Awhile back “Doctor Professor” of the blog Pixel Poppers wrote some interesting stuff about interactive storytelling in video games. In the first half, he discusses how video games have failed at storytelling, by imitating other media (film, mostly) instead of playing to their own medium’s strengths: interactivity and dynamism. In the second half, he takes a look at what successful and innovative videogame storytelling might look like.

Doctor Professor’s points resonate with me. I’ve come to love the newest generations of VG technology (Playstation-onwards) for their ability to convey a story through cinematic presentation, and I’ve favored the kinds of games that present fully-realized characters with emotions and personalities (Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy) over games that provide blank protagonists to imprint your own emotions and thoughts onto (Deus Ex, Elder Scrolls). I’ve found that the latter tend to fall short of actually feeling like a story, while the former at least provide story in a meaningful way, even if it’s spoon-fed to you and beyond your ability to impact.

But Dr. Prof is right; these stories are wasting the medium’s artistic potential. They’re showing movies with intermissions for gymnastics and target practice. They’re often pretty movies,  sometimes with characters and themes that speak to me. And the gameplaying segments that alternate with cinematics can often be rewarding and fun in their own right. These are not failures as games.

But as an art form, they can be more. Some games are pioneering this change, such as Metal Gear Solid (known for its interminable cutscenes but also for making gameplay decisions matter in new ways) and Mass Effect (which will allow pivotal choices made in the first game to load into the next one). Pioneering new ground doesn’t run smoothly, of course. Both the above gamers have severe limitations on the player’s ability to affect the story. But hopefully as this trend continues we’ll see a radical shift as, like Doctor Professor says, the video game medium comes into its own.

The Professor names four strengths of video games that are vital for exploring their storytelling potential. 1) choices must be free, 2) choices must be affirmed, 3) choices must be expressive, and 4) choices must be consequential. When a player’s input is not channeled or forced into a predetermined path, AND receives feedback that validates the choice (characters thank you,  get mad, etc), AND allows for emotional expression and thematic statement, AND has a meaningful effect on the world and its inhabitants, THEN the player can truly be said to shape the outcome of the story. The user is a collaborator rather than a consumer.

Which is one of the strengths of face-to-face roleplaying, presumably–with human imaginations on tap for content, rather than computer algorithms, the potential for free, affirmed, expressive and consequential choice, for all participants, is vast. Collaborative story should pulse through a roleplaying session. And yet I’ve had many roleplaying experiences that have shut down each one of those attributes of choices, often several at once. Just as video games, in emulating movies, aren’t realizing their unique artistic potential, so “pen and paper” games fall short of their calling when they merely emulate the pre-written novel or the pre-programmed video game.

My friend Christian of Berengad Games also recently explored ways of achieving dynamic and interactive story in video games. He had a specific theoretical implementation in mind and I contributed my own. But whatever the specific implementation–and there’s room for multitudes–I think the key lies in Dr. Professor’s 4 elements: free, affirmed, expressive and consequential.

And if computer programmers are breaking new ground here, can interactive group storytelling in the real world do any less? For myself, I can’t go back. Those four criteria are my minimum bar for participation. At the very least, if any of those elements aren’t on the table, DON’T LEAD ME ON–tell me up front, so that I can make the mental shift and NOT approach the game as group storytelling. But when I’m seizing story, I’ll stay in the company of the innovators and explorers, and keep my eye on the horizon.

Peace,

-Joel

The Green Man of Portland

So I’m out with some of my churchmates last week with fresh-baked ham, corn and potatoes to help feed the homeless.

Except we don’t call them “the homeless,” we call them “our friends without houses” or “our friends who live outside.” It’s more humanizing and personal, as opposed to “othering” these real human beings with a handy sociological label. But anyway:

So I’m helping share food with my friends who live outside, and as always I’m enjoying being there face to face, looking people in the eye and handing them something they need and can enjoy, fresh cooked from my oven, making human connections. And I’m thinking about the sign I received a month ago, the three-fold omen whose significance I’m still pondering.

