Time Bandits 3

Time Bandits is a tricky movie to run because the main characters don't have a clear motivation. They have a very general set of base desires centered around wealth, but the movie does not build from these desires: it gives no rubric for success or failure, and fulfills the characters' greed almost immediately, as they wander around time, picking up priceless treasures with little resistance. This is actually a very unusual structural choice from Terry Gilliam. In general stories are driven by the motivations of their protagonists: This central need is what drives the actions of the story and creates dramatic tension. Without that structure, a story will feel aimless or experimental. But Gilliam uses that aimlessness purposefully in the film; he is a skilled storyteller with boundless creativity, able to keep the story moving through charming happenstance, inventive imagery, quixotic action set-pieces, and a general sense of comedic angst that keeps the characters moving within a story that does not always give them clear places to go.  Rather than let the characters drive the story, he works twice as hard to make the story drive the characters. His writing is a constant sleight of hand, not letting you notice the tricks he is using to keep the movie feeling active. It takes careful writing and incredible creativity to cover for the lack of a central motive.

This is generally a really bad idea for an RPG. It's very hard for the GM who has to be embody the unbalanced creativity of Terry Gilliam. But it's nearly impossible for the players, who are asked to portray characters with vague and easily fulfilled desires. This can quickly become unfun for the players, and I would never attempt a movie like this if I was not making a radio show, it's one of those times when the distinction between entertaining my players and entertaining our audience becomes most clear. I am giving my players a lot of work, to come up with engaging scenes in this big and aimless world. I trust them to do it, and we have a lot of fun in this kind of work, but this is definitely the movie that we've had the most conversations about beforehand, discussing how to find the right tone and keep the story moving and engaging.

Doing stories like this is definitely a "sometimes food" for us, mixed in with more traditional structures (the idea that time bandits is non-continuous sort of happened by accident, but now that it happened, I think it's the right way of releasing this movie). But I also think that playing outside the bounds of traditional structure from time to time is important, it opens up new avenues and keeps you fresh. If executed well, it's exciting for the audience, who without the expected landmarks will also by necessity not know where the story is going next.

It's also inevitable in an RPG that some time a character will find themselves without a clear motivation. Having some experience with this kind of heavy lifting will make those moments seem easy. I still remember when we were playing through Wizard of Oz, after the big confrontation with the witches, once we were fully off the rails, my players had a similar sense of not being clear what their characters really wanted in this new context. If we were playing for fun the game might have fallen apart at that moment, since it started to feel a bit more like work than play for them. But we pushed through and found something really memorable from that uncomfortable unclarity. If you trust your instincts as a storyteller, you can find your way through anything, and the result may be more interesting for having struggled to find it.

Ok, that's it for Time Bandits for the time being. Next week we're starting Princess Bride. This one has a cast heavy in improv experience, so it turned into a very zany story. It's goofy as hell and I love it. Can't wait to share it with you.