Development 06 - Why Sad Games Matter

This post is a bit self-indulgent and I'm sorry about that, but also every single one of these blog posts is self-indulgent, and I'm not sorry about that. 

I saw a sentiment expressed recently, which a number of people have echoed in various spaces in my life, that worries me. Well, it doesn't worry me - it's just another preference in playstyles, just one that I find frustrating when touted as the objectively true opinion. This view is, "I don't want to give up hope in my narratives in 2018". Or rather, that in light of the current state of the world, we should be exclusively telling and participating in stories about cancelling the apocalypse, that there's no place in people's lives for stories about the inevitable doom and gloom which is so apparent in our real lives.

Don't get me wrong, I think narratives about overcoming the impossible are good. I think uplifting hope is good, and I think that when you play as the same character for months or years, you become invested in their life being good and worthwhile and turning out okay. But I don't think we should always get that, and I don't think there's no merit to be found in stories about loss, and pain, and inescapable failure.

One of my favorite LARPs I've written (available under the Patreon Resources section) is Endless Lights, a LARP about a group of teenagers fleeing into the woods to say goodbye to both the forest that is being destroyed and to each other, many of whom are going off to college or leaving the town behind. There is no escape from this "apocalypse" - there is no way to stop the inevitable destruction of the forest, no way to avoid the fact that everyone is leaving. Or rather, there is a way, but perhaps that way is unhealthy, and results in your own regression into a purely etheric state. 

I don't want people to walk away from that story feeling like they've overcome the impossible and made it out perfectly, because they can't, by the very laws of the game. And that's the point! I'm interested in stories of loss, and pain, and a slow tragic arc that sweeps you up over a long period of time where you sow the seeds for your own destruction, and the reason I'm interested in that is for precisely the same reasons that so many people seem counter to it - because it mirrors our world.

Endless Lights is a LARP about my own experiences and insecurities, set in a fantastical version of my own teenaged years. I wrote it weeks after learning that my favorite location in the world, an abandoned limestone quarry turned into a swimming hole and scenic set of ruins, had had security cameras installed around it, and was nearly-impossible to get into. Those were the same weeks I said goodbye to my friend group at home and went to college for the first time. It's a game about personal loss, about the deeply personal failure to reach out to others and build a perfect world.

Should we have stories about overcoming adversity? Yes, I suppose. They're not the stories for me. Something a lot of people forget is that when you're a GM telling a story with victorious heroes but sympathetic villains, every story you tell is a tragedy for yourself. One of the three demons of The Last Days of Solomon died last week, heart ripped apart by birds and head shorn from shoulders. The players celebrated, because they didn't understand the consequences of their actions. I mourning, not in a self-indulgent way where I wished the players hadn't killed him, but in an honest way - his life in this iteration of Solomon was a great tragedy, and I will miss his unique existence. I even tried to barter with my other GM to see if we could find some way to live, because I wished so desperately for him to have made it through. 

I think a common mistake people make when thinking about depressing narratives is that they assume that there cannot be any happiness in them - "Why would I want to play a game when it's just a bummer for weeks on end?" 

My response is always - there can only be tragedy in the face of happiness. Two players are getting married in Solomon, just as the city burns. One of them has been cursed to never be able to escape, and will die in the city. The other one might leave, or might stay. It's a heartbreaking story, but it wouldn't be so heartbreaking without the months of romance the two players have poured into their characters, with secretive hands clasped at parties and thousands of words of romance and communication hidden behind closed doors. Would their fast-approaching sadness be quite so tragic without this happiness? Or rather, would their happiness be quite so perfect without the knowledge that it will all soon end? 

In the end, I tend to think of it as a challenge. Where are those beautiful moments, in the crushing and unrelenting tide of destruction? How can we be happy, even when we know that our time together is fleeting? That is much more poignant a question to me than simply whether we win. Ideally, I think in a game you devote as much time to as Solomon, or a tabletop, or a LARP, the question shouldn't be whether you won - it should be its own private act of mourning, the conclusion of a world you'll never get to see again in the same way.