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the_fantastic_ms_foxConsider the heroic cycle.
Then consider what the American Monomyth says about America.
An interesting point came up during my conversation with my Sweetie, and it has many implications fr applying narrative psychotherapy to geeks. It is "What do the stories we tell say about whe we are, and how do amateur (or professional) writing, storytelling and roleplaying games play into this?
This is intense for me.
If you write or game, I suggest that you try this out for yourself.
Characters:
Is this how I feel I should be? Is this what I see as 'heroic?' Is this what I'm scared that I'mnot? Is this the story I'm trying to live out when I get involved in something that inspires me?
1. Most of my favourte characters have jobs that they like, and jobs that I'd like.
Monk (as in Cadfael, not Kung Fu) and medicant;
Insect feeder;
Trauma Counsellor;
Travel Writer;
Fry Cook in happy version of McDonalds;
Part time student, part time naturopath, part time pharamcist, albeit to those without prescriptions;
2. They resent it when weild shit interferes with their ability to get back to their job.
would prefer Park ranger work to insurgency
would really like to go back to school
will be mutant-for-hire as long as epidemiology tuition and family's mortgage are covered
3. The fact that these characters are involved with unusual or supernatural events, or have unusual abilities is almost incidental.
4. Once involved in unusual events, their eagerness gives rise to a heavy-handed or careless outlook that tends resolve things but causes a plethora of new problems.
Agrees to hand over 12th-century Arabic book of outerworldly madness for ritual destruction at the hands of Salish witch hunters (after making five photopies of it), starts to have serious hallucinations;
5. They then find it hard to get away to attend to their personal problems.
6. They are calm under pressure. This, comined with their eagerness, can make them pretty ruthless.
7. Other characters see them as competent.
8. Other characters give them mid-range status. This confuses the character.
Publicly honoured as "reliable;"
Knighted, invited into underfunded CSIS group;
Inducted into world-wide McDonalds conspiracy;
Alarmed and confused at being deemed worthy of coming back from the dead;
9. Lacking faith in even their own "side" they do not take clear sides, and feel guilty about it.
Stands aside from civil war of the magi to act as healer
Goes out of way to avoid swearing allegiance to the Duke
10. They are rarely in charge.
11. They've been knocked around a lot, but aren't traumatized
Has died in ethnic violence in every one of past lives over the last three thousand years; killed in car crash and possessed by otherworldly being;
12. Mentally ill
forgets to eat, drink, sleep; tends to flash back to day-to-day lives of previous incarnations;
13. Does not like being paid - Cannot be bought or bribed. Provides services without compensation. Given an IOU, they will not redeem it.
Summons Queen of All Sorrows and makes light conversation; arranges dance for vampire overlord and is confused by this idea that he should charge anything over normal rates for his service; offered the love of any person by a peddler and asks if he can have unrequited love removed; ofers to perform abortion for child of magic; refuses generous membership offer by cloked megalomaniac;
14. If given social power, sets out new agenda while others are busy elsewhere
makes example of corrupt counsellors and all who bribed them
plans emergency environmental controls (read: "mini-apocalypse")
15. Cunning, Tricksters
16. Healers, Good friends and counsellors
17. Guardians
18. Older than other characters;
19. Self-sacrificing
20. Poltite and liked by others. When blunt, still liked by others.
Chronicles: (i.e. stories I've told to other gamers)
Is this how I see the world?
1. The characters share a sense of common purpose, but often quarrel with each other.
Sucked through FTL transit system, stuck on other world with Greyhound bus;
Resident of a small town two generations after the apocalypse, they are tasked with finding out who is making antibiotics;
2. They remain cohesive, but the things they do in secret come back to hurt them and their friends.
Toying around with A.I.'s -> starship hijacked, marooned on backwards planet with nuclear war immanent
Serving Windex at a fundraser -> blindness
3. There are good guys, I guess, but no real shining beacons of virtue. The plan is that the characters are sensible, but flawed, people who try to do the right thing out of a sense of decency. They are in a world where there are several powerful arrogant interests nearby (who are either a major threat but not all that bad, are real bastards but no one will work with them, or are just cranks). There is also a larger malevolent and selfish power, and, further afield, one power that is so foul (brining either madness or cruelty) as to defy description.