I wore a mask of the Green Man of medieval myth for Halloween. Then I found a beautiful leaf on the street downtown, sporting beautiful colors and seeming to leap into my path. Then I passed a sidewalk art fixture that spoke of the “Green Man of Portland.”

Turns out the fixture was created by comics artist Daniel Duford as part of a series about the Green Man and his mystical, perception-altering  influence over the city’s inhabitants. What stood out for me at the time was the artwork’s closing line of poetry: “Even the shunned are held in the arms of the Green Man of Portland.”

While I’m hardly a seasoned veteran at interpreting signs and portents, I’ve generally found them to occur at pivotal times, when I’m feeling blocked about a particular problem or when I’m entering a new season of my life.

So I took it in and mulled it over. “Even the shunned are held in the arms of the Green Man of Portland.” For a long time I’ve been drawn to the “shunned” in all aspects of life, from the invisibles of the street to the passionate, the dissident, the radical. These are in so many ways “my people,” so it was no surprise to read those words. But what to do with them?

“Even the shunned are held in the arms of the Green Man of Portland.” I do long to reach out to people. To hold them in my arms, to awaken them to a way of life–of health, of freedom, of joy–that even I only dimly grasp. But do I have the right to push my way of thinking onto others? And even if I do “have” that “right”, do I really want to exercise it?

“Even the shunned are held in the arms of the Green Man of Portland.” Maybe I can find a way to hold people in my arms without smothering them, without trying to “fix” them, without “knowing what’s best” for them,” loving without any strings attached?

So I’m helping share food with my friends who live outside, and I believe that I can.

There are still a lot of unknowns. What about my life will change as I assimilate this new focus? Will I adopt some kind of persona and mission, or just keep doing stuff informally, as plain ol’ me? Will I continue to reach out piecemeal, doing little things here and there, or will I take up a dedicated mission and cause? I don’t know. I just know that I have a renewed focus to love people, and if there’s any kind of valuable lifestyle I can impart to help them, it will be by doing, by living in such a way that it invites them to do the same.

This isn’t a scientific process. Nor is it some esoteric mysticism requiring saint-like patience, fanatical devotion, or elite, hidden knowledge. it’s just a matter of looking and listening. Consider everything potentially significant. Be alert for connections in all things, even, ESPECIALLY, the unconscious. When you look and listen, story finds you.

Peace,

-Joel

Remembrance in the Thin Time

This month I participated in a holiday that commemorates the blessings one has received in life. No, not Thanksgiving. I’m talking about Samhain.

I had the privilege of attending a Samhain festival at Portland’s St. Peter & Paul Episcopal Church. I’ve long been fascinated with ancient Celtic culture, but never had the opportunity to attend a traditional (reconstructed) celebration before. It was wonderful, and full of surprises.

The first surprise was that an Episcopal church was drawing from a deep well of Celtic Spirituality.  I don’t know much about the Episcopalian tradition, but I had always assumed that as a branch of the Anglican church, their focus would be, well, English and not so much Irish. I had no idea where in Portland I could encounter Celtic Christianity, and now it had found me.

The second surprise was that the service, held in a church, was connected with deep roots that go beyond doctrine or dogma. The ceremony was rooted in two concepts: a circle where all are welcome and all are equal, and the empowerment of everyone present to tell their story.

That was it. No exclusion, no pressure toward religious belief, no attempt at “managing” input beyond invitation and facilitation. Everyone from 10-year-olds to the middle aged was able to don the storyteller’s cloak and tell both of legends dear to them and of their own experiences dearer still. I was blessed, and I’m not just mouthing a ritual word to say that.

The third surprise was an unexpected encounter with my own past.  The Rector, Kurt, explained that Samhain (“Sow-in” or “Sav-an”) is the “Thin Time,” the beginning of Winter where resources strain and life hangs by a thread–but also when the veil between flesh and spirit thins, allowing us greater closeness with those who have gone on, but are still in our hearts.  Like my Dad.

