Development 14 - Where's The Story?

The summer whizzed by, and I've stumbled out the other side of it, having done a lot less work for all of you than I would've liked. I will be publishing a complete write-up of Motherlode soon, and I'll be talking about what worked of the three games I ran this summer. I hope to have that next weekend. I also want to do another article on game mechanics soon, talking about the notion of rules of rituals. Also I really hope to find time to write more RPGs! For now though, I'd love to talk a little bit about a twitter argument I got into. 

People tend to describe RPGs as being composed of their rulebooks because it's easy to fathom. If someone wants to have fun playing Dungeons & Dragons, they're probably going to pick up the rulebooks. If you're interested in an authentic D&D experience, that is where "the game" lives, after all, right? As much as podcasts like Critical Role gets people into D&D, you don't use Critical Role as the bible to guide your game by. I imagine very few people playing D&D use Critical Role's characters, while almost everyone uses the suggested races and classes of D&D 5e. But if someone asked me to identify where the story of D&D is, I wouldn't be pointing at the rulebook. I'd point at my own experience of the game, influenced by the rulebook. In that sense, the story isn't a document that can be accessed easily - it's generated and created by the group, as the experience advances. Some would say that the Dungeon Master (or, in a LARP, the organizer) carries the story. So is that where the story lives, inside the Dungeon Master's head? But the DM isn't the only person actively telling the story - each player is involved in their own experiences, making choices that can be narratively contradictory with other players'. 

So, where's the story? In a campaign of D&D, we are all holding onto it together. But many would argue (including myself, at various points in time) that these are multiple discrete narratives, all floating around in the same space. In a campaign I'm running, I have a vitally distinct experience of the narrative than any particular one of my players. In addition, traditional notions of "main charactership" become distorted - each player can be described as being the protagonist of their own narrative. So is that where the story is? Are there 6 stories, one inside of each person? Or, to take it even further, are there 60 stories in a game like Motherlode? In a LARP, what happens to the story that I wrote myself, or stories that people planned that never occurred, or contextual information that some players were aware of that others weren't aware of? It seems like there's a lot of narrative that exists outside of any one player. 

Some people would still be comfortable with saying, in a game like Motherlode, that there are 60 protagonists, each with their own plot threads, bumping into each other. I'm not in love with that though. Firstly, there are narrative and conceptual elements in any RPG that exist beyond any single player. In Dungeons & Dragons, this is stuff like the dice, or even random tables. In LARPs, it's the land, the system, or any other elements of randomness that are beyond any single player's control. If, when I play a LARP, I am an author, then that means I have control over my story. But I don't! 59 other people also have control over my story, and can influence it in any number of ways - by stabbing me, by healing me, by telling me important information, etc. etc. I am not an author. I am a participant, who is experiencing an event unfold. 

In addition to all of that, there are many people who don't enjoy positioning themselves as the protagonist, nor is it always true that everyone is an equal protagonist. When I play a monster in the woods, I am not a protagonist - I am a character that exists to facilitate other people's stories. Sometimes, even when I am a player in D&D, I won't think of myself as a protagonist - perhaps it's clear to me that I'm just the side character in another person's big story. I might revel in that! Finally, there are some games (like Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist or other games of unique structural design) where some players are more obviously a protagonist than others. In WTF, the Wisher is the protagonist. The other players have chosen side roles. 

There is also the matter of games where there is only a single story, without main characters. In something like The Quiet Year or Microscope, players don't adopt fixed, singular characters. Instead, they provide voices to the community, and create a shared narrative environment that everyone is exploring equally. It was after playing The Quiet Year and talking to Avery Alder about the ways stories make assumptions about who gets to have a voice that made me appreciate the notion that maybe, there aren't 6 stories, one in each of us. Maybe a roleplaying game is composed of a single, nebulous, story, which emerges from all of us, exists around us, and lives on after us, in our fragmented memories. 

How can I benefit from thinking of a story as being something outside of myself, outside of all of us? Like what I said about the land in a previous development article, what if we imagine an RPG as being an event which consumes us, rather than as something we sculpt, force, and demand center stage at. In discussions around appropriate behavior at the table, the idea of the spotlight emerged - making sure everyone gets an equal share of the narrative. I wonder if there's ever a point where we could move beyond that, outside of it, and through the structures of the games we play, escape the spotlight entirely.