Mage: the Ascension: some people who inherit a cabin - rival cabals - totalitarian technocrats - demon worshippers
Contested: several people brought together by a dream under the patronage of Prometheus - those who would remaxe the world in the image of rational economic man or those who back traditionalism - "government is a self justifying platfrom from which to enact wanton cruelty" or just screaming madness
Strange Earth: a small town - Prince George Despot, Vancouver Empire, Neo-Nazi survivalists - natural hazards - superminds from a parallel world
Parrallax: the crew of an understaffed frigate in an interstellar socialist "empire" of two billion souls (which is not a lot, considering that it spans eighty-one star systems) - a cold war imperial rival, millenia-old core world governments with populations in the trillions, centuries old corporate powers and survivalists - rogue A.I.'s - slavers that pre-date the evolution of humanity
Duchy of Rain: two-souled persons - The Faerie British Empire, a branch of CSIS - The King of Nightmares - The Dissolution of All Things
City of Rain and Glass: some people who live in a safe zone - undead crew of Soviet submarine - Neoliberal feng-shui-manipulating City counsellor trying to usurp God - (no eeeevil character)
...and so on
4. When the characters have a benefactor, it's a poorly organized small fry with no hope of, or much interest in, rising to dominance. This would be great were it not trying to survive in the face of a competent, arrogant, well-heeled opposition. There's no hope of victory, only autonomy.
5. The arrogant opposition will cut situational deals to mutually oppose the unmitigatingly evil opposition. Take them.
6. The unmitigatingly evil opposition wil also affer deals. Refuse them.
7. The world is full of things where the best advice is to stay out of the way - your toys won't help you
A.I. drones that police techonological sanctions;
Giant bears that jam modern technology;
The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse;
Common themes: social control, the apocalypse; abandoned areas - the same things as my dreams actually... oh, and confusion, lots of confusion
Fiction
Here we have both the hero and the world under my control, but I'm getting tired, and might come back to this later. In the meantime, I suggest that all you gamers out there think about what defines the worlds you build and the characters that you love.
Then consider what the American Monomyth says about America.
An interesting point came up during my conversation with my Sweetie, and it has many implications fr applying narrative psychotherapy to geeks. It is "What do the stories we tell say about whe we are, and how do amateur (or professional) writing, storytelling and roleplaying games play into this?
This is intense for me.
If you write or game, I suggest that you try this out for yourself.
Characters:
Is this how I feel I should be? Is this what I see as 'heroic?' Is this what I'm scared that I'mnot? Is this the story I'm trying to live out when I get involved in something that inspires me?
1. Most of my favourte characters have jobs that they like, and jobs that I'd like.
Monk (as in Cadfael, not Kung Fu) and medicant;
Insect feeder;
Trauma Counsellor;
Travel Writer;
Fry Cook in happy version of McDonalds;
Part time student, part time naturopath, part time pharamcist, albeit to those without prescriptions;
2. They resent it when weild shit interferes with their ability to get back to their job.
would prefer Park ranger work to insurgency
would really like to go back to school
will be mutant-for-hire as long as epidemiology tuition and family's mortgage are covered
3. The fact that these characters are involved with unusual or supernatural events, or have unusual abilities is almost incidental.
4. Once involved in unusual events, their eagerness gives rise to a heavy-handed or careless outlook that tends resolve things but causes a plethora of new problems.
Agrees to hand over 12th-century Arabic book of outerworldly madness for ritual destruction at the hands of Salish witch hunters (after making five photopies of it), starts to have serious hallucinations;
5. They then find it hard to get away to attend to their personal problems.
6. They are calm under pressure. This, comined with their eagerness, can make them pretty ruthless.
7. Other characters see them as competent.
8. Other characters give them mid-range status. This confuses the character.
Publicly honoured as "reliable;"
Knighted, invited into underfunded CSIS group;
Inducted into world-wide McDonalds conspiracy;
Alarmed and confused at being deemed worthy of coming back from the dead;
9. Lacking faith in even their own "side" they do not take clear sides, and feel guilty about it.
Stands aside from civil war of the magi to act as healer
Goes out of way to avoid swearing allegiance to the Duke
10. They are rarely in charge.
11. They've been knocked around a lot, but aren't traumatized
Has died in ethnic violence in every one of past lives over the last three thousand years; killed in car crash and possessed by otherworldly being;
12. Mentally ill
forgets to eat, drink, sleep; tends to flash back to day-to-day lives of previous incarnations;
13. Does not like being paid - Cannot be bought or bribed. Provides services without compensation. Given an IOU, they will not redeem it.