I didn’t attend the Circle expecting to encounter my father. I only knew that I had been invited. But as others shared their memories of departed loved ones, I realized that the window was open for a connection with him. I donned the cloak and told the tale of my father and me: of the heritage and roots he instilled, of the bitter differences we had, of the death that left us unresolved, and of the gifts of love that I carry even through the pain. And I felt his presence for the first time in years.

What happened here? First, I came open to having a meaningful experience, but with no particular expectations. Second, the hospitality of that Circle made a safe space where I could unburden my heart. And third, a context of ritual and tradition was provided that could draw me into a mindframe that I wouldn’t have arrived at on my own.

That’s how community looks. That’s how ritual looks. And that’s how telling stories together looks, whether at bardic circle, church service, or game table. And it’s beautiful.

Peace,

-Joel

Putting Omens on hold

On All Hallows Eve and the following morning, I wore a dyed leather eyemask of green leaves and antlers, with an accompanying outfit–the Green man of medieval art and myth. Days later just after describing my costume to a friend I encountered another pair of symbols: a remarkable leaf colored bright green and yellow, with rich crimson veins, and a sidewalk art fixture making reference to “the Green man of Portland. I felt in my bones that these three signs were some sort of portent for my life.

So I snapped pics of the fixture on my cellphone, came home and shoved the leaf in the fridge with a damp paper towel, and promptly forgot about the whole thing for almost a month.

Today I pulled out the Omens to contemplate them, and I wondered–what culture do I live in, what manner of man have I become, that I would treat such signs and wonders as bottled inspiration–a spiritual snack to be put on ice until it’s convenient to enjoy it?

I think we’ve become a society with both the means and the necessity of storing and organizing information to be processed in the cracks around our busy and rigid schedules. But paradocixally, we actually have preposterous amounts of free time, even among the working classes, but so much of that is taken up by processing an incessant and overwhelming information feed, often of trivial matters. After all, when I arrived home with those omens in hand, it was late, I had work early next morning–and I still needed to check my updates on Facebook!

Now, it sort of worked.  Using technology to preserve the imagery helped me to recall that experience weeks later, and process it with some semblance of authenticity. But would I want to make a habit of that? If the Infinite has something to say to me, do I really want to dispatch some weasely Personal Assistant to take a memo for me and present it to me at next morning’s daily briefing? I want to be–I PRESENT myself as–a person who’s in tune with the spiritual dimensions around me. Doesn’t that mean living in the holy moment, taking the time to gratefully and courteously accept that which enriches life as it comes to me?

In all likelihood I’m going to continue to check Facebook, work for the man, and multitask my mental and spiritual attention for some time to come. But I’d like to remember not to treat numinous gifts with such cavalier presumption.

Peace,

-Joel

Tell your story, ask a question, interpret generously

The response from visitors to my blog has for the most part been cordial, affirming and enriching. But a couple of recent incidents have told me it’s time to make clear how I endeavor to conduct myself here and what I expect from guests in return.

My friend Willem Larsen of the College of Mythic Cartography has developed a set of guidelines for some forums he moderates. The way I hear it, he got so fed up with the choice between pages of nitpicky rules and nebulous “commonsense” standards of niceness, that he boiled down the behavior he was looking for to three simple directives. I find they sum up beautifully how I’d like to interact with people here or anywhere:

Tell your story. Relate your experience, describe your feelings, share your personal knowledge. Instead of responding to others off the cuff with whatever instinctive reaction or opinion comes to mind, dig deep into your own experience that causes you to think or feel that way. Share that. Your story is valuable, and so is everyone else’s. When we share on that level, we can empathize more fully and discover each other’s value.

Ask a Question. If there’s something you don’t understand about someone else’s story, if there’s some detail you think might be relevant, if you think you might have some experience in common…ask. Don’t assume you know what someone “really” meant unless they’ve said it directly. This dovetails nicely with the first guideline–if you can’t understand where someone is coming from, you can always ask, “what experience have you had that led you to that conclusion?” We want to hear each other’s stories, and questions are great for teasing those out and finding common ground.

