Interactive Storytelling

[alanajoli]

I had a lot of ideas about what to post on today, but I keep coming back to the one that's on my mind at the moment: interactive storytelling. There is just nothing more satisfying to me than making a story with other people. (I'll use the term interactive storytelling for CRPGs and VRPGs, but they're really a substitute for good old fashioned gathering with friends and, roughly, playing let's pretend.) When I was a kid, these stories didn't often have a lot of plot, and since I was the middle kid in the neighborhood, I usually followed the lead of my surrogate big sis, and my own younger sister followed along. We were pioneers or astronauts or pirates, usually making the swing set in her back yard or the rock garden in ours the home base. At school, for kindergarten and some of first grade, I was the lead storyteller in my class, because I had a lot of good let's pretend ideas. But right about five or six, real life starts getting more interesting to most kids than full-on games of let's pretend--or the pretending at least takes a real life turn rather than the fantastic--so it really wasn't until discovering D&D in high school that I had an outlet for shared fantasy.

To say it was life-changing may be a slight exaggeration, but not much. Here were people I not just traded stories with (I had done that on and off in middle school), but created stories with me. There's something magical about that, about sharing imagination space. Mythically speaking, the collective representations of that group of people shift to something new and different, and while that can be shared with people who aren't there, being in the moment and creating those new representations--that sub-reality or sub-creation--is profound.

A friend once asked me how I could become so close to my gaming friends. It wasn't like we had any real experiences together. We just sat around a table playing make-believe. But to me, well, I've always made the best friends of the people who have shared imaginary realms with me. Sometimes that's in the world of theater (because I think theater touches on that same bordering realm), and my fellow mythographers in our thought experiments certainly touch that same profound experience, but most often, it's been my gaming group. I suspect it's not always quite as powerful for them as it is for me, but sometimes, I suspect it is.

And those are the games I can't help but think about between sessions, desperately craving what comes next, no matter what that happens to be.

--

In other news, "The Chalice Girl" is not coming together the way I'd like, and I think I'm going to put that on hold until the next time a Lace and Blade open call comes around. In actuality, I mean that I'm going to continue working on it, though with less focus, since "Saving Tara" is still waiting for attention, and I'm considering a piece on a vampire in the Revolutionary War mostly to entertain my friend Michelle, but partly because I think there's an actual story there to be told. (This last actually ties into the current shared imagination experience I'm having, and because of that, it may well not translate to actual fiction, but I think I'll give it a go.) The biggest thing I'm regretting right now is that I wrote down the final deadline for the Lace and Blade open call rather than the opening of acceptance of pieces. I really need to give myself a deadline at least in the *middle* of the call in order to not be rushing at the last minute--and then putting together something that isn't my very best. So I'm giving myself permission to miss this one in hopes of having something better the next time an open call that I care about comes around.

Comments

[elven-wolf.livejournal.com]

I totally know where you're coming from about gaming. Funny story, my growing up experience was similar to yours, except I didn't meet my father until I was in my 20's, and when I did I learned that he'd been playing D&D for most of my life, and my kid brother is big into it as well. So now it's one of the big things we do as a family. It was kind of funny to me how I grew up totally separate and yet picked it up on my own (my mother's family doesn't get it, my mother herself thinks it's devil worship and there's nothing in the world that would convince her otherwise).

But anyway, before I bore you, just wanted to share that little tidbit.

I'm still interested in Saving Tara.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Not bored at all! I wonder if gaming is somehow genetic... ;) I *love* seeing families that game together--I think that's one of the things I like seeing most at conventions--and it's wonderful that you discovered that connection with yours.

I'm still interested in "Saving Tara," too. I hope the muse comes back around to it. :)

[elven-wolf.livejournal.com]

The gaming gene. That's awesome. LOL.

I hope the 'Saving Tara' muse comes back to you too.

[orryn-emrys.livejournal.com]

I'd have certainly been in for life no matter how it played out, but shortly after I got into D&D (when I was about 10 years old) I got my parents involved, and later my younger brother as well. My father played for about six or seven years, my brother for slightly longer... my mom, at 52, still plays D&D with old friends of mine back home! In fact, she came to town to visit this weekend, and we played D&D... my fiance, my stepdaughter, my best friend, and my mom. I've always been pleased that this experience, as unique and intimate as it is, is something I've been able to share with my family.

[elven-wolf.livejournal.com]

Hehe, we have a saying in my family: the family that quests together, stays together.

Another awesome aspect of having so many years of having played the game, the quests become sagas that span generations of characters, and the world my dad and his buddies created back in the 80's keeps expanding and growing in detail and depth with each story.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Excellent thinking.

All those story ideas sound nifty.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I was really struggling with giving myself permission to let go of this round earlier today, but I know it will end up being a better decision for the pieces themselves.

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's just because your gaming friends are awesome. ;-)

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

I have collected a number of really good ones... :)