Summons Queen of All Sorrows and makes light conversation; arranges dance for vampire overlord and is confused by this idea that he should charge anything over normal rates for his service; offered the love of any person by a peddler and asks if he can have unrequited love removed; ofers to perform abortion for child of magic; refuses generous membership offer by cloked megalomaniac;
14. If given social power, sets out new agenda while others are busy elsewhere
makes example of corrupt counsellors and all who bribed them
plans emergency environmental controls (read: "mini-apocalypse")
15. Cunning, Tricksters
16. Healers, Good friends and counsellors
17. Guardians
18. Older than other characters;
19. Self-sacrificing
20. Poltite and liked by others. When blunt, still liked by others.
Chronicles: (i.e. stories I've told to other gamers)
Is this how I see the world?
1. The characters share a sense of common purpose, but often quarrel with each other.
Sucked through FTL transit system, stuck on other world with Greyhound bus;
Resident of a small town two generations after the apocalypse, they are tasked with finding out who is making antibiotics;
2. They remain cohesive, but the things they do in secret come back to hurt them and their friends.
Toying around with A.I.'s -> starship hijacked, marooned on backwards planet with nuclear war immanent
Serving Windex at a fundraser -> blindness
3. There are good guys, I guess, but no real shining beacons of virtue. The plan is that the characters are sensible, but flawed, people who try to do the right thing out of a sense of decency. They are in a world where there are several powerful arrogant interests nearby (who are either a major threat but not all that bad, are real bastards but no one will work with them, or are just cranks). There is also a larger malevolent and selfish power, and, further afield, one power that is so foul (brining either madness or cruelty) as to defy description.
Mage: the Ascension: some people who inherit a cabin - rival cabals - totalitarian technocrats - demon worshippers
Contested: several people brought together by a dream under the patronage of Prometheus - those who would remaxe the world in the image of rational economic man or those who back traditionalism - "government is a self justifying platfrom from which to enact wanton cruelty" or just screaming madness
Strange Earth: a small town - Prince George Despot, Vancouver Empire, Neo-Nazi survivalists - natural hazards - superminds from a parallel world
Parrallax: the crew of an understaffed frigate in an interstellar socialist "empire" of two billion souls (which is not a lot, considering that it spans eighty-one star systems) - a cold war imperial rival, millenia-old core world governments with populations in the trillions, centuries old corporate powers and survivalists - rogue A.I.'s - slavers that pre-date the evolution of humanity
Duchy of Rain: two-souled persons - The Faerie British Empire, a branch of CSIS - The King of Nightmares - The Dissolution of All Things
City of Rain and Glass: some people who live in a safe zone - undead crew of Soviet submarine - Neoliberal feng-shui-manipulating City counsellor trying to usurp God - (no eeeevil character)
...and so on
4. When the characters have a benefactor, it's a poorly organized small fry with no hope of, or much interest in, rising to dominance. This would be great were it not trying to survive in the face of a competent, arrogant, well-heeled opposition. There's no hope of victory, only autonomy.
5. The arrogant opposition will cut situational deals to mutually oppose the unmitigatingly evil opposition. Take them.
6. The unmitigatingly evil opposition wil also affer deals. Refuse them.
7. The world is full of things where the best advice is to stay out of the way - your toys won't help you
A.I. drones that police techonological sanctions;
Giant bears that jam modern technology;
The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse;
Common themes: social control, the apocalypse; abandoned areas - the same things as my dreams actually... oh, and confusion, lots of confusion
Fiction
Here we have both the hero and the world under my control, but I'm getting tired, and might come back to this later. In the meantime, I suggest that all you gamers out there think about what defines the worlds you build and the characters that you love.