Interpret Generously. If someone’s statement sounds ridiculous to you, or someone seems to be advocating a reprehensible position, assume for a moment that they’re not. Assume that what they’re saying makes sense, is reasonable, and has value. Try to imagine how that could be. Ask questions to clarify, until you are sure you understand where the person is coming from. ANd if you still find you have differences, you can part ways politely, without anyone being compared to Hitler.

I find this way of communicating to be more human and life-affirming than a lot of modes I’ve tried in person or online. And while it’s a challenge to to break out of old patterns, there’s something freeing in following a simple set of principles instead of having to guess, by gut feeling, whether you’re being “nice,” or “a dick,” or whatever.

Is there room for disagreement under this philosophy? Absolutely, we can disagree quite freely. The only thing we lose is the ability to argue or “debate” in a juvenile, “uh-HUH!” “Nuh-UH!” fashion. Our disagreement is expressed through our experiences and we can be certain that even in our differences we can be truly heard.

That’s the call by which I invite yo all into the hospitality of my space. That’s the standard I’ll expect of you as guests. When there are hiccups and challenges, we’ll work it out through discussion and hopefully continue on in goodwill. If any of us (yes, me too!) stumble and someone points it out, it’s not a “punishment” or a label of “bad person.” Only in persisting in a disruptive behavior might a guest outgrow my hospitality. In the meantime, Welcome. Come and tell your story!

The lesson of the genial Vikings

Last time I talked about the idea that roleplaying or storyjamming can profoundly change your life by allowing you to rewrite your soul pathways into new (hopefully healthier) patterns. But how’s that look in actual play? I offer myself as example:

I’ve been playing for a few months in a game of Luke Crane’s Burning Wheel, set in Medieval Ireland in the era of Viking settlement. We’re playing three denizens of a small fishing village north of  Dubh Linn, caught in the creep up the coast of Norse settlement and rule. Matthew’s playing a prince, coming home after being fostered by Norsemen, who wants there to be peace between everyone. David’s playing a vengeful raid victim, seducing and killing her way through the clan who violated her and took her son. And I’m playing a young tough who fought the Norse over in Caledonia with his uncle, and comes home to find the same Viking dogs infesting his hometown!

Now, I made this character with the full-on expectation of rising up in bloody and righteous revolt against some oppressive foreign bastards. Period, the end. I might succeed, I might fail. But a brave stand against vile oppressors was pretty much my only thought.

But this is the Burning Wheel. Our characters are defined by their Beliefs and Instincts. But it’s then Jim’s job as Gamemaster to challenge those beliefs through the events of play, creating situations with no easy choices. And that’s what happened.

When young Gabhrán returned home he was shocked to find the Northerners ruling in place of the hereditary chieftan, but even more shocked to find everyone pretty OK with it. His Ma and Da as well as the slain chieftan’s son all insisted that they’ve been well and fairly treated, and the village is prosperous and content. There was a rebellious faction stirring, but as time went on it became clear that they and Gabhrán have little basis for revolt beyond sheer bloody-mindedness. And when Gabhrán undertook to champion the cause of a grievously wronged woman–sexually assaulted and accused of murder–in truth this was the aforementioned vengeful seductress, truly guilty of the murder and not assaulted at all. This culminated in Gabhrán fighting a duel in defense of her innocence which ended in the death of a guiltless Viking dupe.

It began to dawn on me that I entered the game with some unexamined assumptions. When I considered playing a righteous revolutionary, I was unconsciously equating “righteous” with “revolt.” In other words, “”ruler” and “oppressor” were synonymous in my mind, and I was assuming that all that was needed for a righteous cause was someone, especially someone foreign, in power. That told me something startling about my attitude toward the world, and just how much of it is based on unconscious bias. Am I really that reactionary and unthinkingly contrarian?

I’ve been forced to reevaluate how I view the world. I’m examining how my principles–love, peace, justice–actually work themselves out in my personal universe. Answers aren’t easy, but I’d say they’re worth the work.

