Storytelling
Games
I enjoy storytelling games. They are the only medium in which no-one knows the
outcome of the story. Usually, they involve players taking on the roles of protagonists,
with a storyteller who takes on the role of the antagonists and other characters.
They exist in a space between improvisational theatre and tactical wargames,
with players at both ends of the continuum. I am nearer the "impro theatre"
end.
Like most, I began as a teenager with Dungeons and Dragons. Nowadays, I find
it to be a wargame about killing creatures arbitrarily defined as 'monsters',
ransacking their homes, and stealing their treasure. The last time I seriously
played it, we integrated a group of 'monsters' into society, and shopped a comrade
for killing an ape-man.
I enjoy my sci-fi TV, and happily use settings that everybody knows and do not
require me to reinvent the wheel. For a Star Trek story, I helped set up a science fiction society
in the University of London. The site for the ongoing series Star
Trek: Colony describes these games as well as an ongoing saga of tenuous
alliances, broken hearts, mystical cults, and twenty-fourth century science.
of As if that wasn't enough roleplaying, I also admin Who-rpg, the mailing list about storytelling
(aka role-playing gaming) based on Dr Who.
For a time, I was deeply into online massively multiplayer storytelling games,
all of which seemed to be in the same dark gothic world of Werewolves and Vampires.
These included GarouMUSH, adminning Storyteller's
Circle, and creating an extensive database of information on Ireland for a game
set in Dublin. I also wrote a conversion script
to turn MUSH help screens into web pages. In a moment of weakness, I even co-ordinated
a document on various attempts to pseudo-realistically explain the genetics
of werewolves. But then real life took over.
Nowadays, I am a great fan of the Fudge System. Character descriptions are written
in plain English. The rules for including the random element in stories are extremely
simple. My Fudge pages include information about
my Middle Earth campaign.