I want to point out that this wasn’t a hiccup or defect in gameplay–”Whoops, sorry guys, my personal biases mucked up the story, won’t happen again!”–but rather the game’s purpose in action. I did exactly right in choosing Beliefs that I care about, and Jim and the other players did exactly right in providing meaningful friction to those Beliefs. You play Burning Wheel to be challenged, and challenged hard, on a personal level. But at the same time, we weren’t playing for personal life lessons, as a substitute for therapy or something. We were playing to create a story with courageous honesty, and in so doing, told ourselves some of our own story.

The game is still in progress. The ultimate fate of the village of Tiráth is undecided. Gabhrán certainly hasn’t become an enlightened paragon of tolerance and understanding. But his revolutionary forays have become more and more troubled, and his incitement of the people less and less in his control. He is confronted at every turn by the humanity of his opponents. Will he become a fanatical monster, or will his Beliefs be strained to the breaking point?

We play to find out. We play to tell our story.

Peace,

-Joel

Reinventing “Us”

I’ve staked out some pretty lofty territory for the role of creating stories together in real time–”roleplaying,” in a word–that territory being no less than the reclamation our shared humanity through mythmaking.

But what good does that actually do for us, really?

Well, the short answer is that through mythmaking we tell ourselves who we are. We burn patterns into ourselves that make it easier to enact specific values. Just because the Labors of Hercules and the Death of Cuchulainn have been replaced by the Tale of the Spider-Man and the Goblin of Green, and the Death of Gwendolyn the Fair doesn’t mean we’ve escaped from that patterning at the soul level. Oral-tradition cultures believe that without stories, you can’t know who you are. And indeed we’re shaped by the stories we’ve received, whether it’s Sam and Frodo, Elizabeth and Darcy, Han and Luke, Scarlett and Snake-eyes, or Jack and Sawyer. Our experiences our contextualized by reflexive associations like “oh, like on Simpsons,” whether we like it or not.

Of course, we like to think that in the brave, bold 21st Century, we’re freed from the bonds of tradition and able to reinvent ourselves as we each see fit. After all, we’re all individuals. But really, isn’t that all the more reason to consciously work to define healthy patterns for ourselves? We’re blessed now with more ability than at any time in history to consciously redefine who we are, so why not take advantage of that?

There are several means available for rewriting our internal pathways. Religion is one; therapy is another. But roleplaying–the act of telling stories to and with each other–is an immensely powerful tool. It works on us in much subtler ways than an explicitly educational activity, because it tells a story rather than preaching a message, and yet acts much more dynamically and relevantly than passively receiving a story. And storytelling helps us swallow the pill of self-revelation and transformation smoother than a purely therapeutic process. Stories are perfect vehicles for receiving messages and processing our existence, as they allow us to live and breathe a thing, to take it into ourselves instead of merely talking about it. And this is no mere dodge from living an experience “for real,” but rather works hand in hand with our actual life experience to help us process and contextualize it.

How this works in passive media is, you receive the story, and it stirs something inside you. You identify with it, or you’re challenged by it; either way you contextualize your own experiences by the story’s metric. When you encounter an experience that evokes that story for you, you’re likely to act in resonance with or defiance of that story’s pattern. That’s powerful enough in itself.

How it works in roleplaying is even more potent. We choose. We choose. Together. That’s so dead simple and obvious, yet mind-blowingly revolutionary.

Playing out an experience at the roleplaying table is a unique activity–not amateur therapy and not wannabe novelization–that has its own peculiar quality. As I said, we make the choices in the story, and if we choose with integrity to our own hearts and to the vision we see, then we will make something TRUE. Something authentic, not “factual”, not “what it would be like if…” but something valid about us within a shared fiction that reveals our souls and bolsters our hearts.

This is who we are, as humans. This is the birthright we cast aside when we commodify entertainment. This is the mythic force we can reclaim.

Peace,

-Joel

Making it ourselves

I saw the Tim Burton film 9 last night with my wife. It was a movie that promised so much, yet failed to satisfy. In fact it was painful how breathless plotting, ponderous dialogue, and shameless clichés managed to rob a story that could have been heartbreakingly human. Instead it was a collection of fascinating ideas and themes that were ultimately lifeless.

This has always been a hazard of Hollywood, for seekers of substance. Every now and again a film is the real deal, but often it’s a pale, stilted imitation of authentic expression.

My wife and I noted that more and more of the promising movies we’ve seen have left that empty taste. The question hit us–are we witnessing a twilight of artistic depth? Is the age of personal human vision in art and storytelling passing from the earth?

I don’t know much about how 9’s vision germinated. I do know that the production processes of movies and television provide a wealth of material for consumption, but are not conducive to authenticity. Human-ness is not produced by committee. What are then chances that a creator will say something honest, and be heard, as content-as-product proliferates?

Perhaps this trend in movies represents a mere slump, a recession if you will, in creativity. But if it is indeed the birth pangs of a complete creative collapse in the “entertainment” industry, then I must conclude that if we want to have stories with integrity, we must make them ourselves.

This is why roleplaying and storyjamming are more than mere diversions for me.

This is the way we make our own myths, the way we keep the flame of story alight. This is the way we teach ourselves, over and over, to be humans. This is the way we celebrate who we are.

Occasionally, within the “system,” (or sometimes in defiance of it–Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, for instance) a fire will blaze up that speaks with integrity, that teaches us, that celebrates with us. We cherish these flames. But by and large, we’re on our own. So we write our own novels with a purpose beyond leveraging motion picture rights, we make our own comics which explore the endless possibilities, we make our own music in our living rooms and on our street corners for whoever is there to hear. . .and we sit down by the hearth to tell stories together.

Put like that, storyjamming is less a pastime and more a calling. A calling I mean to keep.

Peace,

-Joel

Fluency in the Forest

A couple of weeks ago I ran a storyjamming workshop for TrackersNW, the same group I worked with on middle Earth Camp. It was a great opportunity to get paid for doing something I love, but more than that, it was the perfect chance to put the Fluency Play model to the test.

Fluency is about working through levels of complexity organically, bit by bit, rather than dumping a whole ton of rules and technique on players at once. As such, it was a perfect fit for a bunch of back to nature types who want to tell stories around a campfire.

I came armed with techniques and procedures adapted from Vincent Baker’s In A Wicked Age, wedded with fluency tools from Evan Gardner’s Where Are Your Keys? language fluency game. By presenting key IaWA concepts–Oracles, Best Interests, Conflict–through ever-advancing levels of fluency, I figured I could facilitate a seamless experience with story creation from the ground up, and little to no brow-furrowing over rules or complex concepts.

I was right.

I divided our time into two segments: Oracle creation and play. For those unfamiliar, Oracles are roleplaying device for generating a situation pregnant with conflict, as fodder for an evening’s story creation. Write up a bunch of story elements, calibrated for action and instability, draw a few randomly, and you’ve got instant clay for a dynamic tale. We created Oracle elements based on the Trackers’ own experiences in the woods that week.

Then we moved on to play. I had a whole load of rules concepts to share, but I kept each one sheathed until it was needed and welcome. I knew we wouldn’t get to the highest level of all the rules in play, and that was OK. We progressed as far as was right for that group and that time. We ended up halfway through all the prepared procedures, but we got an engaging and satisfying story out of it, where everyone’s input mattered. We told a tale of a wounded hunter hounded by ancestral ghosts, of an ailing but charismatic tribal matron, in desperately in need of healing water, and of a fox and his forbidden he-beaver lover, plotting to drive all humans from the forest. Alliances were forged, treachery attempted, hatreds assuaged, loves rekindled! It was a beauty.

The feedback I received made it all worthwhile. “Those are really great techniques.” “That was just enough structure.” “I always wanted to tell stories but didn’t know how, until now.” Imagine if I had come to that campfire with character sheets and a bunch of polyhedral dice and made people wait while I looked up Particular Strengths in the rulebook. . .I shudder to think. Instead, we created a magic space where first-time storyjammers could weave a mythic tapestry out of their own experiences, and strengthen their connection with the land and each other.

When you learn fluently, learning is play. Play is good.

Peace,

-Joel